https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEecF5fD-cM

A vegan fellow with some biochemistry schooling takes down seven misconceptions of keto that he says he's gleaned from examining common claims made by keto leaders. One small problem I have here is that leading low carbers sounds a lot like herding cats, we're sort of all over the place, even when we agree on what works we don't always agree on how.

One small point that bothers me--if you're criticizing someone, it's nice to say who it is you're criticizing. Herding cats--if you managed to take down Shawn Baker, you haven't taken down Dr. Bernstein. Even if these seven misconceptions turned out to be real issues, lump them all together in a "keto" bucket and you're sort of accusing everybody unfairly of sharing those misconceptions.

I don't think anything he said would hold much water with anybody who's actually been exposed to these unnamed low carb leaders, he mostly covers stuff we've been around on. Some of it is just spin.

Insulin, for instance. He says insulin is primarily for shoving sugar into cells. I wish I was being unfair. After saying that that's insulin's "primary" purpose he goes on about how it's an anabolic hormone, boasting that it's more anabolic than testosterone, growth hormone, IGF-1. And how your neighbour and your hamster would die without insulin. I'm baffled that he can say all that and still insist that forced-feeding of glucose to muscle cells etc. is its primary role. If your blood glucose is 300, obviously insulin isn't doing its "primary" job. How about if you're in ketoacidosis? Insulin has to be lower to achieve this, then that 300 blood glucose, likely. Which is more primary? Even if it's not a usual day to day concern for a non-diabetic like me, I'd consider not peeing my muscle mass down the toilet to be a priority. Primary? I'd consider normal protein/amino acid, fat, and carbohydrate metabolism to be all fairly important.

And he makes much of the idea that dietary fat causes insulin resistance, with a high carb diet increasing insulin sensitivity. Says that low carbers make the false claim that dietary glucose is the main driver for blood glucose. Also concedes that a 30 carb or lower diet will likely result in a pretty flat blood glucose. Let that steep for a while...

It is a repeated and repeatable thing that you can increase insulin sensitivity with a high carb, low fat diet. Also true that most type II diabetics got there while eating a high fat diet. But also generally a mixed, carby-fatty diet. I actually do think a well-constructed low fat diet could be a better alternative to the SAD, if still not as good as a low carb diet for diabetes. Arguing about whether fat interferes with carbohydrate metabolism or the other way around--well, they're in obvious competition. Most natural foods high in one are not high in the other. Maybe our metabolisms are better at specializing in one or the other than at the mix.