The Real Skinny on Fat Documentary - Part 3
INTRODUCTION PART 3 LIFESENSE™ PRODUCTS: IS IT REALLY A NO-FAT, LOW-FAT WORLD?
In Part 2 of this series LifeSense™ Products: Learn About the Differences Between MCT OILS, Coconut Oils, and KetoMCT™ Oil, we learned about misunderstandings related to coconut oil, differences between the various oils, and that C8 vs C10/12 matter! C8 is the most potent form of keto oil and also the most expensive. C8 is MCT in its pure, distilled form.
For our readers, learning about differences between coconut, MCT, and keto oil is important. Knowing about MCT C8 is also important. Do not confuse the health benefits of the different oils! C8, of course, is much more ketogenic. But the efficacy of C8, C10, MCT, and C8 MCT are becoming increasingly well known in the scientific community, so much so that they are being developed as drugs for mild cognitive impairment-- as well as Alzheimer’s disease!
While Alvin Berger is not involved in the Alzheimer’s drug development using the oils, he watches the advancements with a fine-eye, knowing he and KetoMCT™ oil (and all LifeSense™ Products), can benefit from the learnings. Read on for a science-based answer to a decades old question: Is it really a no-fat, low-fat world?
Need to catch-up on this blog series?
Read Part 1 LifeSense™ Products: The Purpose Behind the Mission
Read Part 2 LifeSense™ Products: Learn About the Differences Between MCT OILS, Coconut Oils, and KetoMCT™ Oil
PART 3 LIFESENSE™ PRODUCTS: IS IT REALLY A NO-FAT, LOW-FAT WORLD?
Alvin Berger: The C8 is a relatively new form. The MCT's that ... well, this goes back to the 20's really but, they had some popularity in the 60's for digestive help.
Interviewer: The C8's?
Alvin Berger: The MCT's.
Interviewer: MCT's.
Alvin Berger: 8, 10's, and then in the 80's it was a big thing among bodybuilders and that was an 8/10 variety. The C8 is more recent incarnation of this. Maybe since ... maybe like 2010 kind of period. It's much more recent, but much more ketogenic. I also like the fact that it's been developed as a drug, cause I don't have the finances to do my own clinical work, so I can kind of tag along with what I see other companies doing clinically, and then since I know I'm essentially selling the same thing, I could kind of use that information.
Interviewer: So it's being developed as a drug for what?
Alvin Berger: Alzheimer's.
Interviewer: Oh.
Alvin Berger: And also a mild cognitive impairment. What happens is, as we age there's an inability to take up glucose, this is sometimes termed Type 3 Diabetes, and so we age, and this is in normal aging. There's a challenge to take up the glucose and the brain is essentially being starved of energy. In Alzheimer's, at least some types of Alzheimer's, and in mild cognitive impairment, they can show that if they give those folks C8/10, MCT's, or C8 MCT, a big improvement in learning, paragraph recall, something we've done when we were young, at some point in our life where you read something and then you're asked to spell out the meaning of that paragraph. And I like those kind of end points because there's something people can relate to. But what's most striking to me is a study, a more recent study, done with 70+ year old men in Japan, but they were cognitively normal, so they had no impairment.
Interviewer: Right.
Alvin Berger: They gave them MCT oils, it was an 8/10 MCT oil in that case. They gave them a battery of cognitive tests and they showed improvement. When I saw that study, I was just about flipping out because then I was saying, "This stuff should be in every nursing home."
Interviewer: Right.
Alvin Berger: We should all just start taking this stuff. It doesn't harm anything, it just gives us energy, possible cognitive benefits, and what I experienced in my personal life is I call it the super multi-tasking mode. So when I take either MCT's or exogenous ketone bodies and I go down into my office and I work with two different computers, each with two screens, like a little madman running between these computers. So I feel, particularly for someone my age to still feel that level of sharpness and that ability to multitask effectively, that I derive those benefits from these ketogenic fats.
"I was just about flipping out because then I was saying, ‘This stuff should be in every nursing home.’"
Alvin Berger on 8/10 MCT oil being tested on 70+ year-old men.
Interviewer: It's remarkable and it's really interesting to hear about the C8 and, like you said, the research that's going on right now. When do you think this drug will come into the marketplace? Do you have a sense?
Alvin Berger: I don't actually know.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Alvin Berger: They tried to develop it as a clinical food and then they got into some problems with regulatory and then it's become a drug. So I'm not actually sure of that. That was acquired by Nestlé so it's going to be a Nestlé product.
Interviewer: And you worked for Nestlé for many years?
Alvin Berger: I did work for Nestlé.
Interviewer: In Switzerland, right?
Alvin Berger: In Switzerland.
Interviewer: Very close to where I was born.
Alvin Berger: That's right, that's right, in, I worked in Vers-Chez-les-Blanc which is the [Nestlé] research center, seven years.
Interviewer: It's fascinating.
Alvin Berger: Yeah.
Interviewer: When you think about the European diet versus the American diet and one observation that I had growing up in Europe was just a love for cheese, high fats, taking the cream off the milk. I was born in Switzerland, I thought I was ... I mean, this is what a little kid thinks, but I thought I was born out of one of the holes in Swiss cheese. I ate so much Swiss cheese all the time and never was ever told to hold back and I didn't know what non-fat and low-fat was-
Alvin Berger: That's right.
Interviewer: -until I came to this country and the other big sort of shock when you come to this country from a European country is, especially in the 80's and 90's, you look and you see the disparity in weight and more than 60% of this country is either overweight or obese. For you, as someone who did so much research here in this country and then lived in Europe and did that work, what is your perspective on the low-fat, no-fat, that whole world.
Alvin Berger: I think we could all agree that the low-fat is a failed experiment in the US. What did it really lead to? It led to more obesity, more diabetes, more insulin resistance, more metabolic syndrome. It's hard to find anything really positive to say about the low-fat craze because what did it really accomplish is people ate less fat, they started eating more high carbs, the foods and everything had more sugar, since they no longer had the filler fats to get flavor. More insulin was needed, people weren't exercising anymore, and then their bodies just make the fat anyway. That's what happens, right? Excess sugar goes to acetyl CoA, lipogenesis[1], you make fat, you make saturated fats and then it gets stored in adipose, so it was really a failed experiment.
"I think we could all agree that the low-fat is a failed experiment in the US. What did it really lead to?"
Alvin Berger, PhD, Co-founder of LifeSense™ Products
But, to your point about Europe. You asked me before about hedonism. Having spent over seven years there, people eat well but I see people laughing when they're eating and relaxing. I don't see all this counting of things with the same rigor and they're healthier and they exercise. As a person with a company and I get asked a lot, it's trendy right now to talk about the millimolar[2] level of ketone bodies in your bloodstream? I know the answers to those kinds of question but I don't really want people thinking about it in that way and carrying around strips and things because I think you can be healthy without trying to measure everything like that.
Interviewer: Yes, it's definitely part of the mindset here, you know, just being able to have access to all of the different apps and, like you said, the strips and testing and at the end of the day, once you start to really embrace what works best for your own health, you feel it, right?
Alvin Berger: Yeah.
Interviewer: You've got your two sets of computer screens and you love that and you know that you're cognitively able to focus on maybe a lot more than you would have been able to if you weren't eating your sardines.
Alvin Berger: Yeah, and like you brought up cheese. I also love cheese, but, we're all individuals and I can tell you, I come from a family with elevated cholesterol. Eat cheese, my cholesterol is too high. Take it away, my cholesterol is low.
Interviewer: Right.
Alvin Berger: So I mean, I'm not going to generalize it and tell other people how they should limit their cheese. I can speak for myself. I've done that self-experiment many a time, so I have to limit that.
[1] the formation of fatty acids from acetyl coenzyme A in the living body and especially in adipose tissue and the liver.
[2] A 1 molar (1 M) solution contains 1 mole per litre (1 mol/l) a 1 millimolar (1 mM) solution contains 1 millimole per litre (1 mmol/l)