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.