The FastDay Forum

I've had a cursory shufti and it would not appear that this review has been flagged up (link from low-carb / cancer article on @CreakyPete's site http://healthinsightuk.org/)

Think it's good reading for low-carbers, and even low-carb sceptics!!

Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v67/ ... 3116a.html

Admittedly one of the authors is Volek (an Atkins man) but that doesn't invalidate what they're saying.

Thanks, very interesting articles especially appreciated the second link and what a list of references

Funny - I thought about starting a thread about this, too. I was looking into it earlier this week because the way the PET scan I had works is by starving the body of glucose, then giving it glucose with a radioactive tracer, which cancer cells suck up faster than normal cells. Really interesting that cancer cells can't switch to burning ketones like normal cells, so it makes good logical sense that restricting their glucose supply should at least slow them down to help chemo to be successful. And when chemo only has ~20% success rate against cancers like melanoma, we need every advantage we can get!

I got a bit discouraged, though, when I found info suggesting that glucose isn't all that reliably reduced by a low-carb diet because of the body's mechanisms for compensating by producing glucose from lactate and amino acids (like in this very dense article, which shows the low-carb group had slightly higher blood glucose in the end: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... po=38.8889)

So I just got as far as thinking this is super promising, but there may be some other dietary adjustments that have to be made to keep glucose low enough to starve the cancer. Interesting stuff!

Interesting thread. As you know, I'm very careful indeed with carbs and generally sit at around 100g per day. Enough to enable me to work out. Last week I halved that amount. Don't know if it is a coincidence but I have had a racing heart on and off for a few days now. This morning, it was bad and I so slapped on my blood pressure monitor. BP was fine at 110/68. However my resting pulse which is normally 62 was up at 98.

I don't know if my potassium levels have dropped too low as a result of low carb. (MFP has incomplete data on vits and minerals), as many carbiferous foods contain good levels of potassium. I ate four dates which have a good level of potassium and an hour later, I seemed fine and still am. I'm having a medical in a couple of weeks time and will report back. However despite my love of low carbs, it has scared me enough to ease up until I know what is going on. I'm up to 150g already today and feeling a bit better.

If anyone has any knowledge they can impart to help, please share.

Seems like a sensible thing to do Karen, maybe you reduced your carb intake too much too quickly but glad you're feeling better now. x

Hi, Just responding to Karen's post - I too eat low carb (around 75g a day) and am wondering if (for me) it might be too low. One of the reasons I am doing it is because my brother has type 2 diabetes on insulin and my sugars were occasional towards the pre diabetic range in a morning - I cut the carbs and the blood sugar went down BUT I have also read that being too low carb can increase insulin resistance so that if you slip off the golden path and eat a high carb meal then your sugars are MUCH higher than normal. Happened to me the other day - was out and had a high carb meal - blood sugars through the roof and took ages to get back to normal (which has not happened before). I have limited knowledge apart from reading about what might have happened but either I AM pre diabetic (instead of just thinking I might be) or I just had an exaggerated response to the glucose because of low carbing, so am now thinking that I should increase my carbs to around 100g daily to give me a bit of a cushion (which probably makes no sense at all.) I have read that if someone who does low carb is to have a glucose tolerance test then they need to eat around 150g carbs for 3 or so days before the test else they would probably fail it as their glucose levels would rise much higher than normal. Sorry for the long rambly post and I know it's not really what you were talking about -but I think maybe you can go a bit TOO low carb and it can maybe cause other problems.

Thank you @izzy. I have also been exercising hard so this might also be contributing to raised cortisol and it always seems worse on fast days or just after a fast. I have some glutamine and ashwaganda in the house so I might take some and see if that helps.

I have been on a few low carb forums eg body building etc. seems it is not an unfamiliar problem. Bummer.

Interesting thread. As you know, I'm very careful indeed with carbs and generally sit at around 100g per day. Enough to enable me to work out. Last week I halved that amount. Don't know if it is a coincidence but I have had a racing heart on and off for a few days now. This morning, it was bad and I so slapped on my blood pressure monitor. BP was fine at 110/68. However my resting pulse which is normally 62 was up at 98.

...

If anyone has any knowledge they can impart to help, please share.

I may have found an answer in "Low Carbohydrate Living" (Volek, Phinney, page 149-150.). It states:

"At some point, when confronted with this low sodium intake plus carbohydrate restriction, most people's defense mechanisms can't maintain normal mineral balances. So the body's next level of defense is for the adrenal gland to secrete the hormone aldosterone, which makes kidney tubular cells excrete potassium in order to conserve sodium. That is, the body wastes some of its intracellular potassium in order to cling to what-ever sodium it can. However unless there is copious potassium coming in from the diet, this excess urinary potassium comes from the body's potassium pool inside cells. Two things then happen. First, nerve and muscle cells don't work well, leading to cardiac dysrhythmias and muscle cramps. Second, because potassium is an obligate component of lean tissue, the body starts losing muscle even if there's plenty of protein in the diet.

Clearly none of these effects of sodium restriction are desirable, particularly when one is trying to lose body fat while retaining as much lean tissue as possible. Luckily, if in the context of a low carbohydrate diet you give the subject/patient a total of 5 grams of sodium per day (for example 2-3 grams on their food and 2 grams as broth/bouillon), none of these bad things happen. And what about blood pressure? Typically, during a diet providing less than 50 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams per day of sodium, blood pressure stays in the low normal range, even in formerly hypertensive subjects just recently off their anti-hypertensive medication."

My take-away from this is that something as simple as a stock cube drink might've resolved the problem.

[Betsysgr8]

Thanks @ADFnFuel it has been on my mind to start a thread about what is happening to our electrolyte balance when we fast and we have such a large diuresis (pee a lot). I do have a miso but maybe I just need to add another bullion cube drink. I am purposefully doing a green drink which @rawkaren provided which looks to have lots of goodies so am hoping that provides enough potassium into my body. I have been having cramps lately so thought that was my magnesium and every couple of days have a supplement. Not sure if there has been prior coverage with an earlier post @Carorees would know. This is the area I would like to be more knowledgeable about to ensure my body is in the right range for everything.

Interesting thread. As you know, I'm very careful indeed with carbs and generally sit at around 100g per day. Enough to enable me to work out. Last week I halved that amount. Don't know if it is a coincidence but I have had a racing heart on and off for a few days now. This morning, it was bad and I so slapped on my blood pressure monitor. BP was fine at 110/68. However my resting pulse which is normally 62 was up at 98.

...

If anyone has any knowledge they can impart to help, please share.

I may have found an answer in "Low Carbohydrate Living" (Volek, Phinney, page 149-150.). It states:

"At some point, when confronted with this low sodium intake plus carbohydrate restriction, most people's defense mechanisms can't maintain normal mineral balances. So the body's next level of defense is for the adrenal gland to secrete the hormone aldosterone, which makes kidney tubular cells excrete potassium in order to conserve sodium. That is, the body wastes some of its intracellular potassium in order to cling to what-ever sodium it can. However unless there is copious potassium coming in from the diet, this excess urinary potassium comes from the body's potassium pool inside cells. Two things then happen. First, nerve and muscle cells don't work well, leading to cardiac dysrhythmias and muscle cramps. Second, because potassium is an obligate component of lean tissue, the body starts losing muscle even if there's plenty of protein in the diet.

Clearly none of these effects of sodium restriction are desirable, particularly when one is trying to lose body fat while retaining as much lean tissue as possible. Luckily, if in the context of a low carbohydrate diet you give the subject/patient a total of 5 grams of sodium per day (for example 2-3 grams on their food and 2 grams as broth/bouillon), none of these bad things happen. And what about blood pressure? Typically, during a diet providing less than 50 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams per day of sodium, blood pressure stays in the low normal range, even in formerly hypertensive subjects just recently off their anti-hypertensive medication."

My take-away from this is that something as simple as a stock cube drink might've resolved the problem.

That's really helpful, thank you

Interesting thread. As you know, I'm very careful indeed with carbs and generally sit at around 100g per day. Enough to enable me to work out. Last week I halved that amount. Don't know if it is a coincidence but I have had a racing heart on and off for a few days now. This morning, it was bad and I so slapped on my blood pressure monitor. BP was fine at 110/68. However my resting pulse which is normally 62 was up at 98.

...

If anyone has any knowledge they can impart to help, please share.

I may have found an answer in "Low Carbohydrate Living" (Volek, Phinney, page 149-150.). It states:

"At some point, when confronted with this low sodium intake plus carbohydrate restriction, most people's defense mechanisms can't maintain normal mineral balances. So the body's next level of defense is for the adrenal gland to secrete the hormone aldosterone, which makes kidney tubular cells excrete potassium in order to conserve sodium. That is, the body wastes some of its intracellular potassium in order to cling to what-ever sodium it can. However unless there is copious potassium coming in from the diet, this excess urinary potassium comes from the body's potassium pool inside cells. Two things then happen. First, nerve and muscle cells don't work well, leading to cardiac dysrhythmias and muscle cramps. Second, because potassium is an obligate component of lean tissue, the body starts losing muscle even if there's plenty of protein in the diet.

Clearly none of these effects of sodium restriction are desirable, particularly when one is trying to lose body fat while retaining as much lean tissue as possible. Luckily, if in the context of a low carbohydrate diet you give the subject/patient a total of 5 grams of sodium per day (for example 2-3 grams on their food and 2 grams as broth/bouillon), none of these bad things happen. And what about blood pressure? Typically, during a diet providing less than 50 grams of carbohydrate and 5 grams per day of sodium, blood pressure stays in the low normal range, even in formerly hypertensive subjects just recently off their anti-hypertensive medication."

My take-away from this is that something as simple as a stock cube drink might've resolved the problem.

Thank you. All this is fascinating isn't it? I don't eat a great deal of sodium so I will try this today if I have another episode.

I clicked on to the fist article and my eyes were diverted to another article on there re-vit D deficiency and why the government ignores this common complaint. My husband who has stage 3 chronic kidney disease recently asked his GP for a blood test for his vit D as he was having unbearable cramps, restless leg syndrome and bad sleeping patterns. He had spent days researching vitamin D and found that all CKD patients should have their vit D levels checked as routine. Neither his hospital consultant nor his GP had ever done this so he started a course whilst he waited for the results. I joined him in this experiment and now we both sleep MUCH better, we rarely have cramps and his restless leg syndrome has almost disappeared. So far his psoriasis has not changed but just getting some sleep has changed him dramatically so it's vit D all the way for us til spring comes round. Thank you for the post, I shall now read the rest,

Ballerina x

@Ballerina weirdly today I checked my elbows which for years have had psoriasis patches on them. Since I started 5:2 they have disappeared. (The psoriasis not the elbows). Think it is because I have all but given up bread. There is a link to your gut with psoriasis and wheat. Is your hubby still eating a lot of bread. The other thing I found made my psoriasis worse was yellow cheese, so gave that up too.

Just thought I would share these little snippets

Trying to imagine how we all look without elbows and have to say it's not a good look. Anyway, thanks for that, he does not do 5:2 but has recently started to be aware of his carb intake as bread really does upset him but he just LOVES baking the damned stuff, ah well, we shall see. Thanks again,

Ballerina x

I clicked on to the fist article and my eyes were diverted to another article on there re-vit D deficiency and why the government ignores this common complaint. My husband who has stage 3 chronic kidney disease recently asked his GP for a blood test for his vit D as he was having unbearable cramps, restless leg syndrome and bad sleeping patterns. He had spent days researching vitamin D and found that all CKD patients should have their vit D levels checked as routine. Neither his hospital consultant nor his GP had ever done this so he started a course whilst he waited for the results. I joined him in this experiment and now we both sleep MUCH better, we rarely have cramps and his restless leg syndrome has almost disappeared. So far his psoriasis has not changed but just getting some sleep has changed him dramatically so it's vit D all the way for us til spring comes round. Thank you for the post, I shall now read the rest,

Ballerina x

Yes I spotted that too as I started taking it about a month ago as now there are less daylight hours. How long was it @Ballerina before you noticed a difference? I'm wondering whether to get OH to start taking it too as his skin gets so dry in the winter sitting in a car for a couple of hours a day with all that dry heat.