You're the Cure, March 11, 2019

On today’s episode, Dr. Ben interviewed Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, a professor at the University of South Florida. Dr. D’Agostino shared his journey from being interested in nutrition to studying the brain-respiration connection and then learning to use the ketogenic diet as a neuroprotective technique. He shares how the ketogenic diet works better than any drug on the market in reducing seizures and how the pharmaceutical market has actually worked to try to get the ketogenic diet into a pill. Dr. D’Agostino’s work focuses on researching how the ketogenic diet affects different ‘disease’ states like seizures, type 2 diabetes, and cancer, amongst many others. He works closely with the United States military on ketosis and how it can benefit them in the area of combat. He speaks to exogenous ketones and how they can be beneficial for people who don’t handle eating larger amounts of fat well, or for people who need higher levels of ketones for therapeutic purposes. Dr. D’Agostino gives a detailed description of the ketogenic diet and what happens in the body during a state of ketosis. This can range from balancing insulin and glucose to balancing hormones, and up-regulating the gene expression in disease states. Our ancestors not only ate a ketogenic diet but also practiced time-restricted feeding. If you can limit the amount of sugar/glucose floating around in your bloodstream, your body will switch over to using fat for fuel. Ketones are byproducts of using this fat for fuel and has a tremendous impact physiologically in the body. He and Dr. Ben speak to “cheat” days and the effects that can have, not only on the body but also psychologically, especially for people who may have unhealthy relationships with food. Dr. D’Agostino goes further into detail on cancer cells and how they use glucose and ketones, with respect to their growth rate. He even says that modern modalities, like chemo and radiation, can actually be improved for patients in a state of ketosis. The difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis is discussed. They are very different states in the body that are often confused, but shouldn’t be. Dr. D’Agostino finishes by discussing how exogenous ketones work in the body of someone eating a Standard American Diet.