Transcription
A new study claims to upend everything we know about the carnivore diet. Is that really true that the carnivore diet is so bad? Let's unpack it and see what the data really show. Hi, I'm Dr. Eric Westman and welcome to my channel where I review and debunk nutritional misinformation online. In this video, we're going to hear about the carnivore diet and about data that are published about it. And we'll be sure to stay till the end where you hear my final thoughts.
A brand new carnivore diet study has just been released. And the results are pretty insane. For a long time, carnivore diet advocates such as Dr. Kimberry, Dr. Sha Baker, and Dr. Anthony Chaffy have been ridiculed by the mainstream for promoting what was often labeled as a quote unsafe diet. But this new study, it tells a very different story. Unlike other carnivore diet studies we have seen in the past, this one was far more comprehensive. It examined pre and post-diet blood work with some participants following the diet for over 4 and 1/2 years. So today, we're going to break this study down and look at why it'll change the way many people see the carnivore diet.
So always consider the source. And I've looked at some of Max German Max's videos before. He has to say that he's kind of in the pro- carnivore camp. And so he may say things that are a little more extreme like the internet wants you to do or he may seem to be defending something. But I think he's right that there are new data that have actual blood levels and subjective experiences from people on a carnivore diet. Now let's see what this paper shows. This study was an exploratory human study conducted in Germany. The researchers recruited individuals who were already on the carnivore diet for at least a month and had blood test results from before they started. This is important because it means that the study wasn't limited to the very early transition phase. Instead, it captured the full dietary shift, avoiding the misleading temporary metabolic changes seen in short-term trials.
Yeah. And that's a common mistake as you start reading studies and and consuming the knowledge on your own. If a study only lasts a week or two and there's some big metabolic change that occurs, we call that the adaptation period or keto adaptation or you may hear on the internet the keto flu. Fortunately, it's not as bad as the flu, but and most people don't even get the keto adaptation symptoms, but uh that is a strength that Max is talking about that some of these people have been followed for a long time, and you want to be sure it's more than just two weeks. Sometimes if someone's against the diet for whatever reason, they'll only do a study for two weeks to kind of on purpose show the bad events or or the uh feeling feelings that are bad. But if you can imagine doing a study with exercise, take people who are sedentary and you start exercising them and you ask them at two weeks how they feel. Well, this going to take time to adapt to exercise. So remember that you want to see and evaluate even your own experience beyond this adaptation period.
It makes the results far more meaningful. These results actually reflect how the body functions once it has fully adapted to a carnival way of eating. The researchers collected data in two main ways. First, every participant completed a detailed questionnaire designed specifically for the study. This covered things like what their diet looked like before they were carnivore, how long they've been eating this way, why they decide to start, whether they use supplements, as well as how strict they adhered to a carnivore diet. Then at the end of the study, participants filled out another questionnaire where they reported their real world experience on the carnivore diet. This included what changed for their health, symptoms, and how they felt as a whole. But the study didn't stop at self-reported data. Participants were also asked to provide metabolic blood test results. Specifically, they submitted blood panels from before starting the carnivore diet and then another blood panel taken after they had been on carnivore for at least a month. However, the average amount of time people in the study were on carnivore for was actually 17 months. So, we have pre and post blood work from people that have been on carnivore for a relatively significant amount of time. Now, I really like how this study included this blood work from before and after the diet. This was a major limitation of the Harvard Carnivore diet study that came out a few years ago. In that study, we saw some pretty striking reported outcomes across the board, including improvements in diabetes, autoimmune conditions, and a wide range of health markers. The problem with that Harvard study, however, is that it relied entirely on self-reported data collected at a single point in time. There were no standardized pre-diet blood markers, which means you couldn't actually track how biomarkers changed within the same individual. So, what makes this study more credible is that it allows for tangible withinperson comparison and it's also far more informative than a survey.
Well, that's true. However, we're taking people's word for what they were eating. And you want to be careful about that when you're reading in studies. For example, someone's doing a Mediterranean diet, but they never say what that person is eating. or they're doing a vegan diet, but they don't ever say or Atkins or or carnivore. So, we are relying on the self-report of people saying they're doing it. Now, other studies methodologically include things like ketone monitoring during that time period, which would at least ensure that you're in ketosis during that time. But, so, yeah, I agree. It's it's better than the self-report of the information about the lab tests because you have those lab tests and but you know we're comparing two different types of studies that are still sort of limited in that their sample size is fairly small but it's a start and and I'm going to focus on how this is a start and maybe not as enthusiastic as Max but maybe may let's see how the data pan out because you can directly observe how blood markers shipped once someone has adapted to a carnivore diet. With that being said, however, self-reported data is still incredibly important because blood work, it can only tell you so much. You can have labs that look perfect on paper and still feel terrible dayto-day. Symptoms, energy levels, digestion, and overall quality of life, they don't always show up on a blood panel. So, this study is great because it combines both of these things. In my opinion, this is the best carnivore diet study to date. It certainly isn't perfect. There are some definite limitations, but we'll discuss that later in the video. So, let's go through the results of this study category by category.
In this study, 22 of the 24 participants had a chronic health condition when starting out. Now, this is actually really important context to understand before we even look at the individual markers. The majority of people in this study weren't metabolically healthy individuals experimenting with a new diet. Most of them actually started carnivore because they were already dealing with chronic health issues. Now, the issues range from metabolic and autoimmune conditions to gastrointestinal and inflammatory disorders. Of these 22 participants, 17 saw an improvement or resolution of their chronic health issue. Five saw no change and zero saw a worsening of their condition. Of course, there is the first presentation of the sample size. So, n equals 24 means the sample size is 24. So of course this is limited by the number of people but still that's pretty striking that it's a improvement across the board. Of course the selection of people getting into the study will probably select for people who are doing well. They've continued it often for years. So we might miss out on the people who started and then don't do well because it's the selecting toward those who are doing well.
Now that's pretty impressive. Now, where numbers get clearer is where you look at the objective blood markers for HBA1C, which largely reflects long-term blood sugar levels. There were two participants who started the study with pre-diabetic HBA1C values. Both of these participants saw the HBA1C decrease on the carnivore diet. In regards to systemic inflammation and metabolic stress, six participants entered the study with elevated triglyceride levels above 130 mg per deciliter. And again, six out of six of those participants saw their triglycerides decrease. Now, this is actually very significant. Elevated triglycerides are strongly associated with chronic low-grade inflammation and increased oxidative stress. When triglycerides are high, it often reflects an inflammatory environment where excess energy is being packaged into circulating fat particles rather than being properly utilized or cleared. So the fact that all participants who entered the study with elevated triglycerides saw those levels decrease suggests that the carnivore diet reduced inflammation and metabolic stress.
Yeah. And that's typically what you see with a lowcarb ketogenic/carnivore diet. You get the reduction in triglyceride, the increase in HDL over time.
So this actually makes the study one of the first realworld human investigations to pair a carnivore diet with lower levels of objective blood markers associated with inflammation. This suggests the carnivore diet is anti-inflammatory, which I mean, we've all been saying fears. All the true carnivore fans, they're nodding their heads right now. They knew this was true a long time ago, but it's great to have the data here showing it, too. Now, one thing I was curious about when reading this study was uric acid levels. A lot of people say red meat raises uric acid, which then causes gout. So, let's see if these people in this study actually develop gout. Now, the proposed mechanism as to why people say that red meat causes gout is because meat is high in something called purines. Now the thing with purines is they can be converted into uric acid. But in practice, dietary purines from whole foods like meat have a relatively small effect on uric acid levels in most people. And that's exactly what we saw in the study. The average uric acid levels for participants in this study before starting carnivore were 5.17 mg per diliter and afterwards they dropped down to 5.1 mg per diliter. And there were a total of zero people who got gout in this study. Who would have thought? Uric acid is something your body is constantly producing. The reason people get gout isn't because they're eating too much meat and its high purine content. It's because in these individuals, their kidneys stop clearing uric acid effectively. So, what causes the kidneys to stop clearing uric acid efficiently? You may be wondering. Well, when you consume carbohydrates, those carbohydrates are broken down into glucose or sugar, which enters your bloodstream. Your body then releases a hormone called insulin. This is because insulin's job is to move that glucose out of the blood and into your cells to be used for energy or stored for energy later. The problem is that when this happens repeatedly, especially with refined carbohydrates and sugar, insulin levels begin to stay chronically elevated. And insulin has many roles in the body, it doesn't just regulate blood sugar. Insulin also signals to the kidneys to retain certain substances. This includes sodium and uric acid. So when insulin levels are chronically high, the kidneys reduce uric acid excretion that causes uric acid to build up in the blood and over time it can crystallize in the joints and that is what we know as gout. Now, fructose, one of the primary sugars in fruit, actually makes this even worse because its metabolism directly generates uric acid. And then fructose also rapidly drives up insulin, which then prevents it from being excreted. This is why we see gout rates track very closely with sugarsw sweetened beverage consumption that uses high fructose corn syrup and metabolic syndrome. Whereas gout isn't even linked to meat consumption. On a carnivore diet, your insulin levels become much lower and much more stable. With lower insulin signaling, the kidneys are better able to excrete uric acid effectively. That's why despite a high amount of puring in meat, people don't get gout from eating meat. And it's also why so many people go on carnivore and all of a sudden the gout disappears. So if you have a history of gout and you start a carnivore or keto diet, while this is technically correct that it's not the meat that's causing the the gout, it's the underlying inflammation and metabolic syndrome. If you're starting out, I still do recommend that people restrict their meat and purine, especially seafood. Just let your body start healing itself before you change that kind of recommendation. Eventually, you'll be able to eat those foods without gout because the underlying metabolic condition has been fixed.
Now, another thing the researchers also measured was C reactive protein or CRP as it's commonly known as. This is a wellestablished marker of systemic inflammation. Now C reactive protein is produced by the liver in response to inflammatory signaling and high levels of CRP indicate a higher inflammatory burden on the body. So this is a marker you definitely want low. The typical reference range for CRP is less than 0.5 mg per deciliter. And what's striking in the study is that CRP levels dropped from a median of 0.6 mg per deciliter before the carnivore diet all the way down to just 0.1 mg per deciliter after being on the diet for some time. So that shift actually moved the average C reactive protein for participants in the study from above the reference range to a very low level. That magnitude and discretion of change consistent with a very meaningful reduction in systemic inflammation. So essentially again this study has shown that the carnivore diet reduces systemic inflammation. Again all the carnivores online have been saying this for a long time but it's great to have some data that actually backs this up. Now when it comes to weight loss the results were also very clear. Participants reported significant improvements in body composition. The majority of the participants lost weight, particularly those who entered the study overweight or obese. Now, with carnivore, you're eating what humans are meant to eat. And when you're eating the right foods for your biology, your hunger hormones, they normalize. You eat when you're hungry, and you stop when you're full. And you end up just naturally consuming less food. You don't have to starve yourself. And as a result, the weight, well, it just falls off essentially. In regards to cravings, when you stop eating processed foods designed by scientists to make you want more for only a short period of time, typically 2 weeks or less, your brain actually forgets the pleasure it got from them and as a result, you stop craving them, which again is exactly what the study showed.
Yeah, it seems logical when you look at it this way that you know, you stop eating certain foods, you'll stop craving them. And it's remarkably fast how fast that happens. For most people, it's just a day or two. the hunger and the cravings go away. Occasionally it lasts longer than that, but the worst thing you can do is to give into a craving because that's just going to keep the cravings going. It's kind of like quitting smoking. You have to quit smoking all together. One cigarette a day is going to lead to a pack a day. For you former smokers, you know what I'm talking about. So, you want to stay away from the foods that you're craving and then the cravings will go away. Now, 89% of participants also reported improved energy levels. Again, this makes perfect sense once you understand how your cells function on a carnivore diet. When you're eating lots of carbs on a high carbohydrate diet, your body is constantly running on glucose. Your blood sugar spikes after meals, then crashes a few hours later. And when it crashes, it actually goes below baseline. This is why so many people feel up and down all day with their energies all day long. But on carnivore, fat becomes your primary fuel source. And fat is a much more stable, efficient energy source. Your blood sugar levels stay steady, so your energy stays consistent throughout the day. You don't get the afternoon crashes or the brain fog, just consistent high levels of energy. Again, these results are not surprising at all. Participants also report improvements in mental clarity, memory, and focus. Again, this is not surprising at all when you know what the brain actually needs to function. Roughly 20% of the human brain is made from longchain fatty acids. In animal fats, these are abundant. There's lots of them. But in fat from plant-based sources, there is zero. The human body actually has a very poor ability at converting shorter 18 carbon and below fatty acids into the carbon 20 and 22 fatty acids we require. This is why since humans switched from hunting to agriculture 10,000 years ago, our average brain size has shrunk 11%. And it also explains why vegans are the way they are. Sorry, vegans. I I didn't even mean to insult you there. That I just couldn't help myself. That one right there, it was served to me on a platter. So anyway, my bad. And on top of these essential fatty acids, meat is also very high in nutrients like choline and B vitamins, which are essential for neurotransmitter production and cognitive function. Also, when you remove carbohydrates from your diet, your body also produces more ketones. Ketones are an incredibly efficient fuel source for the brain. They provide more energy per unit than glucose. And they've been shown in studies to improve focus, memory, and overall cognitive performance. So, it makes perfect sense that when people go on a carnivore diet that they report they feel mentally sharper.
Yeah. And that's what I typically see people tell me even on a keto diet, but a carnivore is a subset of a low carb ketogenic diet.
Now, when it comes to strength, 69% of participants reported improvements in strength and endurance. Now, this one surprises a lot of people because there's this common misconception that you need carbohydrates for athletic performance, but that's simply not true at all. Your muscles store energy in the form of glycogen, which is the stored form of glucose, aka sugar. A lot of people think you need carbohydrates because they break down into sugar to replenish this glycogen. But what they don't realize is that your body can produce all of the glucose it needs through a process called gluconioenesis. This is where your liver converts protein and fat into glucose. And studies have shown that once you're fat adapted, meaning you're adapted to running on fats, your glycogen levels are identical to someone who is on a high carbohydrate diet. Even though you're eating zero carbohydrates, your body becomes very efficient at creating its own glucose and it maintains its glycogen stores. On carnival, your body simply makes more glycogen from its own body fat. Which is why many athletes are switching to carnival and why carnival endurance runner Alex Macdonald ran five marathons in 5 days without eating once during this period. Something like this would be basically impossible for someone on a high carbohydrate diet because they don't have this efficiency to replenish glycogen stores from its own body fat.
Yeah, that's something that I've changed through the years. the teaching. Well, in some places still today, you'll hear that a low carb, keto, or carnivore diet depletes glycogen. Actually, the studies have shown that that's not true. So, if you hear that language, it's just out of date. Your body actually does make enough glycogen to be there when it's needed, even when you're not eating carbohydrates. And on top of that, because a carnivore diet is so high in protein, you're giving your muscles all the building blocks they need to repair and grow. And because inflammation is lower, like we saw earlier, recovery becomes faster, so you can train harder. And as a result, you just build more muscle. Overall, when you look at the totality of the data, the results are overwhelmingly positive. Across nearly every relevant clinical marker, both subjective and objective, things look very good in favor of a carnivore diet. However, in saying all of this, to be fair, objective, and maintain scientific integrity, it would be wrong for me to not discuss the limitations of the study because like all of nutrition science, there certainly are a few. For one, the sample size was relatively small, which can make it harder to detect smaller changes in certain blood markers. But with that being said, there is meaningful changes in these key markers, which were observed, and these results are consistent with what we typically see in blood work from long-term carnivores. Another limitation is that a lot of this data was self-reported. This is pretty standard across nutritional research. Importantly, however, the blood work came from certified medical laboratories. So, the actual blood markers themselves, they weren't self-reported, which certainly increases the reliability of the study. The third major issue I see is that dietary intake was not precisely measured. This is an issue that affects essentially all nutritional research. It's basically impossible to precisely control dietary intake in any long-term human study. As in order to do this, you would need to lock someone in a laboratory for years, which I mean, who would want to do that? And you'd have to pay them a large sum of money, probably in the millions of dollars. So, it's just not possible to actually control people entirely and monitor exactly what they eat. And then the final major limitation I've seen is that there was no control group where participants were fed a different diet. However, I would argue that there actually is a clear control group. It's called the general population. The majority of society eats a standard control diet and most people are sick and overweight. In this study, however, we saw the opposite of that. So, I guess in a way there kind of is a control group. Yes, it would have been ideal if there were a few more people that they looked at and things were controlled a little bit better. However, it is close to impossible to conduct a well-controlled nutritional study. So, honestly, this study is basically as good as we're going to get. And in regards to the small sample size, all you have to do is load up YouTube, search carnivore diet blood work before and after, and there are hundreds of people. And in essentially all of these videos, we see the same things that are in this study. So, in a way, there kind of is a larger sample size.
Well, I like his videos. They're they're entertaining and and descriptive. And I think he did a good job of showing the limitations of this study of people who selfcribe eating a carnivore diet. The main limitation of small sample size as the strengths though of the blood work being done before and after. and people who have been on it for a long time by self-report. You know, the grassroots change is that we monitor people. You might have results just like this and yet it's not counted. And then what we do is we put together groups online. There are Facebook groups. There are other groups of people of likeminded and the grassroots movement changes. And we've actually done surveys of Facebook groups of people following low carb diets uh for type 1 diabetes for example. And those have been published in peerreview journals if you get enough people and if you get the verification and validation of doctor's offices or or blood work. And yet the limit one of the major limitations is you're getting this selection bias of those who are doing well. So an important reason to do prospective clinical trials on the carnivore or low carb keto diets in the past is to get an idea. You put a 100 people on the diet, how many will stay on it, how many can do it, how many like it. Right now we select out the ones who can stay on it and it gives perhaps a distorted biased view toward it being better than it really is for just about everyone. So that's that's called basically a a survivor or no that that's called basically the it's called the intention to treat analysis where you take everyone and follow them over a period of time rather than just follow people at a year and see what they look like because you lose people along the way. that can be done relatively inexpensively and I don't agree with Max that this is too expensive to do and there are ways to do this that are relatively affordable in today's terms with the internet and other sort of AI assessments of food intake for example. So, I'm optimistic that this will be on the platter, so to speak, on the plate of studies that need to be done in the future to get more information about how a low carb keto or carnivore diet affects metabolism and health and even longevity. If you like this video, please like, subscribe, and ring the notification bell so you don't miss out on further content. If you enjoyed this video, consider joining our YouTube membership for early access and exclusive live Q&As's with me. Just click the join button below or support us with a PayPal in the description.