Hair Loss on Keto

Let’s say you adopted a ketogenic or low carb diet not long ago. And let’s say some or all of these have happened:

• You lost weight.
• Your acid reflux disappeared.
• You stopped having migraines.
• Your menstrual cycle normalized after years of living with PCOS.
• Your gout went away.
• Your blood pressure normalized.
• Your skin cleared up.
• Your lipid profile (cholesterol, triglycerides) and overall risk for cardiovascular disease improved.
• You reversed your type 2 diabetes. Maybe you were even able to stop your insulin injections (under a physician’s guidance, of course).

  

Basically, keto has been working AWESOMELY for you so far. You have more energy, your joint pain is gone, and you can go comfortably for several hours without food and not turn into a pile of white-hot, murderous, hypoglycemic human rage. (Not to mention, you get to eat insanely delicious food.)  

Everything that’s happened to you since going keto has been great.

Except for just one thing.

You’re losing hair.

Like, alarming amounts of hair. Massive amounts. Hair coming out in clumps. You see a frightening amount of hair in your shower drain or hairbrush every day. It’s so bad that you’re worried if it keeps up, it won’t be long before you have no hair left at all.  

What gives? Is it possible a way of eating that’s been so good for the entire rest of your body is doing damage to your hair?

If you’re worried about hair loss on keto, you’re not alone! This is a common issue—very common!

I wrote a detailed blog post about hair loss on keto for the KetoDietApp site. KetoDietApp is run by Martina Slajerova, who’s authored several keto cookbooks, all of which are pretty fabulous. (Check them out here.)

If you’re wondering what the deal is with losing hair on keto and you want an answer to the most important question of all—will it ever grow back?!—check out my article:

Why Am I Losing Hair on a Keto Diet?

Happy reading!

Disclaimer: Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP, is not a physician and Tuit Nutrition, LLC, is not a medical practice. The information contained on this site is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition and is not to be used as a substitute for the care and guidance of a physician. Links in this post and all others may direct you to amazon.com, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through my affiliate links.

The PCOS Post: Hormonal Havoc From Hyperinsulinemia

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve been plugging away this blog since 2012. It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years, but even harder to believe that in all that time, I’ve completely neglected the topic of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). I’ve written a ton about insulin, glucagon, thyroid hormones, digestion, cancer, and more, but not one word about PCOS, except for a brief mention in this post. This is a glaring omission, because PCOS is a huge issue for reproductive aged women these days, and, no surprise if I’m writing about it here, it’s intimately tied to chronic hyperinsulinemia and metabolic dysregulation.

A while back I wrote about the effect of elevated insulin on men’s hormones, explaining the concept of a “male equivalent to PCOS,” and I didn’t realize that I hadn’t even yet written about actual PCOS. I don’t know how such a huge gap has existed on my blog for so long, but this is being corrected right now. Whew!

I’ve seen online in various places women saying that they’re at increased risk for type 2 diabetes or metabolic syndrome because they have PCOS. It’s actually the other way around: chronically high insulin (basically metabolic syndrome, whether you know you have it or not) is the main driver of PCOS. The reason so few women who have PCOS are aware of this is … surprise, surprise … most doctors are clueless about insulin’s many functions unrelated to blood sugar and they never bother measuring insulin levels.

Women with PCOS are often given unhelpful and condescending advice.  There is a lot of "blame the victim" that goes on with this condition. I sincerely hope this post does not come off that way. That is the very last thing I intend. I have only one goal here: to provide information. Information that can be empowering to women who have PCOS. If you are living with this condition and you feel disappointed by the help you've gotten from healthcare professionals so far, please know that you can take control. You have more power than you might realize. I hope what follows here is helpful.   

This is a long post (some of you are rejoicing now and others are groaning), so grab yourself a beverage of choice, a bag of pork rinds or some string cheese, and happy reading!

Blog Update & the Famous Dr. Westman "Page 4 Diet"

Hey Everyone,

 

Man, I have really been neglecting this blog. I’m very active on Twitter and I’ve been posting videos on my YouTube channel, but the blog, sadly, has been collecting dust. This is a shame for two reasons:

First, even though I seem to be reaching more people with my tweets and videos, writing is, always has been, and likely always will be my first love. I consider myself a writer first and a nutritionist second. I truly like writing, and the beauty of writing my own blog, as opposed to some of the paid “day gig” writing I do to keep my bills paid, is that I get to write about whatever I want to write about, and say things the way I want to say them. I don’t have to answer to anyone, censor myself, or present things in a certain light in order to fit in with someone else’s “message” or brand. Tuit Nutrition is me. My voice, my perspective, and yes, my sarcasm and snark. I start to feel not-so-good when it’s been awhile since I’ve written anything substantial on the blog—something I think is truly educational and helpful for people navigating the crazy world of low carb & keto. Sharing little snippets of this & that on Twitter is great, and I’ve made some important professional connections there, but my blog is where I can really get deeper into things. Write something meaty, something detailed, something to make people think. When I hit publish on that kind of post, I feel a sense of satisfaction and purpose that I rarely ever experience otherwise.

The second reason it’s a shame I’m not blogging regularly is that I know many of you prefer to read, and even though you can hop over to YouTube anytime and watch me talk about any number of keto-related issues, you’d prefer to wait for the next written post. Frankly, my dear readers, I don’t blame you! I, too, prefer reading, and long posts don’t scare me away. My attention span hasn’t yet been decimated to the point that anything longer than a 15-second read gets passed over in favor of a meme with a whopping 4 words on it. (Not that there’s anything wrong with funny memes.) My point is, I know some of you enjoy reading my posts as much as I enjoy writing them, and I feel bad leaving you without something to dig into for such long periods of time. (And I love hearing from those of you who’ve told me you don’t mind my very long posts. Some of you actually like immersing yourself in something a bit more substantial. In that case, we’re a perfect fit.)

With this in mind, I’m committing to blogging a little more regularly than I have been in the last year or so. I won’t commit to once a week because I know myself too well, and I just won’t be able to keep up that pace. But twice a month? I think that can work. And I can’t promise every post will be something of great substance (in fact, I can promise some posts won’t), but I think just getting back in the habit of writing regularly at all will be a good move for me.

Here’s what I have in mind for the coming weeks and months:

A New Look at Insulin, Glucagon & the Pancreas (a.k.a. ITIS part 9)

“Contrary to popular belief, insulin is not needed for glucose uptake and utilization in man.” (Source)

What? Insulin is not needed for glucose uptake? Did I just blow your mind a little?  If so, hang on to your hat. Lots more of that to come.

As I mentioned in my previous post on the personal fat threshold concept, what I enjoy most about writing my blog is that I get to share with you the fascinating and surprising things I learn. And one thing I can say with certainty is, the more I learn, the less I know. It seems like I barely hit publish on a new blog post before coming across a bunch of papers that teach me even more about the subject in question, or make me rethink what I wrote about it in the past.

One subject I’ve learned more about since I last wrote about it is insulin. If you’re new here, I recommend digging into my 8-part series on insulin. If I do say so myself, it’s some of the most important and educational stuff I’ve written.  But you don’t need to have read that to understand today’s post.

If you’re accustomed to thinking about insulin as a “blood sugar hormone,” you’re about to have your world turned upside down.  What I’ve learned about insulin over the past couple of years makes me think that lowering blood glucose might be one of the least important and impressive things it does.

Another very long post coming your way here, so grab a coffee or some pork rinds, and happy reading!

Before you dive in, though, I recommend scrolling way down to the bottom of this post where it says “End.” You might want to spend a while reading the whole thing, or you might not…that will help you decide. 

Watch Me PRESENT LIVE ONLINE on TUESDAY!

Good news, everyone!

If you haven’t been able to make it to any of the low carb or keto events where I’ve presented in the past, you’re in luck …

You can watch me speak LIVE at the Durham, North Carolina low carb support group meeting on Tuesday, March 5 at 6:30pm. Tune in by going to the Facebook page for HEAL Clinics – they will broadcast it live right there on the page. Dr. Eric Westman, Durham and Duke University’s king of keto, will kick things off, but then I’ll be giving a presentation on keto for mental & emotional health issues.

If you and/or someone you love deal with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, mood swings, panic attacks, or any other mental, emotional, or psychological issue, you’ll want to watch if you can. (But no worries if you’re not available at that time – you’ll be able to catch it anytime afterward on the HEAL Clinic page.) I’ll be talking about mechanisms behind why and how ketogenic diets can be beneficial for these conditions. I mean, weight loss? Sure. Diabetes? Old news. Tell me something I don’t know, right? How about physiological and biochemical reasons why keto is a stunningly logical and rational thing to try for anyone dealing with these difficult-to-treat issues?  

It will be very similar to the video I did on this topic for my YouTube channel, but this will be the live version, so hopefully there’ll be some fun interaction with the audience, and I’ll know some of you out there will be watching, too, which will keep me even more energetic and enthusiastic.

More on the support group:

If you happen to live in the Raleigh-Durham area, or within a reasonable driving distance, the support group meets on the first Tuesday of every month at the Durham Hilton near Duke University (3800 Hillsborough Road, Durham, NC 27705). I’m not always there, but I’m there fairly often, and will probably be there more now that I’ve relocated to Durham. There’s a low carb buffet dinner for a reasonable price, but you don’t have to eat; you can just come grab a seat and spend an evening with other people on low carb/keto diets, for free! There’s always a bit of education, some Q&A with Dr. Westman, and often some very inspiring success stories of people who are experiencing the wonderful yet darn near predictable benefits of low carb: fat loss, reducing or stopping their meds for T2 diabetes, total resolution of acid reflux/GERD, reductions in chronic pain and fatigue, improved GI function, restoration of menstruation and fertility after PCOS…y’know, just the regular run-of-the mill stuff that happens to people daily on keto. ;-)

Come in person to the support group on March 5 if you can!

More on HEAL Clinics:

Did you have to learn about low carb/keto on your own? Did you have to fight with a doctor, dietitian, or health coach who told you keto was dangerous, and that you should not eat that way? Did you spend years—decades, maybe—overweight or obese, paying astronomical sums for multiple medications, exhausted, in pain, and generally debilitated with physical and emotional malaise because you simply felt BLAH?

Are you tired of inexperienced people spouting all kinds of nonsense about keto on the interwebs—misinformation that, at best, makes it harder for people to lose weight, but at worst, is actively harmful for people on various medications who need proper medical supervision to implement keto safely? (I am! It’s why I started making my own videos, in fact.)

HEAL Clinics wants to help people to not have to overcome the multiple barriers so many of us might have faced on our journey to finding and successfully implementing keto/LCHF. Dr. Westman is the Chief Medical Officer, and his right-hand woman, the Director of Clinical Protocol, is Jackie Eberstein, RN—Jackie was the head nurse at Dr. Atkins’ clinic in NYC for almost 30 years and she was actually one of Dr. Westman’s teachers! (What, you thought he learned keto all on his own?) Lemme tell ya, dear readers, she is low carb royalty. If you want help losing weight, reversing your T2 diabetes, reducing your insulin needs for type 1, reversing fatty liver, improving PCOS, or anything else keto is a slam-dunk for, there’s pretty much no one with more experience to help you than these two long-time keto professionals.  

HEAL Clinics has two options:

1. If you’re taking certain medications for diabetes, you will need to be seen by one of their medical providers in person to get started. (After the initial in-person visit, follow-ups can be done remotely, I think.) Right now, they have clinics in North Carolina and Virginia, but will be expanding into more states over time. (Note: this doesn't mean you have to live in NC or VA to be a HEAL patient, but you would have to travel there for your first visit.)

2. If you have a relatively “uncomplicated” case and are not on certain meds, you can be seen entirely remotely and don’t have to go to one of the clinics in person.

Learn more about the program here: How It Works

Don’t need help with keto? HELP SOMEONE ELSE! You can actually invest in HEAL Clinics. If you want to make trustworthy, safe, reliable, and effective keto-oriented healthcare and coaching available to as many people as possible—so they don’t have to face the criticism, naysaying, and other negativity you might have experienced when you started out—consider investing so that HEAL can keep expanding. The investment is just that: an investment. It’s not a donation, like it is with a Kickstarter or some other form of fundraising. You will actually own stock in the company. And the sad truth is, with 88% of Americans being metabolically unhealthy, reversing illnesses that are entirely or to a great extent driven by diet is a damn wise thing to invest in. We are awash in a tsunami of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, PCOS, Alzheimer’s disease, fatty liver, and other conditions caused or exacerbated by chronic hyperinsulinemia. Keto can go a long way to completely reversing these, or at least having some degree of beneficial impact.

Many of us can do LCHF/keto on our own, but some people need a bit more moral support, and some need professional medical supervision. For those people—and so that Dr. Westman and Jackie can train more doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other medical professionals so that this kind of care can be available to as many people as possible, consider investing if you have the means. And if you’re not in a position to invest, please let your friends and family know about HEAL Clinics, if you think they would benefit from keto, and you want them to do it correctly and safely.

(Full disclosure: I am a HEAL investor, so yes, I’ve put my own money where my mouth is! And no, there's no affiliate link or anything, so I receive no financial compensation whatsoever if any of you happen to invest. I'm just spreading the word about what I hope we can all agree is a good cause.)

See you on March 5!

Disclaimer: Amy Berger, MS, CNS, is not a physician and Tuit Nutrition, LLC, is not a medical practice. The information contained on this site is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition and is not to be used as a substitute for the care and guidance of a physician. Links in this post and all others may direct you to amazon.com, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through my affiliate links.

Keto & ApoE4

Hey All!

  

If you’ve been around the low carb and keto communities for a while, you might’ve run across the term “ApoE4.” ApoE4 is a gene that increases risk for cardiovascular disease and even more so for Alzheimer’s disease. In fact, if you’re homozygous for ApoE4 (meaning that you have 2 copies of the gene), you have between a 50-90% chance of developing Alzheimer’s. YIKES! That is not something to take lightly, so what’s the deal here? What is ApoE4 and why does it make people so much more susceptible to this frightening form of cognitive decline & impairment? And what are the implications for people following low-carb, high-fat diets? ApoE4 carriers are often cautioned to go lower in dietary saturated fat, but why? Is this truly warranted? Do you have to give up your beloved butter & cheese if you're E4?  

If you’ve heard of the ApoE4 gene and you’re curious about what it is and what it means, or if you know you carry one or two copies of ApoE4, you’ll want to check out my latest video. I cover the basics on what the gene is (it codes for the epsilon-4 [ε4] variant of the apoE protein, short for apolipoprotein E), why this matters, and what to do about it to potentially reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s and the other issues E4s are at greater risk for.

Most of what I know about ApoE4 is in relation to Alzheimer’s, owing to research I did for my book, The Alzheimer’s Antidote, which is about using a ketogenic or LCHF diet as a nutritional intervention for Alzheimer’s and other forms of cognitive impairment. (Didja know they regularly call Alzheimer's "type 3 diabetes" or "brain insulin resistance?" Now you know why it might be wise to adopt such a dietary approach to support healthy cognitive function.) But I would say that even if you don’t have any ApoE4 genes (the other forms are ApoE2 and ApoE3), or you’re not concerned about Alzheimer’s disease, I encourage you to watch the video anyway, because you might learn something that helps someone you know, and there’s a lot of information in the video that applies to everyone, regardless of your genetics.  

For those of you who prefer to read rather than watch videos, stay tuned. I’ll have a blog post on this in a few weeks. It won’t be a transcript of the video, but it’ll include all the same pertinent information and links to relevant research. But in the meantime, if you can’t wait to learn more and you’d really like to get some clarity on the whole ApoE4 “thing,” hop on over to my YouTube channel and watch the video.

For other videos and podcasts I’ve done on Alzheimer’s, covering issues far beyond ApoE4, you might enjoy these: 

• Video: Alzheimer’s talk at Low Carb Houston (October 2018)
• Video: Alzheimer’s talk at KetoCon (June 2018)
• Podcast: Interview on Ketovangelist (one of my best & most informative ever!)

Disclaimer: Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP, is not a physician and Tuit Nutrition, LLC, is not a medical practice. The information contained on this site is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition and is not to be used as a substitute for the care and guidance of a physician. Links in this post and all others may direct you to amazon.com, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through my affiliate links.