I talk to a lot of great people on this podcast but this may be the man who really knows this stuff at the deepest level and most qualified to talk about fat adaptation and ketogenic diets & therapies. He has been doing amazing work in this field for such a long time.   Dr. Jeff Volek is a professor, researcher, registered dietitian, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Virta Health. For the last two decades, Dr. Volek has performed cutting edge research on how humans adapt to diets restricted in carbohydrates with a dual focus on clinical and performance applications of nutritional ketosis. His scholarly work includes more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and five books, including a New York Times Best Seller, and he has provided more than 200 lectures at scientific and industry conferences around the world. He’s an all around great guy and someone I admire.   He very rarely does interviews so I was honored to spend some time with him. He is busy running his lab at OSU while also being a co-founder of a major health company I mention a lot called Virta. My company SAPIEN which you can find out more about at SAPIEN.org is producing technology similar to them. They use an app as well as devices like a smart scale to help monitor patients and keep them accountable as well as communicate with a health coach as they reverse type 2 diabetes with diet and lifestyle. We’re doing the same thing at SAPIEN so if you are a healthcare provider or a health coach and are interested in our platform please reach out to us via our site SAPIEN.org   Before we start the interview I want to ask people who have gotten any value out of this podcast to support me by contributing to the Food Lies film Indiegogo campaign. Go to FoodLies.org and pre-order the film or check out the great perks we’re offering like the EAT MEAT shirt, movie poster, and Real Foods coin. We rely on the community to make this podcast and film a reality. I’m seriously on my last dollar here and the post production of the film is slowing down due to budget constraints. I really appreciate the support. You can also click through the show notes in your podcast app to support the film. Thanks, and here’s Dr. Jeff Volek.   http://indiegogo.com/projects/food-lies-post   SHOW NOTES He presented some of his research at the Metabolic Health Summit in Long Beach at the beginning of February Keto is very popular these days but it’s a double-edged sword His interests in ketogenic research are broad including metabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, athletes, military personnel, etc. He’s studying tons of military applications to help them deal with energy, fatigue, recovery, cognitive function, etc. He and Dr. Steve Phinney wrote the great book The Art & Science of Low Carb Living which should be perfect for the savvy nutrition folks listening to this podcast https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Living/dp/0983490708 The concept of carb intolerance What percentage of the population might be carb intolerant? Before the agricultural revolution humans had very little access to carbohydrate Low carb or ketogenic diets are what our bodies were made to run on There’s probably only a small percentage of the population that is tolerant to these refined and abundant carbs in the modern food environment Carb tolerance also goes down with age What’s great is that basically everyone can adapt to a low carb diet and this makes sense from an evolutionary perspective We all have the ability to run on fat but eating a ton of carbs suppresses that   It’s helping to treat diabetes (reverse it or put it in remission), cancer, neurological diseases The preponderance of trials shows low carb diets are superior to low fat diets in a free living setting There was interest and studies in ketogenic diets for weight loss in the 50s and 60s but then we hit the “dark ages” of this research with the USDA guidelines and it was basically toxic to study low carb in the 70s, 80s, and 90s