The Carnivore Diet [Science Explained]

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References:
[1] DOI: 10.1093/cdn/nzab133

********CRITIQUES, RULES, AND NOTES********

Critiques of my work are welcome! Please be aware of the following notes & rules before submitting critique:

Be mindful that this content is not all encompassing on the subject at hand and is self-limited for brevity to reach a wider audience. Also be aware that I receive hundreds of YouTube comments per day, so the only way your critique can be considered is if you follow the steps outlined below. Finally, YouTube auto-deletes links, so I do not see most comments with links attached.

RULES:
If your comment is rude, you will be banned without warning.
If your comment is not about the studies/topics at hand (i.e. extending to other outcomes not discussed) or offers critique with no scientific basis, your comment will be ignored.

If you can follow these rules, I will try to address your critique and if there is merit, I will add an AMENDMENT to the content in question and pin it so everyone can see it.

Disclaimer: None of the information provided by this brand is a replacement for your physician's advice. This brand is information for the sake of knowledge and the options of choice it provides, not in any way a personalized prescription. Please consult your physician before making any health related changes.

[Physionic]

You can find me in my bunker, hiding. 😋

[chargermopar]

Next month marks 40 years since I started the carnivore diet. Should I change now? Why would I want to change? Feeling great with no chronic health issues. Am I worse off that the SAD dieters, or the vegans? You be the judge.

[alexxxisbatman]

I’ve been enjoying and appreciating this channel for a long while but I have to say it’s gotten significantly more interesting since you’ve started putting more of your personality in the videos.

[anielyantra]

I agree with you. There needs to be studies done in a scientific way on the carnivore diet. The problem is funding. None of the food manufacturers will fund a study that shows their products inferior. Same goes for the drugs companies. Why would they fund a study that shows their pills to be barely useful to a select few? Same goes for the medical profession.

[kereamohau]

I can tell you this much when I tried carnivore for a month.

I lost a lot of weight. Everyone noticed. It was the lightest I've been in 10 years.

But I never felt that great. I could feel my pulse through my head when I was in bed. Problem turned out to be low electrolytes.

I also felt that it wasn't sustainable as I was dying to eat some vegetables or rice.

If you can stick to it then best of luck to you. But for me, I wouldn't be able to keep up for the long run.

[Machine_State]

When you have persistent health problems that you have tried to get rid of for years or decades and all of them sort of just vanish with a diet, it's powerful. Removing everything and going to a very basic limited set of inputs is a strong troubleshooting move, it will quickly show you if your problems come from diet. Then you can in a more relaxed time-frame re-introduce elements to see if they're ok.

[marcosadelino]

Very funny that you ask anyone who disagrees to stop watching 😂. But really, there are a few unbiased long term experiments (apart from the Minessotta study). They are called glaciations. There would be no native americans if we needed to eat plants.

[kylecurryyt]

Anecdotal evidence in favor of a carnivore diet:

I was eating well, NOT eating the standard American diet, for years and still had a number of health issues. Switching to carnivore (from an already very healthy balanced diet of almost exclusively organic foods including meats and plants) instantly resulted in healing of some of my chronic health problems such as acid reflux, acne, and joint pain.

My sleep improved as well and I dropped 9 pounds in a week with no calorie restriction—eating as much as I was hungry for. When I say symptoms of my health issues went away INSTANTLY I mean within three days. I also noted an increase in muscle and strength without additional workouts. Others also asked me “have you been working out more?” No, the same. And yet I’m stronger.

After a week of pure carnivore I lacked energy for high intensity workouts though so I added back some small amount of fruits, honey and occasionally vegetables. No grains or legumes. Still feeling great more than a year and a half later. Lots of energy for exercise. I wish I had eaten mostly meat for my whole life…I’m 60.

So I am very happy to be mostly carnivore and feeling great. Every time in the last year that I have “cheated” as in Thanksgiving meals or Christmas meals with, or a birthday party, I feel like crap the next day. Sticking with mostly meat.

This is only my experience and not to be construed as advice for others.


Side note: In the late 1970s, as an athletic teenager, I gave up eating eggs and most meat, switched from butter to margarine, switched from drinking milk to drinking soy milk, switched from cooking with lard and butter to cooking with seed oils — all of this because of the advice given by the mainstream medical system. About 20 years later started to research diet intensely and realized that the for profit medical system had lied to me about everything related to diet.

[Kentavious]

I appreciate your pragmatic look at the carnivore diet. I've been a carnivore for about 9mos now. When I retired at 62 I decided to try and regain my health and so I tried being a vegetarian for about 6mos but that yielded zero results, in fact I felt even worse, so then I decided to do Keto. The Keto diet had "some" results but nothing miraculous. Still though, I continued with Keto for almost a year stones! Apparently all the supposed "healthy" vegetables I consumed with both the vegetarian and keto diets had also loaded me up with oxolates which are a major factor in the creation of kidney stones. After two operations on one of my kidneys I didn't know what to eat anymore. I was very reluctant to try the carnivore diet for the very reason you stated here. There is very little data regarding the risks of such a diet which also conflicts almost all dietary advice I've ever heard (not that I ever hear it from doctors). But I did see it as a way to eliminate anti-nutrients like oxolates from my diet. After searching diligently for naysayers, I ended up reading thousands of testimonials of people who convinced me to do a "90 day challenge". I figured after all I've been through, what could it hurt? My friends and family all think I'm nuts but I can't ignore the results. Twenty plus years of lower back pain GONE! Bloating and digestion issues GONE! Depression and anxiety GONE! And so many other things have dramatically improved like my energy level and even my skin. I was even surprised at how quickly my health started improving. I noticed significant changes within the first month and it has gotten exponentially better as I continue. In fact, carnivore works so well that I find it hard to believe. That's why I always click on videos like yours to make sure there isn't some hidden factor that will come back to kill me later! lol!! If indeed that is the case, I will at least die feeling good.😉

[arandomfox]

As someone that's mostly carnivore I'd love for you to expand on all the potential long term risks, I don't particularly care to defend something that might kill me long term if it makes me feel real nice now. Alcohol can give me that as well and I stopped drinking it entirely.

I'm here to find out what in general is the best over-all strategy and so far carnivore is not only easy but it along with dairy gives me basically no issues as long as I occasionally throw in the foods high in what you can't find in eggs, cheese, milk, liver, kidneys & meat. I also go for a lot of mono & polyunsaturated fats, cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil & fish juice be it cod-liver or whatever.
I've been looking to reduce the amount of fats I actually get from meat by going as lean as I can in general.

I know this isn't strict carnivore but I am almost entirely just eating animal products and as far as I know I'm not missing any nutritional markers thanks to the occasional fruit & veg. I seem to function best on minimal fibre & carbohydrates, every time I try to introduce more fibre or carbs I just fail & feel worse even after what should be more than enough time to adapt.

I suppose you can call me an avocado carnivore since that's one fruit that's always welcome. Besides that generally I don't mind a handful of berries or nuts, a couple of times a week.

[pamsmithson]

There might not be long-term studies (apart from our early ancestors), but there are more than a few people who have been carnivores for 5 years or more. I saw one woman who had been doing it for 50 years (and I was amazed that she was as old as she was).

I doubt that anyone is eating 300 grams of protein! I don't think the body will accept that much. Protein consumption usually stays within a pretty narrow range regardless of the composition of the diet. The increase is mostly to fat (yes, saturated), which is also quite satiating. I eat one meal a day on carnivore -- not because I'm trying to limit intake, but because I just don't get hungry. Sometimes I forget to eat that one meal and realize it's bedtime. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for cholesterol, I don't, and never have (even before I considered becoming carnivore), believed that it caused atherosclerosis. It's called "glycation" of the arteries for a reason. The damage is caused by sugar. Cholesterol is part of the body's attempted repair. Association is not causation.

I doubt that the type of studies you want will ever be performed. Who would fund it? There's no money to be made when no pharmaceutical agents are required.

I haven't found a downside yet. I don't even miss the horrible foods I used to love and crave. It's all good. HbA1c is 4.7.

[Mike-rplb]

well done.

Dave Feldman has plumbed the LDL topic pretty hard and put out some great content and research results expanding the understanding of low carb lipidology. A claim, which gives some hope for long term health, is there are no studies found to date identifying increased risk of elevated LDL along with elevated HDL and low TG. This is the pattern carnivores experience. Fueling the body with primarily fatty acids requires more LDLs to carry the fatty acids, so the liver up regulates LDL levels.

Edit: If instead the liver up-regulated LDL to aid in the repair of epithelial damage caused by inflammation, then it is certainly a risk marker...but it is often accompanied by lower HDL and high TG, a different lipid profile than seen on low carb. What it all means is under-studied, but Mr Feldman appears to have some key insights into it.

conflicts of interest: 9 month carnivore, seeing health improvements in many areas

[TheGreatonejah]

No diet is full proof but if people are gaining. What is the problem with it. Personally does carnivore . At this point I lost 50 lbs feeling much better so there is nothing you can say to stop me . Not taking your pharmaceuticals

[GiveMeCoffee]

From what I've gathered with the years, experimenting on low carb diets and all, our body is designed to constantly adapt. Alternating between diets or nutritional protocols along the year has been the best strategy I've found so far, choosing protocols depending on how busy and active I'm going to be, availability of seasonal ingredients, what kind of training and in what volume I will be performing, cycling supplements, paying attention to how I perform and feel. It isn't reasonable to stick to a single protocol and trying to maintain it when we live in a -society-... dynamic environment, everything is fluctuating and not everyone can afford to eat lean meat of ripe avocado all year round, duh.

[nowIsAllWeHave]

After 2 year carnivore diet my CAC score dropped from 57 at the start of the diet to 47 at the end of the 2 year period. Same clinic, same radiologist. I'm 69 years old.

[Biohacker]

Pretty weak argument- but as always time will tell. From one who’s been hard core Keto - now carnivore for 8 years with constant LDL in the high 300’s, HDL 100 plus - TGH 50 minus, small LDL very low, LPa at 10, blood work markers all great, Dexa scans great, CAC score 10. Energy production at 67 equal to my 30, s. No inflammation, haven’t been sick one day in 10 years, able to kick ass at 67 years old- I think I will keep doing what I am doing!! Ps - no TRT- peptides- or any enhancement- just my knowledge to biohack!! Not luck either! Huge fan of your podcasts!!!

[aliceclearmanphd]

Thank you, Nic! I really appreciate your doing this. I'm interested in how the data play out over time. You are such an asset!! I'll be interested in your assessment of further studies with time. For now, I'm just having salmon today because I feel so fantastic, I'm seldom hungry, my arthritis and IBS are in remission, and my bone density is up. Maybe it will turn out that it's the ketone bodies and taurine in my diet that are responsible. And the fact that I'm no longer eating the large fiber content i ate for years. You'll help me figure that out with your work

I greatly appreciate you.❤❤

[MagnesiumAddicts]

Great timing, meaning to get back on this diet as I was much healthier and pain free for the 14 months I was on it.

[YarisWRC]

so you put the diet under the microscope, but accepted the BS on cholesterol without any question? double standards?

[Floridarollin]

I had a bad case of dermititis that unfortunately lasted past 20's with no signs of going away. I consulted not one but three dermatologists about abandoning my treatment plan the to carnivore diet and they all said it the same thing: it's not going to work.

Fast forward a year later, I take 0 medications for my dermitis and eat exclusively meat. I don't have eczema and my asthma disappeared on the diet as well. Acedotal sure, but the doctor visits and lifelong struggle with open gashes and chronic dry skin disappearing worked for me. I now can exercise and live a healthier life without being medicated literally 24/7. A blessing