Thanks, Janet, that's a nice summary. Didn't listen to the podcast, can't find it on the front page.

A few things I get from your summary. For example, based on my idea that oxygen is the actual fuel (oxygen is reactive, energy derived from this reaction), this means oxygen's energy potential goes up with ketones. And, if ketones drop BG not through insulin but through some other mechanism, I could imagine it does this by restoring the internal balance of the cell's energy requirement, i.e. the cell needs a proportion of both ketones and glucose to function at its maximum potential. With a high-carb diet, we disrupt this balance - energy output goes down. Ketones restore this balance up to its maximum potential. In other words, the water barrel analogy. Ketones are signaling molecules, i.e. they activate the adenosine receptor. They obviously activate the insulin receptor as well, especially in the liver, like I explained.

Here's a new idea about the whole thing. Taubes talked about the insulin hypothesis for epilepsy (see edit), where in the brain the insulin-degrading enzyme is used for both insulin degradation and recycling of myelin (or amylin, or what's its name, not sure, whatever), there's too much insulin so IDE is too busy with degrading insulin - myelin accumulates. Ketones activate insulin receptors in the brain too, but differently than in the liver. Instead, the last step in the brain tends to favor myelin recycling rather than insulin degradation. Unless there's two things happening at once - too much insulin, not enough ketones. Absence of ketones means no activation of insulin receptors, too much insulin means IDE is too busy with that. It's possible IDE has more affinity with insulin than with myelin, but this greater affinity only shows up during this specific condition, and the affinity is strongly mitigated by the effect of ketones activating insuln receptors in that specific way in the brain.

Ketones as signaling molecules. It's like a type of gasoline that dictates how well the engine works, by controlling the various electric and electronic devices that regulate the engine. That is cool.

-edit- Not epilepsy, it's Alzeheimer's.