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The Carnivore Diet: Shortening Your Life and Aging You Faster
45 Plays1 month ago
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Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
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Transcript
Introduction & Diet Comparison
00:00:01
chrisyzen
Okay, let's talk about why the carnivore diet is shortening your life. So don't get me wrong. I really think the carnivore diet is a million times better than the plant-based diet. I love meat.
Risks of Carnivore Diet
00:00:18
chrisyzen
I think it's really important. I love animal products and mostly eat animal products. But if you're going to do strict carnivore,
00:00:26
chrisyzen
you're shooting yourself in the foot for a few reasons.
Low Carb Diets & Starvation Signal
00:00:30
chrisyzen
And the the first reason is that simply not not eating a lot of carbohydrates sends the signal of starvation to the body, right? We know the research has shown this decades ago that even an isocaloric, isoproteonic ketogenic diet, which means ketogenic diet with
00:01:03
chrisyzen
the same amount of protein and the same amount of calories that the people need to maintain body body mass right so they're not cutting calories or protein four days of this kind of diet keto diet already shifts the body into this catabolic mode with the glucagon rising the insulin falling the the thyroid hormones down regulating so we know the and this this this study was done in the 80s 1982
00:01:36
chrisyzen
So since then at least we know that, but you know, we we know it since the beginning of the ketogenic diet, which was like in the 1920s, because if a diet that is ketogenic causes ki ketones to be produced, it means the body thinks it's starving,
Carb Restriction & Body's Response
00:01:53
chrisyzen
right? so a low carb diet, especially one that is ketogenic, sends the signal of starvation. So there was another study in from 1992 called carbohydrate restriction regulates the adaptive response to fasting. And basically they stated there that these results demonstrate that restriction of dietary carbohydrate
00:02:16
chrisyzen
not the general absence of energy intake itself, is responsible for initiating the metabolic response to short-term fasting. So carbohydrate restriction sends the signal of starvation. That is why a keto diet gets a person into ketosis after a while because they're getting um they're getting the signal of starvation and what happens when the when the body gets the signal of starvation well I covered that in the book it's obviously not
00:02:53
chrisyzen
it's not um It's not good, right? Would you just logically thinking about it? Do you think if you're constantly sending the signal of starvation to your body, do you think your body is going to be at optimal functioning or is it going to start down regulating things that it deems are not super important or for for immediate survival, right?
00:03:18
chrisyzen
so Let's just think about it like this now. Given the fact that male infertility today has caught up with female infertility,
00:03:33
chrisyzen
and it's harder than ever for even young couples to conceive.
Hormonal Effects of Low Carb Diets
00:03:40
chrisyzen
Do you think that these low this carb movement, paleo, keto, carnivore, all this stuff, do you think that has something to do with it, especially when coupled with intermittent fasting and other fasting and cold plunges? Yeah, I really think it does have something to do with it because When you do low carb and of course when you do fasting, but when you do low carb, your cortisol inherently has to rise because you, especially if it's a low carb without getting into ketosis, you need to stimulate gluconeogenesis in the liver in order to produce the glucose deficit that you're not getting.
00:04:23
chrisyzen
right so that glucose will still get made and that quite a lot of it too at least so let's say if you're reading a hundred grams of carbohydrates today
00:04:36
chrisyzen
you you need probably at least another 50 70 80 maybe even more depending if you're super active to be created by the body that will either be broken down protein from your food or broken down tissue lean tissue from your body bones and um muscle and stuff like that lean lean mass and a little bit of tiny amount of it will be made from fat from the glycerol backbones of triacylglycerols or triglycerides tiny negligible amount very very much negligible and a lot of what some of these carnivore guys are like
00:05:13
chrisyzen
Yeah, but the glycerol backbones, the glycerol backbones, oh you if you do the math, it's a very, very negligible pathway to glucose production to meet a normal human being's daily energetic needs.
Promotion & Further Discussion
00:05:31
chrisyzen
So we also know, and so some of this research that I kind of am mentioning in passing, it's all in the book and I have the the masterclass you can go and and view on howtoactuallylivelonger.com, go to my website and you can see all the studies I kind of mentioned in passing here. I kind of go over them systematically so you can see ah how low carb and keto diets, they send the signal of starvation.
00:06:00
chrisyzen
then how that causes obviously an increase in cortisol, and then also how cortisol, because it's ah an antagonist of testosterone, it's very well known that if cortisol increases,
00:06:15
chrisyzen
testosterone decreases and they've done different kind of experiments lowering by administering insulin and that lowering the blood glucose that causes cortisol to increase to to bring up the blood sugar that causes testosterone to decrease okay or administering glucocorticoid like hydrocortisone or whatever the glucocorticoid medication was that also because the cortisol mimicking chemical that also causes a dropping testosterone point being chronically elevated cortisol
00:06:49
chrisyzen
by keto carnivore, low carb diet and a lot of ah exercising and a lot of maybe intermittent fasting or whatever else, regular fasting, water fasting, that will, first of all, that that increase in cortisol chronically will, first of all, age you faster.
Critique of Carnivore Diet
00:07:09
chrisyzen
OK, it will age you faster. It's well known cortisol ages you faster.
00:07:14
chrisyzen
degenerate your body but it will also tank your testosterone because again they're oppositional forces right so that is in a nutshell why the carnivore diet low carb diets are terrible for longevity they will tank your testosterone up your cortisol and that will cause a lot of issues with
00:07:47
chrisyzen
ah gonadosteroidogenesis, right, so making testosterone, DHT, all those ah ah male hormone steroids, it will again degenerate your tissues faster, it causes wasting of so some of these carnivore guys are buying this amazing meat grass-fed all that good stuff and what they're then doing is they're converting the protein from that meat into glucose to meet their demands because the body cannot go without it it will make it whether by hookah by crook it will break down your body it will break down your delicious expensive grass-fed steak and a hundred grams of protein
00:08:31
chrisyzen
which is probably a pound of meat to get that hundred grams of protein or more. That, when it's turned into glucose, never mind the fact that it causes all this ammonia to be released, which is toxic to the kidneys. It costs you energy and nutrients to detoxify and stuff. That 100 grams of protein, that one pound of steak or more, will only get converted to 50 grams of glucose, which is again, not even enough
00:09:04
chrisyzen
to run your brain for half a day so you need way more way way way more than that and that's a few tablespoons of honey you know it's 50 grams of glucose you know it's like four tablespoons of honey something like that which costs I don't know two bucks if you get it organic a hundred grams of Honey is 80 grams of ah carbohydrate and that costs I don't know a buck 52 bucks if it's organic high-quality honey, whereas a pound of grass-fed steak that can cost I don't know like $30, I don't know depending on where you're from how quality the meat is it could be Could be you know 20 30 40 dollars. So
Short-term vs Long-term Effects
00:09:59
chrisyzen
it's a waste of money and it's also toxic and it's also stimulating stress hormone release and it's aging a person faster so that is why carnivore diet is a bad idea long-term. Now, if you have a lot of food sensitivities and your your gut is really messed up, yeah, you could use it as an elimination diet for a while, but it comes at a cost. You really have to understand it comes at a cost. So the thing is, here's where people make ah make a big um mistake. they are They might be on a standard Western diet, standard American diet, eating garbage for a while.
00:10:44
chrisyzen
And they're like, no, I need to I need to stop this. I need to get my act together. And then they listen to a podcast and then some guys like, yeah, the carnivore diet is is amazing. You should try it. So the the person goes from standard American standard Western diet to carnivore diet. They clean up the diet amazingly well.
00:11:05
chrisyzen
and they feel amazingly better, right? They feel much, much better. So that's the that's this is where we conflate the benefits of cleaning up our diet, being more intentional with what we eat, with the intervention that we chose. So it could be going from standard American to
00:11:28
chrisyzen
to keto, it could be to go into carnivore, fruitarian, plant based, Atkins diet. It doesn't matter almost any diet you move to, you will feel better. So the problem then, a lot of people kind of the trap that a lot of people fall into is they think that that diet is amazing. Whereas the magic was just being more intentional with what you eat and cleaning up your diet.
00:11:58
chrisyzen
and sometimes eating less. That's why people lose weight, like on a low carb diet, on carnivore or keto, if you're eating a lot of high fat or high protein diet, you will feel very satiated. So you might actually eat less as well as eating cleaner food, more real food.
Dietary Deficiencies Overview
00:12:18
chrisyzen
And then you're like, you're gonna lose weight, you feel better, your blood pressure drops, you sleep better, your partner sleeps better, your relationship improves.
00:12:26
chrisyzen
everybody's happy so you're like oh my god this is the best thing ever no what was the best thing ever is giving a damn about your health and taking care of your health and again you yeah that's amazing that people are doing that the problem is and I've i've made this mistake many a time with plant-based with keto and carnivore and whatever else and this is why I'm trying to save you all that trouble and hassle is
00:12:56
chrisyzen
that when you move to extremely suboptimal standard western diet to less suboptimal whatever low carb keto blah blah blah carnivore plant based you are gonna improve for a while and then when when you've kind of reach the plateau in terms of improvements then it's you're you're gonna start going down it's it's slow downhill with plant-based it's gonna be ah nutritional deficiencies a lot of oxalates and plant toxins and stuff like that or too much fiber feeding the wrong bacteria causing gut gut dysbiosis whereas with carnivore
00:13:40
chrisyzen
or high-meat diet or low low-carb diet, you're going to have all this degenerative action of cortisol, sleep problems, you're going to have... um the the there's ah there's other much longer term issues like the fact that a carnivore diet with all the phosphate in the meat, will actually leach calcium from your bones. the The fact that there's certain amino acids in meat that if not balanced correctly the way we we do with my clients, then you're going to predispose yourself to to the inflammatory effects of ah of those amino acids. And some of these amino acids like methionine
00:14:21
chrisyzen
In animal studies, they shorten lifespan and when you restrict methionine, for example, you extend lifespan and those animals become pretty damn resilient, they can't get um fat and stuff like that, even if you increase their calories. So there are certain amino acids that are too abundant in meat, also iron is too abundant in meat.
00:14:42
chrisyzen
Right, so if you don't know how to balance and ameliorate some of these negative effects you could be in trouble This is why I do not recommend carnivore diet long term