What The Keto Diet And Chiropractic Have In Common

Keto Diet and Chiropractic

What is the Keto Diet?

The ketogenic diet aka the Keto Diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet for which research is showing to have many health benefits.  Over 20 studies demonstrate that this diet can help drop fat and improve your health.  Furthermore, Ketogenic diets may do more than help you shed a few pounds by offering other health benefits preventing diabetes, cancer, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.

References:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17332207
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2633336
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11581442
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1819381
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2367001

Keto and Chiropractic?

It may be difficult to see the connection between the Keto Diet and chiropractic however, as your chiropractor will tell you, a well-adjusted spine allows your brain’s signals to easily and effortlessly get to all parts of your body through your central nervous system.

I learned this when I was 26 and first started to see a chiropractor. Since then, I’ve been going to a chiropractor regularly for almost 24 years now.  Remember, if the brain isn’t functioning properly, one of the things it cannot do is send the proper signals down that central nervous system to your organs and your other body parts.  This is where ketones can help in addition to your chiropractic adjustments.

how to improve brain health

“When Your Brain Works Right, You Work Right”

 Dr. Daniel Amen, #1 New York Times bestselling author, double board-certified psychiatrist, professor and brain health expert.

What Is Fueling Your Brain?

Despite the fact that your brain is only 2% of the weight of your body, it uses up 20% to 30% of the total energy your body uses every day. So, how are most people giving their brain the energy it needs to keep it running efficiently? Well, most people’s diets consist primarily of carbohydrates and some proteins.

Unfortunately, not enough of those carbohydrates are coming from fibrous good carbohydrate vegetables and people are not eating enough healthy fats. Infact, many calories that are used to fuel the body are coming from processed foods and refined carbohydrates (sugar). This wreaks havoc on your body’s ability to manage your energy needs and thus the energy needs of your brain.Eventually your body resists the onslaught of all these refined sugars. But how does this affect your brain?

We have all heard of type 2 diabetes and how it wreaks havoc on our bodies. However Type 2 diabetes is not only a disease of the obese. Click here to read, Why Children Living With Type 2 Diabetes Is Drastically Increasing .

“Normal-weight people are getting diabetes at the same rate as the obese …”

– Dr. Robert Lustig

Mayo Clinic Minute: Is Alzheimer's Type 3 diabetes?

Have You Heard Of Type 3 Diabetes?

Now being referred to by doctors and researchers as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases, type 2 diabetes is your body’s inability to get enough energy from carbohydrates due to insulin resistance (carbohydrates cannot be used for energy unless they are escorted into each cell by insulin).

Insulin resistance also affects your brain’s ability to get energy from carbohydrates. So, if your brain is not getting enough energy to function properly you can suffer from brain fog, forgetfulness and tiredness, to name a few of the more obvious symptoms. Also, if your brain is not functioning properly, it won’t send proper signals down your nervous system to your organs and other body parts which can affect you mentally and physically.

ketogenic diet

Ketones And The Keto Diet

You may have heard a lot lately about ketones and the keto diet. How ketones fuel your brain better than carbohydrates. But what exactly is this magical ketone? Well it’s what your body creates when it burns your fat and what your body uses for energy when it’s not using carbohydrates.

What ketones have been shown to do is to fuel your body better than glucose (carbohydrates/sugar) and to create much less waste in the process (making them more efficient). Put simply, your body just runs better on ketones. Ketones have a neuroprotective effect and they reduced inflammation. Neurons are found in your brain, spinal cord and in your nerves. Chiropractic is all about your nervous system.

antioxidants

Antioxidants And Their Effect On Your Brain

We have all heard of the many benefits of antioxidants. How important they are to reduce the damage done by our food choices and the environment on our bodies. But what about our brains?

“Ketones preserve brain metabolism in the face of an oxidative challenge”

– Dr. Domenic D’Agostino

Most people’s bodies never run on ketones because the food industry provides us with an abundance of low-quality processed sugars (simple carbohydrates) either directly or hidden in processed foods and we don’t have enough of the right fats in our diets.

The keto diet is fast becoming mainstream news. However there are few who can maintain the lifestyle longer term. This is because many find it difficult to eat so few carbohydrates (we are not referring to vegetables) with today’s carbohydrate-rich grocery stores and fast-food outlets.

But with the help of a grant from the U.S. Military Navy Seals, smart researchers at the University of South Florida found a way to make a ketone supplement that is identical to what the body makes when it’s burning fat.

For the average person, this is a much easier way to get ketones into their bodies rather than to try to reduce their carbohydrates low enough to allow their bodies to switch to burning their own fat. Why is this important? Because if your brain can run on ketones, you get heightened brain function and your brain just runs better.  Even your brain volume increases.

“Brain mapping shows that the volume of the brain increases with a ketogenic diet.  When you eat the right fat, your brain gets bigger.”

How Ketogenic Diets Improve Memory and Brain Health, Dr. Venter, MD

healthy nervous system

Final Thoughts

A more efficient brain can send better signals through your central nervous system, which makes your whole body run better. Ultimately that’s the goal of chiropractic and hopefully of everybody in the medical field.

I resisted the urge to put a lot of the relevant science on ketones in this article. So, if you have any questions or would like more information about ketones or healthy eating, feel free to send me an email or follow me on Facebook.

Keto For Dummies – Beginners Guide For Keto

keto for dummies

Yes, Keto is exciting but could be confusing for some people which is why I thought a Keto for Dummies Guide would be something useful.  Maybe it sparked your interest because you’ve seen celebrities shedding fat and hailing the ketogenic diet as their secret weapon (not sure how it can be a secret when they post it to their followers on Instagram …)

But have you heard of the stay at home mom who:

  • Now has energy for her kids
  • Feels like her brain is on fire (in a good way)
  • Less cranky
  • Sleeps better
  • Better cholesterol
  • Joints don’t ache anymore when she wakes up or during the day

Probably not.

Attention Seeker

Mainstream media needs to grab your attention.  So, you’re less likely to hear about that dad in Beverley Hills.  The one who doesn’t sleep his afternoon away on his favourite chair.  Waking up with fruit-loops on his body as a form of art canvas for the kids while he sleeps.  Now having time to be a dad and a husband again!

Regardless of where you heard it, you’re probably asking yourself, “what is a ketone and the ketogenic diet?” and why should I care about yet another “fad” diet?

First let me ask you this.  If something has been around for 500+ years, does it still qualify as a fad?

keto diet

Let’s start with a simple question: “What is a ketogenic diet”? (aka a very low-carb1 eating lifestyle)  If you’ve seen my other articles, I have explained that our bodies can run on two types of energy.  The most common is from carbs.  Many of which are broken down into (or start off as) simple sugars.

Our bodies cannot use these simple sugars for energy unless they are combined with insulin that a healthy pancreas makes on demand.  Once the insulin grabs the sugar it is given to our cells and we have energy.

The second way our bodies can be fueled is by the breakdown of fat (from our food or from our body) into ketones.  Ketones fuel our cells without needing an escort (insulin).
Our body can only do one of the above at a time.

So, if you have a certain threshold of sugar in your system (and thus insulin), your body will not run on ketones.

By eating a low-enough-carb diet, your body will switch to fat burning and create ketones.  This is not as easy as it sounds!  If it were, I think the fast food industry would be very different.  In addition, all that junk food on grocery store shelves full of sugar would sit there and rot.  Just kidding. That stuff can’t rot, it’s not real food!

Click here to read Are You Eating Junk Food Without Realizing It?

why try keto?

Still Wondering Why You Should Care About a Keto For Dummies Guide?

The properties of ketones have been studied for over 100 years by scientists and doctors.  They and are well known for the treatment of epilepsy.

But the more scientist and doctors understand about the power of ketones, the more intrigued they become at how:

  • A ketogenic diet
  • A low-carb diet
  • A whole food diet or exogenous ketones

Affect all aspects of health.

Click here for, Keto Brownies recipe .

All diseases have one thing in common.  Inflammation.  Simple sugars are recognized as inflammatory.  It’s breakdown into energy creates waste products that the body needs to get rid of.  Too much simple sugar equals too much waste products for the body to get rid of.  This leads to inflammation.

On the flipside, ketones reduce inflammation.  So, this alone should compel you to want to know more.

Further, excess sugar leads to insulin resistance or prediabetes and of course type 2 diabetes.  Also, now scientists and doctors have coined the term type 3 diabetes to refer to the damage that sugar is causing in the brain.  Potentially causing diseases like:

  • Alzheimer’s
  • Dementia
  • Mental illness

Click here to read, ” Diabetes – The Hidden Cause Of Alzheimer’s?”

Intermittent Fasting On Keto

Keto Fast

As part of my Keto For Dummies guide am I telling you to ditch the carbs & go dive into the keto diet head first?  If you think you can handle it, sure! (but please don’t do dirty keto).  But seriously as you’ve read from me before, there are ways to get ketones into your body without becoming a keto diet warrior.

Click here to read, This One Thing Has Been Linked To Almost All Diseases .

Every major religion has a fasting regime.  It would appear that every religion’s god 3 (or the one single god that allowed all the different religions) knew that our bodies needed some time away from digestion.  Time to internally ‘clean up’ and perhaps even shed some of those religious holiday pounds.

During times of fasting, our blood sugar drops.  Our bodies naturally switch to burning fat and creating ketones (length of fast determines the extent to which our bodies use ketones of course).

If every major religion knew before science did that ketones were good for you, then perhaps you shouldn’t dismiss the idea of reducing your carbs and trying to skip breakfast once in a while (aka intermittent fasting).  Who knows?  Maybe you will be writing the next ketone article (instead of me) because you have seen the light!

Final Thoughts

I know this is just a quick intro to the world of keto and low-carb.  I had so much more I could have put in, but it would have gotten a bit scientific and long.  EVEN MORE BORING to some of you!

So as always, if you want more info – check out the other articles or contact me.

References For This Keto For Dummies Guide:

1. WHAT IS LOW-CARB
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb

2. THERAPEUTIC USES OF A VERY-LOW-CARBOHYDRATE DIET
https://www.nature.com/articles/ejcn2013116

3. FASTING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting

OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST

Diabetes and dementia – is there a connection?
Alzheimer’s Disease Is Type 3 Diabetes–Evidence Reviewed