I have a new charity to support! Keto Pet Sanctuary rescues dogs with terminal cancer. They have a 53-acre plot of land outside of Austin, TX, where they use ground-breaking therapy to treat dogs that others have given up on.
How do they treat them? With a ketogenic diet, among other treatments like hyperbaric oxygen therapy and metabolic conditioning. Thanks to Keto Pet Sanctuary, these dogs are given a fighting chance. But what about cats? I’ll have to research that one!
The results of a study on the use of Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs) in a meal for elderly adults was recently published in Psychopharmacology (August 2016). The study included 19 adults over the age of 60 who did not have dementia. The purpose of the study was to determine what effect, if any, a ketogenic meal (consisting of 20g of MCTs) had on cognitive function.
The adults were given the ketogenic meal and then tested 90 min and 180 min following the meal. Placebo meals were provided on separate days.
The study showed elevated ketone bodies in the adults after the ketogenic meal. The subjects also showed positive effects on working memory, visual attention and task-switching after ingesting the ketogenic meal.
The meal given used Ketonformula – a formula for ketogenic diets developed by Meji Co Ltd in Japan. I wasn’t able to find a website for this product.
MCTs can be found from numerous sources. Ones I like best are coconut oil, Bulletproof Brain Octane (sold on the Bulletproof.com website), and you can buy it in powdered form from Quest nutrition. While there are many other products on the market, the above are the primary sources I use for MCTs.
A few weeks ago I wrote a post questioning whether we need 3 meals a day: https://www.ketoadaptedcyclist.com/do-we-really-need-3-meals-a-day/ I’ve struggled with intermittent fasting where I would go 12-14 hours without eating, then have a meal. My stomach just didn’t like it. But I was determined to keep trying, especially since I can’t seem to escape experts talking about all the benefits to our bodies and brains from fasting.
I decided to try fasting longer than 14 hours to see what would happen Last Tuesday I was able to fast for 19 hours, and each day since then I’ve fasted no less than 15 hours. There is a point at about 12 hours where I start to get pretty hungry, but if I ignore it and push on then the hunger goes away. I actually have quite a bit of energy when in a fasted state.
Sunday I decided to do a fairly long ride in a fasted state – 44 miles with about 1500 feet of climbing that took about 2 hours, 40 min. I had only done shorter rides (about an hour long) while fasting before this. I felt really good the entire ride. I was a little hungry when we got back home, but not ravenous. My muscles were a little sorer during the ride which could be attributed to fasting and not hydrating enough. I can’t be sure until I try it again under similar circumstances.
I’ve decided to keep up my pattern of no less than 15 hours of fasting each day to see if I continue to feel good. Perhaps I just needed a longer period without food, as my stomach rarely hurts now when I eat after fasting for 15 hours or longer.
If you’re not convinced, take a look at the article and videos here on the positive effects of fasting on our brains and our bodies.
I’ve been learning about neuroplasticity this week and it truly has blown my mind and given me great hope for ways to treat diseases and disorders in the future. Our brain is so much more complex and adaptable than any of the smartest people in the world realized. Thankfully there’s a lot of really smart people alive today who are digging in to the research and learning how we can retrain our brain to help us cope with or cure just about any impairment we were born with or later acquired.
I couldn’t begin to do this topic justice, so instead I’m going to suggest that you watch this TedTalk by Don Vaughn, and if the topic grabs you as it did me, there’s a lot more out there on neuroplasticity. Learning it will be good for your brain, too!