The Carb-Sane Asylum

Hello all!  A short detour in the sporadic blogging as I came across this 2013 paper yesterday:   A decade of the modified Atkins diet (2003–2013): Results, insights, and future directions     Eric H. Kossoff, Mackenzie C. Cervenka, Bobbie J. Henry, Courtney A. Haney, Zahava Turner The acronym in my title has been used to denote the Modified Atkins Diet, and as the title of the paper implies, it has been utilized clinically in the treatment of epilepsy for over a decade now.  The lead author of the paper is Eric Kossoff, and here are some relevant bio points for him: Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Director of the Pediatric Neurology Residency Program.  Coauthor of Treatment of Pediatric Neurologic Disorders and the 5th edition of The Ketogenic Diet  (Amazon affiliate link) . Wrote the foreward to The New Atkins for a New You (2010) written by Eric Westman, Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek....

This Blog's been awfully quiet and boring lately! This post is another backgrounder for the upcoming post revisiting ketogenic diets and the treatment of cancer:   Ketones are NOT the End of Cancer. Tim Ferriss & Dominic D'Agostino Should Be More Responsible    (link will work when published).    The whole topic of ketone therapy for epilepsy provides a great example with which to discuss various concepts of therapies, and what can or cannot be extrapolated to non-therapeutic contexts.

I'm working on some posts on "the list" from a recent one , and find myself in need of a few backgrounders for the upcoming Ketones are NOT the End of Cancer. Tim Ferriss & Dominic D'Agostino Should Be More Responsible   (link goes live when it's published) post.  Recently I tweeted out the following:   It's time for responsible scientists & docs to rein in keto cancer cure and alternative therapy hype. #KetogenicDiet pic.twitter.com/k82Rh82JmT — Evelyn (@CarbSane) November 19, 2015 My tweets are auto-posted to Facebook (including to my mostly-private page) where a friend responded to the statement that "a ketogenic diet is [...] safe". The comment basically challenged how we know this, or even if we know this to be true, My response is essentially the impetus for this post, but it was, in a nutshell: CONTEXT

I have known a number of people personally, including family members, that have had cancer.  I remember a high school friend's mother dying of lung cancer.  I remember a high school class and teammate being diagnosed with pituitary cancer.  Obviously none of these people are me, but I've had a taste from a fairly young age of the disease and what people go through "up close and personal" from early on.   Although no medical treatment is fool proof or works 100% of the time, when, in my 20's, I was working alongside folks with kids in day care, I contracted strep throat quite a few times.  I would go to the doc, they would do the swipe test, and within a short time I would walk out with my prescription for an antibiotic, I'd fill the script, take it, and the infection would go away. Cancer is not like that.  It's different in different organs, there are different types in the same organs/tissues, there's metastasis, different growth rates,...