http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/beware-confirmation-bias
"according to most of what I’ve read, the Inuit ate a diet made of about 50 percent caribou, 30 percent fish, 10 percent seal and 10 percent rabbit, polar bear, birds and eggs. These are the figures Stefansson quotes, but they are confirmed by others. Both Stefansson and Murdoch, who wrote the ethnology report for the government in the late 1800s (predating Stefansson) reported that the Inuit ate about the same amount of food, in terms of calories, as a standard American and ate the same amount of fat. I’m not sure I agree, but that’s what they reported. I would think they would have eaten more fat.
... I can tell you from many years of experience treating patients on low-carb diets that you don’t have to eat a 70-80% fat diet to go into ketosis. You can eat steak, chicken, lamb chops, virtually any kind of meat along with a salad and a green vegetable and get nicely into ketosis. And stay there for a good while. Ultimately, if you stick with such a diet, you end up ketoadapted and your level of measurable ketones fall.
He even argued against eating too much protein, so as to avoid slowing down the ketogenic process;
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/tips-tricks-for-starting-or-restarting-low-carb-pt-ii/
"keep an eye on the protein intake. Too much protein will prevent the shift into ketoses [sic] because the liver will convert some of the protein into glucose – this glucose will then be used first and slow down the ketogenic process. Which, if course, prompts the question, how much protein is too much? As long as you’re getting your protein from meat, especially fatty cuts of meat, you’re probably okay. If you go for the extremely lean cuts of meat, say, skinless chicken breasts, or if you are supplementing your diet with low-fat protein shakes, you could have a little more trouble low-carb adapting."
Peter of the Hyperlipid/high-fat-nutrition blog recently hypothesized that most of the Inuit (and other Artic/subarctic peoples) "did not develop high levels of ketones," due to a genetic mutation:
The P479L gene for CPT-1a and fatty acid oxidation
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2014
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-p479l-gene-for-cpt-1a-and-fatty.html
Peter: "I have some level of discomfort with using the Inuit as poster people for a ketogenic diet. That's fine. They may well have eaten what would be a ketogenic diet for many of us, but they certainly did not develop high levels of ketones when they carried the P479L gene. ...
Ultimately, point scoring on the internet about what the Inuit did or didn't eat shouldn't destroy people's chances of health. Destroying a circular argument about Inuit diets may [make] the destructor feel good. ...."
Dr. Eades does not appear to agree with this hypothesis:
Michael R. Eades, M.D. said...
"@Tim Steele
You wrote: "I'm not sorry I helped topple a faulty core tenant of the modern day Ketogenic Diet."
Pretty hubristic, I would say. I would argue that it hasn't come close to being toppled by you or anyone else."
It will be interesting to see where this debate leads.
