Ketone Drinks and Longevity

You may realize if you’ve read some of my stuff anytime in the past 18 years that I have one major driving mission in life- to extend health span and whenever possible extend healthy life span.

Today’s installment is not exactly new. I have written about this in the past 2-3 years on 2 other occasions but today I am going to be a bit more sciencey and a bit more blunt in terms of telling you what to do.

IN reaching out to people who are “influencers” on social media the discussion of keto diets brings a kind of on or off switch. I am finding most people are either for or against based on very limited information. Most of that information centers around fat loss and aesthetics vs. the “unbalanced nature” of ketogenic diets.

One dietician wrote: “I don’t see how you can recommend a diet that gets rid of one of the 3 essential food groups. She was of course referring to carbs. I didn’t bother telling her that carbs are 1) Almost impossible to delete from the diet completely and 2) not an essential food group. With a simple addition to your diet you can skip carbs and your body will not fall into the black whole of nutritional deficiency or illness.

These concepts along with a lot of research is finally beginning to get into the brains of those who make nutrition a sole profession.

What I want to talk about today is the simple issue of longevity.

There exists in the body a complex metabolic regulator pathway known as mTor (the mammalian target of Rapamycin- no I didn’t invent the name and no it has nothing to do with its major function really which is not based on the drug Rapamycin although some are now selling routines using this as an anti-aging therapy).

This pathway leads to multiple effects but when it is inhibited at least in fruit flies and some lower mammals it lengthens life. The mechanisms it works by are 3 Biggies (we’ll skip some of the smaller ones for now!)

1. It helps your cells take out the cellular trash- degraded proteins, abnormally cross-linked proteins, lipofuscin granules (think pigments) and most of all gets rid of sick dead and dying mitochondria via a process called mitophagy. The net result of this is better power for your cells, and fewer toxic elements to inhibit metabolic functions and inflame the intracellular milieu which ultimately foster DNA damage. I just basically condensed a whole book into one paragraph but you get the message! Let me take this opportunity to recommend you remember your fish oil so you can increase the intracellular signals of healing: resolvins and protectins both of which are derived from monoesters (sorry krill boys) of Omega 3.
2. It decreases the inflammatory and excessive growth effects of insulin signaling. Look to number 1 above for why this is important along with the potential to decrease our diabetes and obesity epidemics (all of which are related to excess carb intake!!!)
3. It causes the transcription of hundreds of genes that decrease intracellular (and thus extracellular) inflammation including Super Oxide dismutase, NFKB, catalase, glutathione peroxidase etc.

Now why is all this important? Well 2 reasons, because you can mimic the effects of calorie restriction with ketone bodies including those that you drink, and next, all of this decreases inflammation in your body. The picture attached shows moderate to large ketone bodies being cleared in the urine approximately 2 hours after a normal dose of Keto Gen.

The seminal role of Inflammation in Aging is described in a paper I co-authored below (see references section) and has since been expounded on greatly. The whole concept of “Inflammaging” which is now widely accepted is based on inflammation as a cause of aging.

We also know that in “normal” people the expression of inflammatory genes and epigenetic shifts goes up. As you might guess this is also pointing to another favorite topic of mine- telomeres but that is for another day!

Bottom line: the reason I make a KetoGen product and am about to release a recipe book on the topic is not because its in vogue or because you will look great on the diet (although that doesn’t suck!).

It’s because these changes literally and figuratively make you younger!!!!

And that is what I have always been about.

Dr Dave

Stem Cells Targeting Inflammation as Potential Anti-aging …

Rafael Gonzalez, Dave Woynarowski and Luis Geffner. Cell & Tissue Transplantation & Therapy 2015:7 1-8. Review. Published on 09 Jul 2015.

Ketone Bodies Mimic the Life Span Extending Properties of Calorie Restriction NIH/NIAA Lab of Metabolic Control Rockville, MD

East Tennessee State University Colleg of Medicine,Johnson City, TN

DOI 10:1002/lub.1627

3 April 2017 online Pub.

PS while I advocate using things like Keto Gen to boost your keto diet and speed up your induction and response to ketosis, you still have to make the right dietary choices!!! Stay tuned for my book “The KETO Edge” in final editing as we speak!!!

PSS the above article offers scientific reasons why ketogenic diets and ketone drinks MAY be involved in longevity but does not guarantee any of the same results for you. Educate yourself and see if what I am saying makes sense and then proceed as your own personal dictates and health care professionals direct you!!!!!