#177 Does Keto Cause Insulin Resistance with Dr Ben Bikman

Siim Land (0:00)

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That's kenejais.com. Let's see.

Ben Bikman (1:06)

Yes, it does appear, without a doubt, being in ketosis is, you could, we could call it a state of, a degree of glucose sparing.

And the precise mechanism of that is unknown, but it does, it is clear, regardless of the reasons or even regardless of the mechanism. The body is in a state where it is not burning glucose as quickly as it was before. Not that it can't, it hasn't lost the capacity to, but it just, it isn't. And so if it suddenly gets loaded with glucose, well then it makes sense that it's going to take a little longer to clear it because it's not been burning it.

SPEAKER_3 (1:47)

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Siim Land (1:50)

Body Mind Empowerment.

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Siim Land (1:58)

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Siim Land (2:03)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest today is Dr. Ben Bikman. Dr. Bikman has a PhD in Physiology and Developmental Biology. He's known for his research about insulin, ketosis and Gucargon.

Ben, welcome to the show.

Ben Bikman (2:18)

Thank you, Siim. I am delighted to talk about all things metabolism.

Siim Land (2:22)

Yeah, me too. And you're actually like a very requested guest for the podcast. And I've been watching your content online for quite a while. So it's like about time that we got to talk.

Ben Bikman (2:32)

Oh, well, I'm delighted. I'm honored.

It's my pleasure, really.

Siim Land (2:35)

Yeah, me too. And so, yeah, before we get into that, can you give like a brief backstory as well of how did you get into the kind of keto world and what have you been up to?

Ben Bikman (2:47)

Yeah, yes. My adventures, my journey into the keto world has been somewhat accidental because of my focus on insulin. When I was a Ph.D. student, I was increasingly curious about the connection between fat cells and diabetes, or in a bigger way, the connection between obesity and diabetes. And as I was looking into this more and more, the evidence kept taking me to insulin.

And we were doing studies in lab animals, where we were feeding them the exact same amount of food. And yet, when some animals had higher levels of insulin, because of what we were doing in the animals, we were inducing a state of hyperinsulinemia, or elevated insulin, their fat cells, they were getting fatter. Now, the whole mass of the animal wasn't getting bigger, but the fat was getting bigger, so I was seeing more and more of this very fat-friendly effect of all of this insulin. So, that was the beginning of my, now to this day, ongoing interest in insulin. And the more I was appreciating how insulin was relevant in diseases, the more I appreciated wanting, or rather, the more I wanted to know what lowered insulin the fastest and the best in the humans, because elevated insulin is driving all kinds of diseases, and we can get into that in a bit, but it's also absolutely connected to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is high insulin. Those two things go together.

And the more I looked into the best ways to lower insulin, the more I appreciated the benefit of a low carb or ketogenic diet. And until that time, this is just six years ago, six or seven years ago, until then, I didn't really have an opinion on the ketogenic diet. Or if someone had mentioned a very low carb, high fat diet to me, I would have probably said what most people do, which is, oh, that's not going to be healthy. Although I wouldn't know the reasons why, it's just what everybody says.