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Ketogenic diet helps tame flu virus in mice
- infradig 7y agoChicken soup anyone?
- darkerside 7y agoI'm curious how long it takes for the inflammasome effect to set in. Can you start going keto when you get the sniffles and shorten the duration of illness?
- loceng 7y agoThere's definitely research out there showing that you heal faster when fasting - whether that is inflammatory reduction related or not, I'm not sure.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
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- UI_at_80x24 7y ago"Feed a cold, starve the flu." I love it when there is a nugget of truth in old-wives-tales.
- ThrowawayIP 7y agoIn mice.
- tarr11 7y agoI love this account: https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/1196614350154485760 https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/119661435015448576...
- ryanisnan 7y agoSeems like it's already been IN MICE'd. https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/1195823273751318529 https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice/status/119582327375131852...
- dang 7y agoAh thanks. We've unleashed the mice into the title above.
- Etheryte 7y agoI do dream of a brighter future where more discussions conclude with "we've unleashed the mice".
- dang 7y agoMice are surprisingly helpful for title edits. I wrote about this a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21617954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21617954. (It's long, but skip to point #2 for the mice.)
- wpietri 7y agoWhoa. When I'm sick, that's when I most crave refined carbs. Could the virus be evolved to trigger that? Kind of in the same way colds are evolved to make me sneeze so I spread them?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gringoDan 7y agoIt makes sense intuitively. Here is a really interesting paper that discusses how gut bacteria manipulate host eating behavior: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25103109 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25103109 I'm no expert, but I could see a virus employing a similar mechanism.
- samplatt 7y ago"Feed a cold, starve a fever." I've only a rudimentary knowledge of biochem, but giving fuel to your immune system when it needs it also gives fuel to a virus in your system, but you're betting that a boosted immune system will overcome the boosted virus.
- watertom 7y agoHippocrates's actual quote: "If you feed a cold you will need to starve a fever." Translation, when you are sick you should fast.
- agumonkey 7y agoDid the man say anything about physical activity vs rest on small infections ?
- chrisco255 7y agoInterestingly when you fast, your body is producing ketones just like those of someone on a keto diet.
- firethief 7y ago
- tempsolution 7y agoWow, revolutionary. It's not like its been known for years already that sugar acts as an effective immune suppressant. It's always funny to see how school medicine tracks the state of the art by 20 years into the past and then another 40 before it hits the actual doctors and their patients (for the latter part, ongoing re-education requirements might help as to avoid people like my grandma who still thinks after being 30 years out of practice that what she learned after the second world war in her studies is the state of the art of medicine). For the first part, I have no answer. Something is utterly broken with the way school medicine "innovates". I would love to be able to write this while drinking my extra large soda and next to it a piece of chocolate cake. Yeah, cancer here I come.
- bad_user 7y ago> It's not like its been known for years already that sugar acts as an effective immune suppressant. Interesting, any references? AFAIK that's not true, no, sugar does not act as an immune suppressant, what acts as an immune suppressant is whatever inhibits autophagy and that's primarily protein, or calories in general. High levels of the IGF-1 hormone is also associated with higher risk of cancer and all cause mortality, it's just a weak association, but note IGF-1 seems to also be stimulated by a protein. This isn't to say that we should restrict protein. In truth we need a lot of protein to remain healthy and these associations have confounders, in truth vilifying any single macro nutrient is just stupid and unsupported by existing evidence. It's not the sugar in the soda or in the chocolate cake that's going to get you, but the overall caloric surplus ... since after a soda and a chocolate cake you'll still feel hungry. Everything breaks loose on a chronic caloric surplus. And interestingly any study that doesn't control the calories or the protein is flawed, as these are massive confounders. > "Something is utterly broken with the way school medicine "innovates"." The problem is that nutrition is a hard science, because obviously you can't dissect people or lock them in cages and feed them crap for the rest of their lives to see how they react :-) That said the anti-establishment propaganda coming from the low carb camp is increasingly worrying. I've even seen prominent LCHF supporters being or affiliating with anti-vaxxers as well.
- wtetzner 7y ago
- bad_user 7y agoIn mice. Also unfortunately the study failed to control the protein. Control group had a diet made of 24% protein, keto group ate 10% protein. Protein restriction has been shown to have profound immune modulatory effects. Protein restriction is a massive confounder in such studies. Caloric deficit is often another. These often go hand in hand.
- jdkdnfndnfjd 7y agoPSA: keto appeared to cure my psychosis. A while ago I experienced a traumatic event. Immediately I had sleep disruption and slowly I began to have textbook symptoms of psychosis. It was horrible and unpleasant. I went on keto and the symptoms went away. I stopped due to side effects and the symptoms came back. I went back on and the symptoms went away immediately. And on and off for a long time, with a perfect correlation between the two. The doctors who diagnosed me with psychosis don’t care that keto does this. I told them that I have figured out how to cure my symptoms and they just give me a blank look. They prescribed me an antipsychotic which I have never had to take although I have come close to needing it a few times. I tell them there are other people who have written about similar experiences and they don’t care. So I have to get the word out like this. The psychosis is curbed within 24 hours of starting keto. Sleep disturbance persists for about five days. After five days it’s as though nothing had been wrong at all. I get a really bad rash after a couple of days of keto. This is a well known side effect of keto although it is uncommon. I’ve tried various things, the only one that worked was applying drysol prior to keto, preventing the rash-prone areas from sweating. This gives a clue about the rash, which is important because no studies have been done and its cause has not been determined. If I didn’t get this rash I would happily stay on keto forever. There’s never been a study about ketosis and psychosis. There’s one being done in Finland right now, although the sample size leaves much to be desired. I’m in contact with the primary researcher and the paper might be released as early as one *year from now.
- MFLoon 7y agoI'm glad that's worked for you. But I don't think you should go around telling people that a keto diet will cure them of their psychosis; there are too many potentially confounding variables to just recommend a keto diet as a general treatment for psychosis, and it's not like it's necessarily a harmless thing to just shrug and try and see if it cures you, as you noted there can be serious side effects of a keto diet. People should make their medical decisions based on consultation with their doctors or other medical professionals, not anecdotes from strangers on the internet.
- jdkdnfndnfjd 7y ago
- LordAtlas 7y agoI'm sure all the mice reading this must be happy.
- shadykiller 7y agoOne more positive from Keto apart from the health and longevity benefits (studied in mice)
- samfisher83 7y agoThey don't seem to provide the tables with the data just graphs. There is a lot more variance with keto group than the other groups. However its still better than the carb group, but not that much better than high fat group/ Also they only used ~20 mice and didn't make the groups the same for example they have 5 in carb group. I wish studies would do better job of providing tables so you can look at data.
- DanielleMolloy 7y agoMy scientifically unverified pet theory: Ketosis is the body's winter state. When no carbs are growing outside fat resources need to be used up and the brain needs to work well on a steady stream of ketones as it is more difficult to find food in winter. This immune system boost is also helpful during winter as there are less vitamine sources available. For some reason you also need less sleep. When carbs are available in summer, the body tries to gather weight, and for this the carb addiction pattern is quite helpful. A high-carb diet is the summer state.
- jimmux 7y agoI have wondered the same thing. It also seems (from my anecdotal experience) that some people are more predisposed to high-carb diets, and others to low-carb. Genetic diversity as an adaptation to different climates would be consistent with seasonal diets.
- wil421 7y agoDidn’t people evolve out of Africa near the equator?
- Adrig 7y agoThat was 1 million years ago, a few things could have evolved since then
- DanielleMolloy 7y agoHumans won’t be the only creature that finds adaptation to seasonal food resources useful. Anyway, this thought is probably difficult to study. We seem to be engineered to grab carbs when we see them though.
- agumonkey 7y agoCats get weight in early winter though.
- n0rbwah 7y agoCats are exclusive carnivores so their diet doesn't change with the seasons.
- kpU8efre7r 7y agoITT: Anecdotes and bad science.