Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
And today we've got special guest Drew Decker on the line.
He is a graduate research assistant at The Ohio State
University. He's actually studying under
Volek's lab right now and we dive into some scientific
studies that are taking place around the low carb ketogenic
diet and his application in performance athletes.
One of which was interestingly enough, a study done on the Keto
brick and it's comparison with the Cliff Barn in a time to
exhaustion trial. So very interesting there.
But we we dive into some other studies he's he's been working
on, one of which is in brain health, emotional health, using
the ketogenic that to hedge against depression and things of
that nature, which is something I feel like we should all take
an interest in because there's a rampant increase in depressed
individuals at this point in time.
So very interesting stuff. Really enjoy the conversation.
I get a lot of respect for doing what he's doing, the work he is
publishing and putting out there to the world.
I've got no doubt that he will take something from this so that
further delay. Sit back, relax and do the
podcast with Drew Decker and we are Live.
Drew, how are you, brother? Doing great, how you doing
today? I'm doing wonderful well, man.
So just to give the listeners some context here, you and I
were both at the Metabolic Health Summit, and we did not
know we're at the Metabolic Health Summit together until you
and I are both sitting in the waiting area at the airport and
then boarding the plane at the same time.
And I overheard you talking about a study that you had
recently done at the university. And I don't remember exactly
what was going. I think you were talking like a
former Green Beret or something like that.
And my keto bricks were just done.
They were just in a study. So I wonder if there was an
overlap there. And then we started chatting.
Turns out you were one of the students that led that that
study. So pretty interesting.
Pretty small world. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. It was crazy.
I just happened to be talking to this guy.
He was a former Green Beret and he was talking about rock weight
and he was talking about, you know, just the the trials that
come along with that. And so I ended up as a perfect
introduction to this this study that we ran with with your
product on Akita Brick so. I love it, man, I love it.
So talk to me a little bit about a little back story on you.
So you're at The Ohio State University at the moment and how
long have you been there? What are you studying
specifically? Yeah, so I'm actually a former
military. I was a airborne infantry for
about 6 years. Unfortunately, I got hurt, so I
kind of had to get out of that early.
But right now I'm a grad student at The Ohio State University.
My mentor is Doctor Jeff Volk, currently studying ketogenic
diets on performance, cognitive performance, physical
performance and also looking at mental health with the emerging
field of metabolic psychiatry. Well, Volok is a pretty heavy
hitter in the keto space. He is pretty well well known in
that regard. Absolutely, yeah.
Very fortunate to have him as my mentor.
Just kind of fell into it and not looking back.
Were you intrigued by the ketogenic diets prior to getting
involved with him, or did all that kind of come just as a
result of studying under him? Yeah, so that's actually a good
question. I started looking at the
ketogenic diet right after I got out of the military.
I ended up sustaining a massive traumatic brain injury.
And so I had chronic migraines that kind of followed
afterwards. And so I started looking at
possible nutrition strategies. All the drugs that they're, you
know, handing me just weren't working out.
I mean, I was taking, I was maxing out as much as they were
telling me to take a week. And then I was taking over the
counter medications on top of that and still getting one or
two migraines a week. And so I started, I was like,
hey, there's got to be a better way.
So I started looking at nutritional kind of
interventions that might be able to help.
And that's kind of when I fell upon the ketogenic diet, started
following that and migraines went down to once or twice a
month with no medication. So that definitely got me on
this path. And then I end up hearing Doctor
Volek speak at one of my undergrad classes and
immediately just reached out, said, hey, you know, if there's
anything going on in the lab that I could help out with, make
me a part of it. You know, if I have to sweep the
floor, then I'll sweep the floor.
But you know, I just want to be a part of this, this research
because I think it's extremely beneficial.
Well, I've had several guests on the podcast that have been prior
military and they've suffered from PTSD or some type of
traumatic brain injury and they have turned to the Kijic diet as
a pathway or therapy for hedging against those those symptoms.
And it seems to have a pretty profound effect, man.
Like a lot of people will take on exogenous ketone
supplementation in that context, they notice a benefit there.
Obviously going about that through dietary means seems to
be efficacious, but did you notice a pretty profound
improvement soon after doc the the diet or like what?
What were you noticing there? So for me, I think that first
week I probably didn't go about it the best way, You know, I
didn't, I wasn't thinking about electrolytes.
I wasn't thinking about, you know, ways that I could really
speed up the process for myself. And so that first week I
definitely noticed, you know, some some untoward side effects
right from just from, you know, losing electrolytes so fast.
But after that first week, I noticed once I was in ketosis,
this just felt like the migraines were just I didn't
have any that first week. And then that continued on.
I just kept on chugging a lot on that on the diet and was
wondering, you know, hey, they're gonna come by sometime.
There's no way this is magic. But it probably wasn't about
until two months after starting the diet that I even had that
first migraine. And it wasn't debilitating
either. So, you know, it's a pretty a
pretty sudden effect for me. Nice.
And have you pretty much adhered to that since then or have you
tried to incorporate different foods to see what kind of what
your threshold is? No, I I'm a firm believer.
I've drank the kool-aid, as they say.
So this is, this is my life. I'm not really looking back at
this point. I like it, man.
Yeah, I feel like, you know, that's kind of where I've
planted my flag in the ground too.
And I get a lot of pushback from people saying that it's not
designed to be, you know, followed indefinitely, like you
need to go in and out of ketosis.
But while I see that has, you know, some validity from like an
evolutionary standpoint, that's probably like we probably did
not sustain long term ketogenic states indefinitely as a
species, you know, going through time.
But I don't think there's any adverse response that comes from
going that way now, especially like when you see how adaptable
the body is. It's not like we lose the
ability to process carbs and sugar if we were to reintroduce
them at some point. Right, Yeah.
I mean, as far I haven't seen anything that has convinced me
otherwise as to why I should get off or why I should introduce
periods where I'm maybe a little bit higher carbohydrate.
So you know, until I see something or I I start noticing
an effect, I I really don't have any reason to look the other
way. Yeah, for sure.
So I want to kind of dive into some of the research studies.
So Volek he he's probably hallmarkly known for his faster
study. I think that was one of the
first performance based studies that I was ever exposed to when
I started diving into ketogen diet from like an athletic
standpoint. So his lab seems to always kind
of cater towards that athletic focused individual.
So as it pertains to, you know, the the ketobrick study, I mean,
I'm kind of selfishly wanting to learn more about that.
I had Doctor Prenz on for a little bit and we talked at, at,
you know, to some extent about that study.
And if I remember correctly, it wasn't drastically statistically
significant, but it was all done in students that were not really
fat adapted to begin with. So I wasn't surprised
necessarily the keto, the ketobrick didn't significantly
outperform the the Cliff bar in a population that was all non
fat adapted to begin with. Yeah, right.
So there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the the Cliff
Bar and the the Keto Brick as far as performance, like you
said, none of the none of the participants were fat adapted.
But I mean there's there's also a lot of power in that they're
not fat adapted, but they're also having very similar results
as far as time to exhaustion is concerned, which was the the
primary outcome of the study. So you know, kind of flips the
script on its head when you're talking about how you need to
fuel for these kind of events. You know, if you're whether you
need to eat all carbs like what's traditionally prescribed,
or if you can get away with something that's a little bit
more fat based, you know, And then additionally, if you're
looking at a, a military side of things, every oz counts, you
know. And so when, when you're packing
your rock and you have to pack, you know what, for this study,
you would have to have packed 4 bars for the same amount of
calories as you get from 1 keto brick and have a couple more
ounces in your pack. Or you could just pack one keto
brick, have the same amount of calories, and still not notice
any performance detriments. Yeah, Yeah, I think the the
calorie to weight ratio is a pretty significant compelling
factor for sure. So can you kind of breakdown
exactly how the study was design?
There's a washout period, it was randomized, but I don't know all
the details. So how?
How was that designed? Yeah.
So there there was 29 male participants.
They're all with between 20 and 30.
And basically what they do is they go to a familiarization
test where what they would go through a protocol where they
did a time to exhaustion protocol where it was a 14%
incline on a treadmill. They had a pack on their back
that weighed 30% of their body weight and they just went until
they couldn't go anymore. This was just the
familiarization before they had any kind of intervention.
They also had VO2 Max testing done on them, anthropometric, so
body weight, height, I think they did some circumferences and
then and then they would go and track their their current
exercise, they'd track their diet and then they'd be asked to
keep those the same throughout the intervention.
Their first actual test day, they would come in and they'd
redo that time to exhaustion test where they would be
actually going through the intervention.
So they'd be randomly assigned to either taking the keto brick
or to eating the Cliff bars. They'd do their time to
exhaustion and then after that they would have, you know, blood
and whatnot tested for up to three hours post post exercise.
They'd then have a seven day washout period where they kept
their exercise and their diet the same as it was before they
entered in. And then they would, they would
switch what group they were they were in, and then they'd redo
the intervention again. Gotcha.
And how long between the consumption of the prescribed
bar and the the timed exhaustion test?
Like how long, How much time was elapsed between those two?
Yeah. So they they would come in
fasted and then they'd take the bar 3 hours before exercise.
Gotcha, and it was 4 Cliff bars to the one keto brick to
basically make things as isocaloric as possible.
Yep, that is correct that we also chose flavors that were
similar. So we use like the the crunchy
peanut butter Cliff Bar and that was compared to the OR the
crunchy peanut butter keto bar, excuse me.
And that would be compared to the, you know, the Cliff bar
'cause that was the most, it matched the most as far as
flavor is concerned. And then the bars were also cut
into like bite sized pieces to try and make them look as
similar as possible. Gotcha.
OK, interesting. Interesting.
And what was some of the the feedback from the participants?
I mean, as far as their perceptual measures were
concerned, thirst, hunger, everything like that, those,
those stayed the same. I'm not Privy to which which
flavors they preferred, unfortunately, but as far as
those, the perception of thirst, hunger, how tired they felt,
those did not differ between each group.
Nice. Yeah, I was honestly surprised
that there was not a drop in performance with the the Keto
Brick group having been tested in a group that was not fat
adapted. I would, I would assume that
there would have been. So the fact that it was on par
with that of people, you know, consuming carbohydrates when
they were not in a fat adapted, you know, demographic, I think
that's super compelling. Right.
Oh yeah, 100%. And just by means of eating more
fat before going into the before into the going into the actual
exercise itself, you actually saw more fat oxidation in that
group than you did in the carb heavy group.
Yeah, I need to read this thing again, but it was like 2 1/2 X
times the fat oxidation or something like that if I
remember. Correctly.
Yeah. So pretty, pretty cool there.
And you got some people in the space that are like, yeah, but
if you're primarily eating fat, you're going to be, you know, 2
1/2 times more like the store fat as well.
So you've got the naysayers out there.
But I feel like in in the acute setting that we're talking about
here, if you're able to 2X more than two X your fat oxidation
and the categories are equated for then then there's a
significant benefit there. Right.
Yeah, absolutely. So what's, what's the next study
in the pipeline, man? What are you all working on?
Now, so the we actually have quite a few interesting studies
coming up right now. We have a ADOD grant that Volt
just got awarded. And so there's several studies
that are involved with that we have.
So once it's one grant, but we have 4 studies coming out of it,
each with multiple aims. So we have, we're testing
everything from, you know, just the kinetics of different ketone
supplements in military age males.
We're testing how a single dose in men and women of a, of a
specific ketone supplement would really affect them.
Then we're also testing how ketone esters and ketogenic
diets affect sleep deprivation as well, like cognitive
performance is concerned. We're looking at the effect of
ketone esters and ketone diets on heart failure patients, as
well as doing a study on ketogenic diets and polycystic
kidney disease. Nice.
You got all kinds of things in the pipeline.
Yeah, absolutely. And this all gets to fit under
just one just one grant so. That's always nice.
As far as the the esters and the exogenous ketones
supplementation goes, are you at liberty to say brand specific or
is is it like using the actual esters or using like the 13
butane dial? So there's, there's several,
there's several different supplements that are going to be
used throughout, throughout several of the, the different
aims of the of the studies. But I, I don't know how much I
can really get into on that at this point other than, you know,
saying that we are, we do have esters and we have other
supplements that are being used as well.
What what is your personal take on the the use of exogenous
ketones for performance specifically whether it be from
the salts, the legitimate esters, or the 13 butane dials
that are converted into BHP in the in the the liver.
Do you have a preference for one over the other from a
performance standpoint? I mean, As for the kinetic
standpoint, I, I do like the, the ketone esters just for, you
know, how long they're able to spike those ketones and just how
long you stay in that elevated state for performance.
I think I tend to think more tactically with this more with
just cognitive ability. And so because of that, if
somebody's fat adapted and decides to take an Ester or, you
know, or if they're, for example, a soldier and they're
going on a 36 hour patrol or something like that, then, you
know, I, I see efficacy in taking the, the, the S here just
to try and preserve some of that cognitive function, especially
in those very high sympathetic states in those times when
they're really just, you know, sucking.
Yeah, no, for sure there's there's been a lot of debate
online right now as to whether or not the the one three butane
diode kind of performs similar to an alcohol when consumed.
I mean it's not an ethanol based alcohol, but it's got, you know,
similar effects to alcohol and some people have noted, you
know, drowsiness and things of that nature, whereas it's
oftentimes being promoted as a performance enhancer.
So I don't know if that is just specific to the individual or or
what, but it's it's raised some eyebrows for sure.
Yeah, I, I mean, there's even, you know, people that even talk
about it as a way to get off of alcohol.
You know, just since they had, they think that there's similar
results to that. I don't know if that's placebo
or if, you know, that's something that they're truly
noticing. You know, that's something that
maybe we'll be able to figure out in a little bit.
Yeah, it's, it is interesting for sure.
I've I've tried all different kinds.
I mean I've got companies that send me this stuff and I'll try
them and I've had pretty significant doses of the 13
butane down. I've not personally noticed any
alcohol like effects but it's just me.
No, yeah, that's that's kind of been my experience with it as
well. So whenever I hear the, you
know, your body's gonna process it the same as alcohol, so you
might feel some of the same effects.
I've never really personally noticed that.
Yeah, but me either. So how does one like yourself go
about wading through all the minutiae online when it comes to
different studies, especially around the topics of nutrition?
Maybe because like I, I am not a a research scientist.
I am not a medical student. I am an athlete.
I'm a, I'm, I'm just a guy online, I guess.
But I know I can sympathize with people that are wading through
all this information and it's like they don't even know where
to turn because there's so much information and often times it
conflicts with one another. You've got people that are in
the evidence based camps that just throw their their heads
back to anything that's anecdotal at all.
You get people that just simply point to their own personal
findings and experiences and those that are close to which is
all anecdotal. So how do you kind of go about
assimilating information and applying it into your own
personal life? Yeah, so that's a, that's a good
question. A lot of times really you need
to look for citations. You know, you can have a
supplement company say whatever they want to say.
They're not really regulated by FDA, not well at least.
So a lot of times when I'm reading the claims and what's
being marketed to me, I'm, I'm going straight to the citations
at that point. So that way I can read through
the studies themselves and I can make a decision based off of
what's actually been published. If there's a baseless claim or
you, you see something that, you know, there's just not a whole
lot of proof behind it. I started to become very weary
of, of that company, but that, that'd be kind of my best, my,
my best advice that I have for that is just, instead of taking
them at their word, you know, go to the citations, explore it
yourself, try to find your own. It is a unfortunately, it's a
consumer based market. And so a lot of the
responsibility is on the consumer when it comes to
figuring out if this is reputable or not.
Yeah, so and I have to just start throwing my citation that
said that you ought to go on the keto bricks on all my my keto
brick marketing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely,
absolutely. Hey, you know, personally, I'm a
believer. I, we actually had several keto
bricks here in the, the office when we were running through
this writing and publishing the, that study.
And we had a whole thing where we were doing taste testing and
figuring out which we like most. And, you know, I'm really
excited. I see that you have the What is
that banana muffin coming up soon?
Yeah, we launched that this past Sunday.
I think I've, I sent y'all some of the brownie batter too.
Did y'all try that? Yeah, I tried the brownie
batter. That's pretty good.
I like that one a lot. I'm I'm not gonna lie though I
think chocolate malt is still the the favorite.
Yeah, that's one of my go to's as well.
Man, you can't go wrong with that one.
Not at all. Wrong with that one.
Where do you go personally? Like if you're online and you're
trying to figure out a good library of, you know, legitimate
articles and source of information, where do you
typically go for that? Like pub Med or something
similar. Yeah, so pub Med is usually go
to Google Scholar. Those are usually where I'm
where I'm scrolling through. But yeah, you you nailed it
right on the head with pub Med. And a lot of them are behind the
paywall unfortunately though, right?
Yes, yeah. So I have the, I'm fortunate
enough to be with an institution that has a lot of access to, to
articles that maybe some others might not, but you can still
find a lot of good information if you scroll, You know, if you,
you scroll enough, you're going to be able to find a lot of free
articles that should be able to hit just about anything that
you're looking for. Yeah.
Oh, for sure. It seems like from what I've
just learned in talking to you, you know, as long as we have
here, a lot of the the studies that you are doing is based kind
of like on military application. Is there a specific reason
there? Is it catering specifically to
those in the services? Well, yeah, so the grant itself
came from DoD. So a lot of a lot of what we're
trying to propose for that, you know, had to be military
tactical related. You know, so even for our sleep
study, for example, we're measuring cognitive performance
with a a shooting simulator. So it's like a, a virtual
reality, you know, range that you can go to and then we're
able to test. It's basically we have a, a
testing protocol where it's like you're doing a Stroop test, but
instead you're shooting targets. We have, we can test accuracy,
we can test, you know, your, your decision making ability.
And so there's a lot of metrics on that.
But yeah, since because it's ADOD grant, we do cater very
much to military and tactical populations.
Well, I'm very hopeful that y'all can change what's on the
the menu in those Mr. ES for sure.
Oh yeah, yeah, they're very carb heavy, high in sugar and low in
protein. That's that is definitely true
of them. I mean are.
Those based off of anything scientific at all, or those
strictly formulated based off of, you know, bottom line cost
equations. You know, that's a good
question. I'm not sure if I can actually
fully answer that. But my opinion is that, you
know, it's, it's the military. So whenever you hear the word or
the phrase military grade, you should always just assume it's
coming from the lowest bidder. And so, you know, my assumption
is carbs are cheaper than protein and they have an excuse
to use it 'cause, you know, unfortunately a lot of the
studies that have been out there are very carb centric, right?
So if I, if I look at recommendations for an athlete
on what they should be eating, they're going to be putting at
putting me at astronomically high levels of carbohydrates and
minimal levels of fat, right? They'll be putting me at 20% fat
and I'll be trying to bump my carbs as high as possible.
And so I think that's the military's kind of stuck with
that model because they can and because it's cheaper.
That's that is going to be my assumption.
Yeah, which is so unfortunate. I mean, one of the, I had
Phillip on the other day, Phillip Meese from Carnivore
Bar, he was former military as well.
And his whole motivation for building that company, Carnivore
Bar, was because, you know, he was stuck out there overseas And
I mean, he was just living off of MRE's and had like jerky
shipped in and it wasn't able to, you know, maintain shelf
stability. It's like this just not the kind
of nutrition that I want to be consuming if I'm trying to
perform at an elite level, which is what you are ideally doing if
you're on the front line. And it's sad that the the
military is just being provided Mr. ES as their fundamental
source of nutrition from a cost standpoint when that's probably
the least beneficial from a performance standpoint.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you'll, you'll see it
all across you. You also see it.
I mean, it's not even just Mres themselves.
You see it at the mess halls or a, a chow.
You'll have, they have like a color coding system that tells
you what you should eat more of, what you should eat less of.
And you know, I've seen syrup get the, the green, the green
light saying you should eat as much of this as you can.
And I've seen things like eggs get the red saying, hey, limit
this as much as possible, you know, and I, I don't know if
that that that's going into the same model as the Mr. ES, that
hey, what's cheaper for them to mass produce and get in large
quantities or, you know, if there really is just a, a
horrible gross misunderstanding of nutrition that exists within
the military. Maybe it's a little bit of both.
Yeah. I would have to imagine there's
probably some just, you know, bureaucratical, you know, red
tape that you have to jump through.
And there's just such a lag time in when the research comes out
versus when it's actually implemented.
And they're probably still stuck on that, you know, food pyramid
that should have been flipped upside down years ago.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's kind of hard to break
something if you've been doing it for this long.
Yeah, totally, totally. What about muscle glycogen, man,
that that's a topic of of interest that I've taken pretty
interesting of late. And there seems to be a lot of
studies coming out regarding muscle glycos like the fastest
rate that Volk did way back when he was talking about the rate of
glycogen replenishment and founded at the individuals that
were endurance athletes. And if you all got anything in
the works as far as glycogen replenishment rates within
resistance trained individuals more so than the endurance
sports. So as far as looking at glycogen
replenishment, we haven't really been looking at that recently,
not since I've been in the lab at least.
But that is, that is an area interested for, for me as well.
Just looking at how that would affect.
I don't really, I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't react
the same as what we saw in those endurance athletes.
I think it might be a more of a product of time on the ketogenic
diet itself 'cause when you, you know, first get under the
ketogenic diet, you don't see that same replenishment rate and
you know, production of baseline levels of glycogen that you do
see in a carb heavy athlete for example.
So I think that, you know, as far as as far as baseline levels
of glycogen is concerned and as far as replenishment, I think
that might be more of a product of time on the diet and
adaptation more than more so than you know, modality of
exercise. And how long would you
recommend? Just my thoughts on it.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. How long would you recommend
someone fall on a ketogenic diet be consistent with it in order
to have a full grasp as to what they would be able to replenish
muscle glycogen in? You know, so this kind of this
question was kind of brought up at MHS and I'm just going to
default to the answer on that was given there, which is
somewhere between, you know, three or somewhere between 4
weeks and 18 months. There's going to there's that,
that difference. So that the athletes that were
in the faster trials, I mean they were they're on it for on
following a ketogenic diet for 12/2 plus 1212 months to, you
know, two years somewhere in there.
So I'm not really sure as to when you fully adapt and when
you're able to fully, you know, restore all your glycogen
levels. I just know that it will happen
eventually if you stick with the diet long enough.
Yeah, I get that question a lot too, man.
Especially like in the context of bodybuilding, because, you
know, obviously if you're trying to have fullness in your
muscles, you need to have fully tapped up muscle glycogen.
And if you are just now adopting a ketogenic diet prior to
stepping on stage, it's probably not a good idea.
But for people that are wanting to optimize with a, you know,
ketogenic diet going into the bodybuilding realm, like you
really need to be on the diet for a significant period of time
before you can hope to have those levels, you know, capped
out as they were when you were consuming predominantly
carbohydrates. And a lot of people, I think
have a hard time adhering to something for that length of
time. And it's unfortunate because I
feel like, like my, my personal view just.
And what I've noticed and working with clients over the
years is that if you, you know, kind of go back and forth and
you're not really fully committed to it, you kind of
just stay in nutritional purgatory, so to speak.
Like you don't really at that point get the benefit of, you
know, the circulating ketones or build up that metabolic pathway.
But you also don't really tap into the benefits of
carbohydrates if you're trying to go that approach because
you're oftentimes not consuming ample carbohydrates in the
context of an athlete. So you just spend all this time
in in limbo and your performance suffers, your satiety suffers,
your muscle fullness and recovery suffers.
Like everything suffers because you just are trying to, you
know, do both things at once, but you wind up kind of half
assing both entirely. Right.
Yeah, No, exactly. Yeah.
I mean, that is, that is kind of the, it seems to be the
unfortunate truth that if this is the route that you're you're
choosing, you know, you might need to take some time and not,
you know, I, I, I'm not going to tell anybody not to compete.
I'm not going to tell anybody not to perform whenever they
want. But you might, you know, just
set in your mind like this might take a little bit longer than,
you know, a couple months before I'm actually competing and, and
looking how I want to compete and look.
Yeah. But yeah, you know, I don't
know, is there what, what strategies would do you follow
when you're going for when you're prepping?
If I, if I'm correct, you, you just competed.
Is that correct? Yeah, I competed all throughout
the last quarter of 2023. So I, my first competition I
think was first weekend in September and then it went
through mid November basically. So I'm in reverse.
I mean, I just finished my reverse that I'm back into a
building phase at this point, but I competed pretty much all
that last quarter of last year. And my, my approach is, you
know, I'm, I'm strict keto 100% of the time.
Like I haven't had a carbohydrate based meal in over
8, probably close to nine years now.
And my view has always been that the longer I stay in a fat
adapted ketogenic state, the better my body becomes
efficiently using fat as a primary fuel substrate for, you
know, glycogen replenishment, cognitive function for
everything. And there was a period, I guess
probably about two years now where the whole concept of
metabolic flexibility really gained popularity.
And everybody was jumping ship because they were under the
assumption that you had to swap back and forth in order to
maintain any true semblance of health.
And I just have never really bought into that, that approach.
I feel like, you know, like you're, like I said earlier,
your body doesn't lose its ability to metabolize carbs and
glucose. You just don't need to to do
that. If you get if you have the
option, you might as well operate and optimize for the,
you know, more improved substrate for fuel, which in my
opinion would be the the fat substrate.
Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely on the the same page.
That's interesting. Yeah.
You know, I've, I've heard stories of people trying to do,
you know, carbs up until the last couple weeks to, you know,
and then they'll try to shed some pounds, then, you know,
introduce carbs right before a show Again, You know, I, I hear
this strategy being used for powerlifting as well in
different weight based sports. And I don't know if I completely
buy into that as much as I would just, you know, stay the course.
And you know, you might need to modulate how many calories
you're eating leading up into a vent.
But I, I, I, I definitely don't, I don't find myself buying into
really switching between a ketogenic diet and a
carbohydrate diet throughout the season.
Yeah, I agree. And there's been, there's been
quite a bit of talk about a dual fuel approach in regards to
exogenous ketones. And I think there could be some
efficacy there. Like if you are following a
carbohydrate diet and then you are consuming exogenous ketones
like they can cross the blood brain barrier, they can be
metabolized as a fuel even if you're not fat adapted.
So I think there is some truth to that, but my approach there
is if I'm going to try and optimize for, you know, ketone
production and assimilation, that I might as well be
producing them endogenously as well.
So my ability to uptake those ketones if they are exogenous
would be improved if my body's own inherent endogenous
production is already upregulated.
Right. Yeah, 100%.
I mean, if you're, if you're relying on exogenous ketones,
you know, for getting into ketosis, you know, there, there,
there could be an effect where you're actually blunting
endogenous production at that point.
So you're already introducing these exogenous ketones.
So, you know, your, your body at that point might be, hey, you
know, why do I need to keep on producing these metabolites if,
if I already have access to them?
How, how big an effect that is? I'm, I'm not really sure, but
yeah, I agree with you. I think going, trying to stay
endogenous is probably the best way to go.
I think for, you know, going back to soldiers it, it might
make sense. You know, they don't really have
the option to to change their Mr. ES.
So then at that point it might make sense, you know, come up a
low energy state or time when they need higher cognitive
function, you know, take an exogenous ketone at that point.
That would that would make sense.
Yeah, no, totally. Have there been any studies done
on what the like effect is with endogenous production in the
context of exogenous ketone supplementation for some of
that's not yet fat adapted? Like does that have they been?
Have they studied it to see if there's actually down regulation
of your own production? You know, honestly, I haven't
really looked too too deep into this.
This is things that I've kind of been talking about with some of
the, you know, grad students here in the office that are,
have been in for a little bit longer than I have.
So that's one of those things. That's a very good question.
It's something that I'm gonna have to look into a little bit
more extensively before I can really give you a, an answer or
give you a citations to actually go to for yourself.
Yeah, but I'd, I'd love to get into that.
Read up on that and then I'll I can e-mail you some some
information. Yeah, totally.
If if somebody wanted to adhere to a ketogenic diets in the
context of being, you know, overseas in the military, like
would they even like, is that even physically viable?
Like if they just decided to only eat the fats and proteins
in an MRE and what's at the mess hall?
Like would they be able to consume ample calories to
function or is that totally impossible?
So that that's a, that's a hard question to answer.
If they were at the mess hall, if they're in Garrison, then
yes, you'd be able to do that. The the issue is that when
you're out in the field, especially if you're out in the
field for months on end, you're only getting carb based Mres.
And there's really just not enough calories for what you're
doing. If you're just going to pick out
the protein. And most of the time the protein
is mixed with something with rice or with noodles or have
like a carb based gravy involved with it.
So I think that that'd be a, a hard ask at this point, you
know, but it, I, I like these studies that we're doing and I
like the, the grant that we have because hopefully it will start
to kind of shift the mind in the military, the mindset in the
military of these carb based meals, maybe provide a different
option. I mean, right now there's
vegetarian and vegan Mres. So I I don't see why there
couldn't be a, you know, like a keto option.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, like I said, I'm, I'm
not military, I'm not former military, but I've got all my
friends, pretty much all my friends are they all went that
route. But like I, I can, I can assume
it's similar to how I would feel and perform if I'm out, you
know, out West hunting for, you know, week on end.
I'm carrying a heavy pack and I'm at altitude and I'm, I'm
trying to be conservative with the weight that I'm carrying,
but have ample calories on hand. And in that context, like when I
go out West to go elk hunting, like I cannot imagine doing what
I'd do and not being fatted happened.
Like if I was consuming, you know, carbohydrate based diet
and I was having to eat, you know, four or five meals a day
to feel satiated and have energy.
Like the amount of food I'd have to bring back there with me
would just be that. That would be a limiting factor
for sure. I, I wouldn't feel good.
Like that would just be like a non sensible option.
Yeah, I mean, that's, you're exactly right.
Wouldn't you know, if you're not fat adapted, you're doing these
things. I mean, guys are stocking their
pockets with the candies and with gummy bears and all sorts
of snacks if they know they have something heavy coming up.
Because they are going to have to keep on snacking this entire
way through just to have the energy to to complete the 36
Mile Rock or something like that.
So, yeah, you're, you're absolutely right.
You know, if you're not fat adapted, you're putting a lot
more weight on your back, you're putting a lot of weight in your
in your pockets, just wherever you can fit it in order just to
sustain you through the movement.
Yeah. And like cognitively, I would
not perform at a high level if that was where I was at too.
And if I'm, if I'm in the context of a battle and I'm
frontline like I would want to make sure that I've got my wits
about me and. Exactly.
And then you mix in, you know, sleep deprivation and everything
else on top of that. Yeah, there's, there's a lot of
advantage to being fat adapted and following a, a adhering to
a, a ketogenic diet, you know, that could translate pretty well
into the battlefield that unfortunately just isn't being
explored as much as it should be.
Yeah. Well, hopefully, hopefully the
research you are doing definitely starts pushing the
needle in that direction because I think, you know, we obviously
want the best for our shoulders. And I feel like the the best
would most definitely be, you know, an enlightened individual
that knows the benefits of a fat adaptive approach and can
leverage that in the field. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. What about you personally, man,
What's what's, what's in the pipeline for you that you're
excited about as it pertains to, you know, studies or just your
own personal nutrition and fitness endeavors?
Yeah, so I'm actually the lead on a study here at the lab on
ketogenic diets and major depression.
So I've been really focusing in on, you know, how can we use the
diet to improve people's lives that are are suffering from
mental health issues. Nice, nice.
And how? How is that study being
conducted? Yeah.
So it's a pilot study right now. It's actually being funded by
the Bazooki Foundation. And we have college aged
individuals that have been that have major depression and we're
just putting them on a ketogenic diet at this point.
We're testing scores of depression, we're testing
different blood parameters. This is a it's a 12 week
intervention. Again, it is a pilot study.
So any, any results that we get have to be speculative at this
point. But this is the the first study
that's being done on major depressive ketogenic diet and
the college age population. Nice, but have you have you read
Chris Palmer's Brain Energy book?
I haven't read through the whole book, but I, I don't, I do know
Chris Palmer. Yeah, I've, I've had the
pleasure of having him on the podcast and I've talked with him
at the various conferences and I love the work he's doing, man,
because he is bringing light to a, a situation that certainly
needs to be that needs to have more awareness around it.
I mean, we all know somebody or have struggle with ourselves,
some form of, you know, mental depressive episode.
And it's like you, you, you bring that to a doctor and they
automatically turn to, you know, the SSRIs, the antidepressants,
they Jack things up even more. So there, there, there's zero
talk of nutrition in those offices.
And I feel like so much of that can be averted if you just
simply get the nutrition dialed in.
Because what we're learning now about how the, the interplay
between what you're consuming, the, you know, gut health, you
know, serotonin levels, dopamine levels like that, that all needs
to be frontline nutritionally based as opposed to, you know,
drug, drug induced. Right, exactly.
And you know, so I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not a
psychiatrist, so I'm going to put that one out there first.
But it seems a lot of times it almost feels like guess and
check with a lot of medications, you know, as far as what
mechanism is causing it. So we, we might be, we'll see
improvements with medication, but as far as, you know, really
figuring out what the mechanism underpinning its improvement is
concerned, we're not very, you know, we're not sure at this
point. And so I, you know, finding a
holistic approach that can potentially get rid of some of
these adverse effects that you see with medication seems
imperative to me. Yeah, 100%, man.
And I'm not a psychiatrist either, but I've had several
members of my family that are very close to me, you know, have
have struggled with this. And like they've both been put
on antidepressant medications and SSRIs.
And it's like, like you talk to the doctor and and the only
thing they can tell you is, oh, they got a chemical imbalance in
the brain. Like that's what their default
answer is. And it's like how the world can
we expect to improve that chemical imbalance, if that is
even what it is, if we don't have a just a fundamental
foundation, nutritionally speaking, like anything else is
a Washington if we don't have that going for us.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
Is this, is this actually, does this actually fit into the
monoamine theory where we're looking at serotonin and
dopamine and norepinephrine? Or does this, is this actually a
mitochondrial dysfunction issue? You know where is this all
starting from? What was your motivation for for
diving into that that area of study man?
Yeah, so this actually, it's pretty personal for me, but
yeah, so I got, I got hurt in the military, ended up having, I
was airborne infantry, ended up having a pretty bad jump,
resulted in a massive TBI. It also resulted in early
termination of my service and I was definitely not ready to get
out. And I'd also noticed like a a
personality shift after I hit my head, just kind of having
problems at home, had issues just really, I mean, just
talking to people at that point. And I was suffering from
depression pretty bad at the time.
And so I had to go to the psychologist.
I had to go to the psychiatrist, which is also, it was taboo, at
least when I was in to go and see the psychiatrist.
But, you know, it became necessary at that point.
And so, yeah, it was the first thing they did for me.
They they talked to me for maybe, you know, 30 minutes.
The next thing you know, I had a whole smorgasbord of medications
that I was supposed to take every day.
You know, I was walking around sounding like a walking pharmacy
with how much was shaking in my pockets.
And nothing, really, nothing really got me there.
I just started noticing, you know, adverse effects.
I started gaining weight, started, you know, feeling weak.
My lifts weren't the same. And so I just, I was like, there
had to be a better way. So, you know, I know I went
through that once we started looking at this and once, you
know, Doctor Bullock graciously came up to me and said, hey, we,
we have this on our table, you know, do you want to take this
and run with it? Immediately jumped on it.
Very cool, man. No, I love it.
I love it. The fact that you, you, you've
got a personal connection that's going to make your zeal for the
research all the more paramount. And I feel like anything that is
concerning brain health and you know, emotional well-being like
that is the concept that we, we are in desperate need of right
now. Like you look at the pression
rates, especially in college age demographics, I mean, it is
staggering, man. Like I don't even, I've had
several guests on the podcast and we've tried to peel the
curtain back as to what the driver is there, what's the
primary catalyst? And I don't know, man.
I don't know if it's because of social media.
I don't know if it's because of people's lack of purpose.
I don't know if it's because of the comparison.
I don't know what is the driver. But it's obvious that it's
certainly trending in the wrong direction.
And I mean, I think a lot of it is certainly nutritional and
just simply being deficient in basic fundamental minerals,
micronutrients, macronutrients and just proper like having a
proper healthy foundation is key.
And I think we're so far from that as a society right now that
we can, you know, drive more awareness there and at least
people get on, get people on some degree of level footing.
So I think it's awesome that you're doing that as it pertains
to a ketogenic approach, man. Yeah, Thank you.
You know, I think this could potentially change the way that
we treat mental health going forward.
So I'm very excited to be a part of this research and I'm very
excited for the opportunity that I've been given for it.
So hopefully, you know, good things come out of this.
Hopefully this can, you know, move forward and this research
continues and makes differences in people's lives.
I certainly hope so man. Certainly hope so.
And with the pilot study, like how, how long, like what is the
lead time on those typically? So it's a, it's a 12 week study
and we're doing so the, as far as nutrition education is
concerned, we'll do like a consult where we meet with every
individual for about an hour and a half and we just talk through,
you know, different pillars of a ketogenic diet and see how they
feel with it. We'll provide some food at the
beginning. We, you know, give extensive
education throughout and then, you know, we, we let them run
with it for the last six weeks, the first six weeks.
We're just really trying to go hand in hand with them as much
as possible in those last six weeks.
We're really trying to see if they can just, you know, take
what we, what they've learned and just run with it.
And, you know, with the, with the college age population, a
lot, you know, everybody here is involved with school.
They have classes, they have exams, you know, stressors just
from being young and young and dumb, You know, it's, it's, it's
a challenge, but I think that we've been, we've been really
good about it at this so far. So I'm I'm very happy with with
what we've been doing so far. That's awesome, man.
That's awesome. And when would the results be
available to to view? So right now still, the study
itself is still ongoing. So hopefully soon, hopefully by
the end of summer. Very cool, very cool.
I love it, man. Well, where, where do people go
that to find out more about you, to dive into the studies, to
read the publications, just to to dive deeper.
To dive a little bit deeper, yeah, so right now I'm a little
bit of a ghost. I don't really have much of A
social media presence. If you go to low carb OSU, low
carb OSU for Ohio State University, you can see a lot
more about what the BOLAC lab as a whole is doing.
You can read up on, you know, the, the members of the team.
We have a great team here. It's extremely collaborative.
So that's that's where I direct you to go for now.
Awesome well, I will definitely get to that may be easy to be
able to find you. Very cool man.
I'm excited about all things on the on the pipeline here all
things on the horizon. I really appreciate the work
that you're doing. I appreciate you taking the time
to discuss it with me and if there's everything I can do to
help in any way, man, you just let me know.
I'm more than happy to keep sending bricks to the labs that
we can fund the the studies at least via a nutritional
approach. I can.
I can contribute in that way for sure because I want to.
I want to help move the needle in the right direction as well.
I feel like our our missions are aligned in that.
All right. I appreciate you, Rob.
I'm sure that we'll we'll all appreciate some more keto bricks
as well. My pleasure, man, My pleasure.
Until next time, Drew. Take care brother all.
Right. Take care, Rob.