The most common questions

I recieve many questions by e-mail. The most common questions are:

- Isn’t it risky to keep away from carbohydrates?

My answer: The body needs a normal blood sugar. If it does not get any carbohydrates (sugar and starch) to the blood sugar, it produces itself blood sugar from protein and fats from the food. This is called glucogogenes. You never get too low blood sugar unless you inject a too high insulin dosage. According to its energy supply the body can use the fat burning. It gets on excellently well with it.

- Don´t you get too high cholesterol due to eating much fats?
My answer: You don´t gain too high cholesterol due to eating fats. The cholesterol which the body needs, it produces by itself, in the liver, if it does not gain enough cholesterol from the food. Higher cholesterol is not dangerous to the heart. It is a myth. See the page by Ulf Ravnskov. There is no benefit to the heart in lowering the cholesterol itself. The Becel advertisement that eating Becel is benefical to the heart, is an everlasting lie. There are no inquiries which prove that eating Becel, or any other margarine is more beneficial to the heart than eating butter.



On the other hand there are several inquiries which prove that eating margarine is harmful to the blood vessels. See Gunnar Lindgren´s page, the section about fats. This even concerns these cooking oils containing high content of Omega-6 like for instance maize oil, sunflower oil, peanut oil etc, they are harmful to the body. The blood lipid lowering medicines, the statines, brings more side effects than benefits. If you eat I the right way, that is less carbohydrates and instead add more natural animal fats; fats from meat, fish and dairy products, the body gets healthier and persons who medicate with statines can probably reduce these.


- The ketosis when you don´t eat carbohydrates, is it dangerous?
My answer: The dangerous thing is the ketoacidosis due to untreated Type-1 diabetes when the person has to low insulin in the body followed by very high blood sugar. Then a highly dangerous, uncontrolled content of blood acidity occurs. At low carbohydrate intake the body burns fat instead. Then ketone bodies establish themselves in the blood which the body in its turn can use as an energy source. This is a completely natural and harmless process. The body than has a normal blood sugar and a normal acid/alkaline balance.


- The milk was not found during the Stone Age, are we still supposed to eat it?
My answer: The milk was not found in the original diet. But it is a natural animal product. It is of a big value in our diet. If it would be excluded, there has to be strong scientific evidences concerning disadvantages to the health. However, there are no studies like that but on the contrary many which have shown that fatty dairy products are beneficial to both our health and weight control. Se the blog insertion: Milk can protect you from heart disease.

- Can children eat LCHF?
My answer: Slim, healthy children don´t a diet strictly low on carbohydrates. It is enough if they don´t eat too little natural fats. It is enough if they have real butter, or the mixture of rape oil and butter sold in some countries, on their sandwich added generously with cheese. Children can eat generously with meat mince sauce and just a little spaghetti. Maybe about 40 energy percents of carbohydrates. Overweight children can eat LCHF as far as they accept it.

- How effective is physical training according to weight loss?
My answer: Physical training is very beneficial to the health in every ways. The body is maid for being in motion, and to work physically. However, physical training is ineffective ccording to weight loss. This has been proved in many studies on both adults and children. However, very much training is necessary to get rid of the energy in rather small quantities of food. You have neither time nor stamina for so much training like this.



Furthermore greatly overweight persons can´t exercise so much as their weight carrying joints don´t cope with the weight and they gain repetitive strain injuries. When they have lost weight, for instance by having eaten LCHF, they gain a completely another possibility and advantage in exercising.

- Fruits are so healthy, are you not allowed to eat them?
My answer: Fruits are a sugar solution, as heavy as fruit syrup or soft drink with occasional swimming vitamin C. Fruits contain no wholesomeness which are not found in vegetables.
Healthy and slim individuals can eat one fruit a day, but ill and overweight individuals ought to ration their fruit intake. High fruit intake can also bring corrosion damages to the teeth due to their high acidity.

- Is it possible to eat a vegetarian LCHF?
My answer: It is getting more difficult the less animal food that you eat. If you eat eggs and dairy products, it can be OK. Even better if you are able to eat fish. If you don´t even eat dairy products, it is getting difficult to gain the nutrients which you need. I can´t advise to it. Then you have to be in touch with a dietician for advice.

I insert a comment comment on my blog from 22 July, 2007:



”I am totally convinced that sugar and starch in second hand is the most harmful to us, they make the blood sugar go by roller coaster, and I like so many others have gone through the half of the life and felt slightly peckish followed buy a constant eating. However, I don´t consider it beneficial to gorge oneself with fats, or on the whole gorging, which some people following this diet almost consider to be a must.



"I am vegetarian and have still succeeded to change over to this diet and have for the first time in my life felt satisfied for a LONG TIME. I eat less, but still feel more satisfied. Eggs (always ecological), whole milk, all kind of vegetables (terrines, gratins, raw food) virgin olive oil, real butter (ecological), cheese (mozzarella, parmesan, cottage cheese, feta cheese, crème fraiche (the fatty variety) are the favourites, fruit (not bananas) at maximum 5-6 per per day (works for me), berries, fungus, much fungus with onion (TASTY!). Hummus to dip sticks of vegetables in or why not on the breakfast eggs, plenty of fresh herbs when cooking and my weight falls down, but am still not hungry. I have accordingly excluded all kind of flours, sugar, rice, couscous, pasta, all potato dishes”.

- How much alcohol am I allowed to drink?
My answer: I usually answer at maximum two glasses of wine per week. More than so you don´t need. Alcohol is not a carbohydrate but it gives energy. The body burns the alcohol first and meantime neither fat nor sugars are burnt.



It is well known that alcohol causes diabetics blood sugar turns, and therefore ought to be avoided by these. Beer contains rather much carbohydrates, malt sugar, maltose. Therefore you shall be especially restrictive with it.



Concerning spirits you have got to estimate a quantity of alcohol corresponding to two glasses of wine. This might be a small glass of it per week?

- I am underweight. What am I supposed to do in order to gain weight?
Some people are underweight. I don´t know why. Obviously they have a poor ability to store fats. Are they likely to have a normal quantity of muscles? I have never heard that these people would have an abnormally poor muscular strength. I think they are supposed to eat a normal quantity of food, for instance approximately 20, 30, 40, 50, 20, 30 energy percents. There is no reason for these to eat a bigger share of carbohydrates just in order to gain weight. It is likely to be as dangerous to the health for these people to eat a high share of carbohydrates, and the health is more important than the weight.


- Is LCHF beneficial during pregnancy and breastfeeding?
I think there are no reasons to be on a strictly carbohydrate low diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding. According to reports, the baby can find the milk untasty when the mother is on ketosis (However I have never heard about the Eskimo mothers having had problems with their breast feeding). I think that you during pregnancy and breast feeding can be on a moderate low carbohydrate diet, about 1, 41-2, 12 ounces of carbohydrate per one day and night. These carbohydrates are then of course the slow kinds. Generously with the natural saturated fat as usual. There is no reason for a big weight loss during this part of the life. You can make up for this later.

- Which differences are there between LCHF, GI and Atkins?
The GI method sets no limit for the share of carbohydrates in the diet. This can mean such a high share of carbohydrates as the National Food Administration recommends: 50-60 energy percents. The meaning of GI is that the carbohydrates give a slow blood sugar elevation.

The terms of GI (Glycemic Index) might be profitable to healthy people, on condition that they keep the quantity of carbohydrates reasonably low. But to persons with the Metabolic Syndrome and Type-2 diabetes a high carbohydrate intake with low GI means – a solid elevated blood sugar and solid elevated blood insulin. These both are likewise harmful to these people. Only if the carbohydrate intake is reduced, their blood sugar and blood insulin sink down to acceptable levels.


The Atkins method as well as GI weight control means a “flying start” with a low carbohydrate intake. Then the carbohydrates are reintroduced in elevating quantity. LCHF means reducing the carbohydrates to an individually adapted level and remain on it for the rest of your life. Neither Atkins says so much about the fat qualities. LCHF says that we are supposed to eat natural fats, mostly the animal ones, and not the food industry’s artificial fats, the margarines. Neither are we supposed eat the cooking oils high on Omega-6 which are maize oil, sunflower oil, thistle oil etc. Neither Atkins keeps distance to all the industrial additives in the food. The Atkins Company itself has produced and sold plenty of products stuffed with chemicals and sweeteners.


- Coconut oil (butter) is often recommended. What is beneficial about it?
Per Wikholm answers:
Literary advice about coconuts:
Eat fat, Lose Fat (Lose Weight and Feel great with the Delicious, Science-Based Coconut Diets), By Dr Mary Enig & Sally FallonThe price is 10 $ on amazon.com, freight added on.
http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Fat-Lose-Healthy-Alternative/dp/0452285666

A quick summary of the benefits connected with the coconuts:

Contains much saturated fats / more than butter


Very low level of Omega/6 compared with other vegetable oils


High share of Medium Chain Fatty Acids (MCFA) with antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal effect (counteract germs, virus and fungus infections)


On contrary to the palm oil the coconuts are growing nearby shores and not in devastated rain forests


A resource sparing way in producing healthy fats. A coconut palm produces between 50-100 coconuts per year


- Diet at renal failure?
I now and then receive question about which diet to be on at renal failure. There is not much research on this. I have even asked Ulf Ranskov about is. At renal failure you shall not eat too much protein, just 0, 02 ounces per 2, 2 pounds body weight every day and night. This makes about 1, 41 ounces (you have to take a look in a nutrition table in order to see how much food it makes, or ask a dietician who can help you to figure it out). This is because the kidneys at renal failure are limited concerning the ability in secreting broken down products.



High carbohydrate intake is also harmful for the kidneys, because high blood sugar and high blood insulin are toxic to the kidney. The only kind of energy that is not harmful to the kidneys is natural fat. The diet at renal failure is therefore LCHF: low carbohydrates, low protein and high fat. Besides, a renal failure patient shall of course not eat more food than he/she needs, as broken down products from excessive foods are to be secreted through the kidneys.

- Are lactic intolerants able to eat LCHF? There are two kind of dairy hypersensitivities; lactose intolerants and dairy protein allergy. When Lactose intolerant (lactose = lactic sugar) the lactose decomposing enzyme lactase is missing. In fact this is not a real allergy. Milk, sour milk and cream are available in lactose free varieties. Hard cheese does not contain lactose. Butter contains 0, 5 % of lactose, and this is as little that it can´t cause trouble.

When dairy protein allergic you can´t eat dairy products, and have to stick to the other natural fat and protein sources. Butter fat which does not contain dairy protein, you can get produce by making “Gee Butter” (the recipe follows below this post). No body is hypersensitive to butter fat.

- Gall stones at LCHF, how does it work?
Gall stones are produced by low fat food. The bile´s purpose is breaking down fat in the small intestine. If you don´t eat fat the bile remains in the gall bladder and the cholesterol sediments itself and produces stones. When you then eat fat, the gall bladder contracts itself and pushes out the bile via a bile duct into the intestine, and then a stone can get stuck in the bile duct and cause a stasis behind it. It is this bilious stasis which causes the gall stone pain.




I have recieved many reports from people who earlier have had verified gall stones, but who now after a long term period on LCHF, when examined are stated to be free from gall stones. You can imagine different mechanisms. Either the stones have left by the bile duct with or without attack of biliary colic, or the stones have been dissolved by the bile which has been flowing around them. But in the occasion that you have so many or so large stones, which causes inflamed gall bladder, you have to remove it by an operation. Then you have to do it, and it can happen to people who are on a low fat as well as a low carbohydrate diet. After having had the gall bladder removed you can still eat LCHF as well. The bile is getting produced in the same quantity without gall bladder.



Some people think that they are troubled with pain and feeling of sickness on LCHF and believe it to depend biliary problems.
These people I usually advise to eat smaller meals with successively elevating fat content so that they feel control over the situation and can pause in elevating the fat intake if they experience problems. So that they may see where they are going.

LCHF effects on Type-1 diabetes?
I often receive questions Type-1 diabetic’s diet (DT1). I have therefore tried to write an insertion about is. Type-1 diabetics also ought to eat LCHF. They have like Type-2 diabetics (DT2) a pessimistic long term prognosis. They are exposed to the same risk for long term complications of all kinds, for instance eye injuries leading to impaired eyesight and blindness, injured kidneys followed by renal failure and dialysis, heart attack, heart failure, stroke, dementia, sore feet followed by amputations etc.


For DT1 as well as for DT2, the high blood sugar and blood insulin levels causes inflammations in the blood vessels and causes plaque and calcification, which then cause strictures and impaired blood circulation.


At dt1 you are also afraid of attacks of low blood sugar, (hypoglycaemia) because they can damage the brain. In order to avoid hypoglycaemia you usually advise the dt1 patients to keep their insulin a little bit low. Thus they instead have to be on a high average blood sugar. If they then are on a diet with a low share of carbohydrates, LCHF, reduced need of insulin follows. If they eat a high share of carbohydrates they have to be on a relatively high insulin dosage. On high insulin dosages the risk of hypoglycaemia is elevating.



If a DT1 is on a diet with low share of carbohydrates, the need of insulin is lowered and then also the risk of hypoglycaemia. The inflammatory effect from high blood sugar and insulin levels is reduced also. There are many examples on elderly dt1s who have kept eating according to the old dietary recommendations low on carbohydrates, and therefore kept themselves healthy up to a very old age.

Richard Bernstein, who is a doctor in USA, has a home page about this http://www.diabetes-normalsugars.com/book/mylife.shtml. He has also written books about it, for instance “Dr Bernstein’s diabetes solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars”.

The doctor Katharine Morrison in England has also written about LC (LowCarb) on dt1. Her son was affected by the disease and have recovered a lot due to LC. She is running an educational site about LC on diabetes: D-solve.


Ron Raab, former president of the International Diabetes Federation, has recently written an article: Why I thing LowCarb/Low Insulin… http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1570767/.

The best to a DT1 is on a low carbohydrate diet in purpose to lower the need of insulin. Low insulin activates the glucagons production in the alpha cells of the pancreas. The glucagons start the glucogenes in the liver. The blood sugar is produced from protein and fats in the food. It is the share of triglycerides, the fat, which can be changed to blood sugar. It is a high insulin dosage which can cause hypoglycaemia, not a low insulin dosage. The brain does not need more than a normal blood sugar with which the glucogenes supplies. The brain has even ability to use energy from these ketones which are produced by the fat burning process.

In fact a DT1 who eat LCHF probably does not need an insulin pump. It ought to be enough with a low dosage of long term insulin and possibly a few units of short term insulin before a low carbohydrate meal.

The most in this blog, is that saturated fat is not harmful to the blood vessels and that a high carbohydrate intake causes arteriosclerosis , and that yellow artificial fat, margarine, and cooking oils high on Omega-6 are likely to cause the arteriosclerosis. All this concerns Dt1 as well as all of us.
Of course the insulin dosage has to be adjusted due to the blood sugar level. When changing over from low fat to low carb you have to be forwards in lowering the insulin, otherwise there is risk to get hypoglycaemia.

- LCHF effects on PCOs?
The link below has been sent to Annika Dahlqvist from Ulf Ranskov:
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-2-35.pdf


A study which shows a psychological benefits for PCOs patients who are on low carbohydrate diet according another link below:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17509728?dopt=AbstractPlus


Mavropoulus, Yancy, Hepburn and Westman: The effects of a low carbohydrate………
Eleven women with PCOs were informed about low carbohydrate diet, less than 0, 71 ounces per day. Five of these women coped with sticking to the diet, and they significantly lowered their weight, testosterone level and their insulin on an empty stomach.

The study proceeded for 6 months. Two of these women, who earlier were infertile, became pregnant. Sten Sture Skaldeman says that among the most common e-mails from the readers of his book, are these from women who tell him that they are improved or recovered from their PCOs due to the low carbohydrate diet.

- Has LCHF any effect on cancer?
Very likely the unnatural fats, the margarines, and the inflammatory Omega-6 oils (for instance maize oil, sunflower oil) have a negative effect on the cell defence against cancer evoking materials. The cell membranes are to a high degree built up on fats, and these wrong kinds of fats are harmful to the cell and disturb its real functions. There are the reasons why these fats increase the cancer risk.

Even many chemicals in the E-numbers run the risk to increase cancer diseases. Medicines, like blood lipids lowering statines, have also been shown to increase the risk in falling ill of cancer. When you once have got cancer the cancer cells are fed by carbohydrates. Namely, cancer cells can use only sugar as their energy, they cannot burn fat.

Otto Warburg got the Nobel Prize already in 1931 due to this discovery. The diet low on fat, with margarines and cooking oils, are able to cause cancer and then are feeding the cancer cells.