Dominic D'Agostino

Dr Dominique D 'Agostino is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the Morsani School of Medicine, University of South Florida, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Human-Computer Cognition (IHMC). After fasting for 7 days, he can do 10 230 kg hard lifting.

Dominic is as powerful as an ox and a good friend of Dr. Peter Atia. My friend Atia, a doctor of medicine, devoted his whole life to exploring the limits of body motor function. The main research goal of Dominica Laboratory is to develop and test metabolic therapies and drugs, including ketogenic diet, ketoesters and ketosupplements, and low toxic metabolic drugs that cause nutritional ketosis and therapeutic ketosis. Most of his work is related to metabolic therapy and nutritional therapy, aiming to make the human body still have excellent performance and strong adaptability in extreme environments. His research was supported by the United States Naval Research Office, the United States Department of Defense, and various private institutions and foundations.

Spirit beast: beaver

Some little-known facts

Around 1995, Domi gave the audio material of Tony Robbins' book Personal Power as a gift to all his college weightlifting friends.

A few years later, two of them contacted him and thanked him for changing their lives.

? After I first invited Dom to participate in my podcast program, all the canned sardines of Wild Planet brand were sold out in Whole Foods Supermarket in the United States.

order

This article may be one of the few materials that can save your life and change your life. At least, it really changed my life. On its own, it can be used as a primary simplified reader of the encyclopedia of ketosis. Although we have seen various dieting methods, ketone supplementation is really different from dieting-there is no need to limit the intake of bacon or full cream. In order to facilitate reading, I have simplified some concepts for laymen. I also wrote down my current regimen here.

basic content

Ketogenic diet: a high-fat diet that simulates fasting mechanism. In the ketogenic diet, people's brain and body will gradually start to use ketogenic food (from stored or newly absorbed fat) to get energy instead of relying on blood sugar (glucose)-this state is called ketosis. This diet was originally used to treat children with epilepsy, but now many varieties have been derived, including Atkins diet. You can achieve ketosis by fasting, dieting, taking ketone supplements, or combining several ways.

How do I know that I have entered a ketosis state? The most reliable method is to use the equipment named Precision Xtra produced by Abbott. It can measure the blood sugar level of human body and the content of β -hydroxybutyric acid (BHB) in blood. Once the measurement result is above 0.5mmol, it can be considered that it has entered a state of mild ketosis. Generally, when the value rises to 1mmol or higher, I will begin to feel that my mind becomes clear.

Reference information: Domi shared information about ketogenic diet on ketogeni-diet-resource.com website, including FAQ, diet plan and more.

"In order to live a long and healthy life, I would like to improve ketosis from mild to moderate, and keep the measurement result between 1~3mmol."

Ketosis state or advantages of ketone supplementation

Fat-reducing plastic

Persuasive anticancer effect

Improve oxygen use efficiency: Dom can be screened twice as long as usual in deep ketone state (from 2 minutes to 4 minutes). This effect is also reflected in me. Generally speaking, in the case of ketone metabolism, people can get more energy from an oxygen molecule. This is also the reason why some excellent cyclists take ketone drugs. In addition, it can help you adapt to the high altitude environment more quickly.

Maintain or increase strength: In a study involving 12 subjects, Domi proved that even top weightlifters can maintain or improve their strength and performance after two weeks of adaptation to ketone drugs. During taking ketone drugs, the human body will consume 70%~80% of calories from fat (supplemented by medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) and coconut oil), provided that the intake of sugar substances is limited to 22 ~ 25g per day. Ketones have anti-catabolic, protein-saving and anti-inflammatory effects.

Treatment of Lyme disease (an infectious disease with symptoms such as measles and fever caused by tick bites): (Warning: The following is personal experience, not a double-blind experimental result. If all other treatments fail, you can try to enter a state of deep ketosis by dieting (for me, the sign is that the instrument measurement results reach 3~6mmol), and then continue to take ketosis food with limited calories for a week, so it is very possible to completely eliminate the symptoms of Lyme disease. This is the only effective method after I took antibiotics for the first time. Moreover, this therapy has brought me excellent "side effects": my thinking ability and clarity have been improved by about 10 times. I think this is related to the "repair" of mitochondria and the anti-inflammatory effect of ketones. More than a year has passed, and the symptoms of Lyme disease have not recurred, although I have to follow a low-carbon diet without ketone substances for 90% of the time.

Why go on a diet?

Domi once discussed the idea of a therapeutic "clean diet" with his colleague, Dr. Thomas Szeifrid of Boston University. Domi believes that "therapeutic dieting 1~3 times a year can eliminate all possible precancerous cells in your body without becoming cancerous."

For people over 40 years old, cancer is one of the four fatal diseases, with a mortality rate of 80%. Therefore, cleaning and dieting seem to be a wise choice.

There is also evidence (skip the scientific details here) that dieting for three days or more can help stimulate stem cell regeneration, thus effectively "restarting" the body's immune system. Domi suggested washing and dieting 2-3 times a year for 5 days at a time.

Dom tried a seven-day diet while speaking at the University of South Florida. On the seventh day, when he walked into the classroom, his blood sugar value was 35~45mg/dL, and his ketone value was about 5mmol. After the lecture, before he officially ended his diet, he went to the gym again and did 10 a hard lift of 230 kg and another hard lift of 265 kg. Dom was inspired by George Cahill and started his first 7-day diet. Cahill is a researcher at Harvard Medical School. He did an interesting research and the result was published in 1970. In this study, he helped people complete a 40-day diet.

Dieting doesn't necessarily make people feel painful and weak. In fact, a reasonable diet can produce quite positive effects, but first let's see how to do it.

My diet story

Dieting for a long time for the first time is actually a helpless move. Lyme disease tortured me badly. For nearly nine months, I have only 10% intelligence left. My joints are so painful that I have to get out of bed every 5~ 10 minutes. My short-term memory is getting worse and worse, and it has deteriorated to the point of forgetting my good friend's name. Infusion therapy (including drugs, intravenous therapy, etc. ) seems to have no effect, so I decided to withdraw all input therapies, including food. I did my homework, found the highest-rated dieting clinic in America, and then went straight to the past.

The first attempt to go on a 7-day diet made me miserable. In the clinic, we also have our own accommodation standards, but they will be strictly supervised by doctors. Patients are only allowed to drink distilled water. Patients are forbidden to use tap water, toothpaste or even take a bath. In order to be responsible for patients, patients are not allowed to exercise or leave the clinic. From the third day to the fourth day, my lower back was so painful that I could only curl up in bed like a baby. The doctor told me that this was a sign that the body was "detoxifying", but I couldn't stand it and asked for a blood test. The results show that the cause of low back pain is that the ultra-high uric acid value is constantly "knocking" my kidney. Because you can't go to the gym (you can't even walk fast), it will take a long time to get ketosis. My body is breaking down muscle tissue, and the liver will convert it into glucose and produce uric acid by the way. Most importantly, because patients can only drink distilled water, almost all dieters (about 40 people) can't sleep because of electrolyte depletion and its cholinergic reaction (such as tachycardia when trying to fall asleep). However, I also found the added benefit of dieting: after a few days, my long-term skin problems disappeared, and so did my chronic joint pain.

When I woke up on the morning of the seventh day, I found my protective tooth Tori covered with blood. I have been dreaming about eating strawberry shortcake (this is not a joke). In my dream, my gums cracked because I chewed too hard. I've had enough!

So, I decided to stop this diet and start eating braised pork (which goes against the doctor's instructions), and came to two conclusions: dieting is interesting, but I won't try it again.

Don't jump to conclusions ... what kind of diet are you using?

In the past two years, I have done many dieting experiments. Of course, I mean serious scientific guidance, not feudal superstition (such as eating chopped cabbage and beets when I end my diet). My goal now is to go on a diet for three days once a month and five to seven days once a quarter. I also want to go on a diet 14~30 days a year, but it turns out that the follow-up recovery of this diet is too troublesome.

The longest diet I have tried so far lasted 10 days. During this diet, I supplemented vitamin C and hyperbaric oxygen (2.4 atm× 60 minutes) three times a week, and detected the body fat content with dual-energy X-ray bone mineral density scanner (DEXA) every 2~3 days. I ate about 1.5g of branched-chain amino acid supplements when I woke up, and about 3g of branched-chain amino acid supplements when I was training. After 10 days of dieting, my muscle mass has not decreased at all. In contrast, during the previous 7 days of dieting, I lost nearly 12 Jin of muscle.

What caused this difference?

First of all, during this diet, I will take a small amount of branched-chain amino acid supplements every day and eat 300~500 calories of pure fat.

Secondly, in order to prevent muscle atrophy, I always supplement ketones at the first time. Now I don't supplement it every 3-4 days, but every 24 hours. The more frequently you take ketosis, the faster you will get ketosis. The reason seems to be that biological "muscle memory" is related to something I don't know, such as monocarboxylic acid transporter. Dieting is the key, which is why Johns Hopkins needs patients to go on a diet from the beginning when they use ketone body drugs to treat children with drug-resistant epilepsy.

The following is my three-day diet treatment plan from Thursday dinner to Sunday dinner every month according to my own situation:

Plan to call on Friday, Wednesday and Thursday. Determine how you plan to use four hours of mobile phone talk time to ensure work efficiency. This is very important.

Have a low-carbon dinner around 6 pm on Thursday.

Get up as late as possible on Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. The purpose is to let sleep get rid of some work for you.

Take ketone supplement or medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) supplement immediately after waking up, three times a day, with an interval of 3 to 4 hours. The main supplements I take are ketocanadone supplements and octanoic acid (C8), such as brain octane oil. Ketone supplements can help your body "fill the void"-in the first 1~3 days, you may have various symptoms caused by carbohydrate deficiency. Once you enter a state of deep ketosis and start to consume body fat, these ketone supplements can be omitted.

Take some caffeine on Friday (including Saturday if necessary) and get ready to go for a walk. Don't go out for 30 minutes after waking up I usually take out a liter of cold water or a bottle of Smartwater mineral water from the refrigerator, add a little pure lemon juice without sugar to calm the taste buds, add a little salt to prevent pain and muscle spasm, and then take it out. I will talk on the phone (or listen to podcasts) while drinking water while walking. After drinking water, refill or buy another bottle, add a little salt, and then continue to drink on foot. This is a brisk walk, not strenuous exercise. The key is to keep hydrating. Some of my friends like running or doing high-intensity strength training. Doing so will not enhance the effect of dieting, so I won't go into details. I said to them, "walk as fast as possible and replenish water for 3-4 hours." I'm sure that if you do this, your ketone value will reach 0.7mmol the next morning. " As a result, a friend of mine did as I said, and sent me a text message the next morning saying, "God, it's amazing, 0.7mmol."

Dieting every day, you can eat your favorite ketone food or fat (such as tea or coffee with coconut oil, up to 4 spoonfuls). I usually reward myself with an iced coffee with a little coconut cream every afternoon during my diet. To tell the truth, sometimes I just have a pack of seaweed slices-it's too extravagant!

On Sunday night, the diet is over and you can start eating. For a diet that lasts more than 14 days, you need to think carefully about how to fast. But for a three-day diet, I don't think it matters much what I eat after dieting. I used to eat steak, salad and greasy burritos. From an evolutionary point of view, it is unreasonable for a hungry guy to find some chopped cabbage or something to satisfy his hunger. He eats whatever he finds.

Once you suffer from ketosis, how can you keep this state without dieting?

In short, eat a lot of fat [consumption = body weight (kg) × 1.5 ~ 2.5g] every day, try not to eat any carbohydrates, and eat a proper amount of protein [consumption = body weight (kg) × 1 ~ 1.5g]. Let's take a look at Dom's classic recipes later, but first you should pay attention to the following points:

A high-protein and low-fat diet has no effect. The liver will convert excess amino acids into glucose, thus terminating the ketogenic effect and continuing to play its role. You need to make 70%~85% of your total calories come from fat.

But that doesn't mean you have to eat rib eye steak all the time. A piece of chicken breast is enough to stop your ketosis, but cutting it up, mixing it with green leafy vegetables, adding a lot of olive oil and goat cheese, and adding some bullet-proof coffee [1] (just to give an example) can keep your ketosis. One of the difficult problems of ketosis diet is how to get enough fat to maintain ketosis. Roughly speaking, you need to make 70%~85% of your total calories come from fat. Domi didn't try to incorporate the "fat bomb" into all foods (if you eat greasy steak, eggs and cheese repeatedly, everyone will get tired), but drink fat between meals (for example, make coffee with coconut milk instead of water).

Domi found that dairy products can cause lipid metabolism problems (such as increasing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol), so he began to minimize the intake of food such as cream and cheese. I've had the same experience, although it's easy to eat a lot of cheese to keep ketosis. Consider drinking coconut milk. For Domi, as long as there are no abnormalities in other blood indicators (such as the increase of C-reactive protein content and the decrease of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol), he is not worried about the increase of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Dom put it this way: "What worries me most is triglycerides. If triglycerides rise, it means that the body has not adapted to the ketone diet. When some people limit their calorie intake, they will also have the problem of elevated triglycerides. If this happens to you, it means that the ketone diet is not suitable for you ... this is not a one-size-fits-all diet. "

* * *

These contents are all preface. This is Dom's recipe. Please remember that his weight is about 100 kg, so the following recipes are made according to his weight.

breakfast

4 eggs (boiled with cream and coconut oil)

? 1 canned sardines overflowing with olive oil

? Half a can of oysters (the brand of Crown Princess, whose label indicates that the carbohydrate in the can comes from phytoplankton and does not contain blood sugar).

? Some asparagus or other vegetables

lunch

Instead of a formal lunch, Domi will consume a lot of medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) supplements, mainly MCT nutrient solution. He will also make a pot of coffee with half a slice of butter and 1~2 spoonfuls of MCT nutritional powder, and drink a few mouthfuls from time to time every day, which is equivalent to about 3 cups of coffee.

dinner

"One of the tricks I learned is to serve a bowl of soup at the front of dinner (this is my main meal of the day), usually broccoli cream soup or mushroom cream soup. I will use high-purity coconut milk instead of milk cream. If I dilute it (with water), the heat will not be so high. After eating this, I want to eat almost half. "

Dom's dinner has always been some kind of big salad, which usually includes:

? A mixture of green vegetables and spinach

? Extra virgin olive oil

? globe artichoke

? avocado

? Medium chain triglyceride oil

? A small amount of parmesan or goat cheese.

? Appropriate amount of chicken, beef or fish, the total amount is about 50 grams. If he has training that day, he will choose foods with high fat content and increase the protein content in the salad to 70-80g.

Besides salads, Domi will make some other vegetables with cream and coconut milk, such as Brussels sprouts, asparagus and cabbage. He regards vegetables as a "fat slow-release system".

Formula of ketone ice cream

Domi's "ice cream" formula contains about100g of fat, or 900 kcal. If the fat content in your diet is insufficient, this ice cream can make up for it (remember that the contribution from fat should reach 70%~85% of your total calorie intake every day! )

? Two cups of sour cream or unsweetened coconut oil (not coconut milk)

? 1 spoon dark chocolate cocoa powder

? 1~2 pinch a small amount of sea salt (my favorite is flaky sea salt)

? 1~2 pinch a little cinnamon

? A little stevia (Dom bought a lot of organic stevia)

? Optional ingredients: Add 1/3~ 1/2 cups of blueberries if Domi hasn't eaten carbohydrates all day or has been trained.

Stir all the above ingredients into a thick custard, and then put it in the refrigerator until the mixture is as solid as ordinary ice cream. Take it out and eat it, either directly or by adding extra ingredients:

? Make whipped cream with rich cream (preferably full cream) and a little stevia.

? Sprinkle a spoonful of heated coconut oil (especially when there are blueberries in your "ice cream") and stir. This can make ice cream taste like chocolate chips.

According to the weight of Dom 100 kg, he needs to consume about 300 grams of fat every day in the case of ketone diet. The dessert above can help him solve the problem of insufficient fat intake, and it is also delicious. Dom's wife doesn't eat ketone, but even she likes this dessert.

Advice for vegetarians

"MRM features protein-this series of chocolate mocha is great. If you take about a spoonful of mocha powder, mix it with coconut milk, add half avocado, and then pour in some medium-chain triglyceride oil, such as caprylic acid, then you will get an ideal ketone milkshake, 70% of its calories come from fat, 20% from protein, and 65,438+00% from carbohydrates. "

Preferred supplement

MCT nutritional powder and coconut milk nutritional powder.

? Bone soup (2~3 times a week).

? Idebenone. "This is another supplement that I will take before flying or intensive training (the dose is 400 mg). I regard idebenone as a substitute for coenzyme Q 10. It is easier to absorb and reach mitochondria, just like a mitochondrial antioxidant. "

? Take magnesium every day. "magnesium citrate, magnesium chloride and magnesium glycinate ... in the past, whenever I started a ketone diet, there would be symptoms of muscle spasm. Now that magnesium has been supplemented, this problem has never happened again ... If you can only choose one magnesium supplement, then I will choose magnesium citrate powder. "

? Branched chain amino acids. Among them, leucine, isoleucine and valine are mixed in the ratio of 2∶ 1∶ 1, and leucine is the most important branched-chain amino acid in the formula. "Leucine is a powerful activator, which can act on the target protein of rapamycin (mTOR, a protein beneficial to human body). Activating the target protein of rapamycin in skeletal muscle is very important for short-term training. I will use this product before and during training. "

? Ketone sports food Ketone Kana and Ketone troops.

? Pruvit KETO//OS, a creamy ketogenic supplementary food, tastes great.

? Kegenix is more like a carbonated drink with a stronger taste.

Pruvit and Kegenix are both produced on the basis of the patent of BHB+ MCT supplement developed by Domi Laboratory, and the patent belongs to the university where he works.

More information about dieting and cancer treatment

Domi said: "Dieting before chemotherapy should be a necessary stage of tumor treatment." He added: "In essence, dieting can slow down (or even prevent) the rapid differentiation of cells, trigger an' energy crisis', and make cancer cells lose their resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy." There are many research results to confirm this statement.

A friend of mine has advanced testicular cancer and has recovered now. Other patients with chemotherapy at the same time need to stay in bed for 2~3 days after chemotherapy, while he dieted for 3 days before chemotherapy and ran 16 km the next morning after chemotherapy. As mentioned above, dieting makes cancer cells sensitive to chemotherapy and helps normal cells resist the toxicity of chemotherapy. This method is not suitable for all patients, especially those with extremely worsening cancer (patients with muscle atrophy symptoms), but it is effective for many patients.

Some selective receptor modulators (SARMs) are helpful for patients with malignant lesions. The purpose of taking selective receptor modulators is to stimulate the tissue production ability of testosterone (and other anabolic steroids) while avoiding the production of androgen (secondary hormone increase). Domi is also studying the use of branched-chain amino acids. By increasing the content of branched-chain amino acids in ketone diet suitable for mice, he improved the survival rate of mice carrying cancer cells by about 50%. Moreover, as he expected, these animals can keep their weight.

In one study, Dr. Domi, Dr. Szeifrid and other scientists tried a combination of ketone supplements and hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat mice with severe metastatic brain cancer. As a result, they increased the average survival time of mice from 365,438+0.2 days (the result of the normal diet group) to 55.5 days. With regard to the specific operation of hyperbaric oxygen treatment scheme, Domi's way is to treat for 60 minutes every day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with 2.5 atmospheres. Including the process of pressurization and decompression, each treatment lasts about 90 minutes.

Even in the worst case-for example, the patient has been intubated and his life may end at any time, we can still try to supplement ketones with intravenous glucose. Because it has been proved that exogenous ketones can obviously inhibit tumor growth or shrink tumors, even if patients ingest carbohydrates during treatment. This last sentence is especially important to me.

If you think the ketonic diet is too complicated, you can also take out the ketonic tonic, dig a spoonful into the water and swallow it in one gulp.

Five things to do in advanced cancer

If Dom is diagnosed as terminally ill, such as advanced malignant glioma (a malignant brain tumor), then he will do the following five things.

Some of Domi's colleagues are opposed to "standardized" treatment programs, such as chemotherapy. According to the previous data, Domi thinks that these treatment schemes are reasonable in some cases, especially for testicular cancer, leukemia, lymphoma and stage I and II breast cancer. In addition, he believes that "the use of currently known chemotherapy methods to treat cancer has little effect."

The five things of Domi seem to overlap, that is to say, there will be synergy when they practice together, and the sum will be greater than the sum of all parts, that is,1+1+1=10, which is not equal to 5.

Ketone diet: as a basic therapy. This is the foundation.

Intermittent fasting: only eat one meal during the best working hours of 4 hours a day.

Supplementing ketone food 2~4 times a day: His goal is to increase his BHB level from 1mmol to 2mmol by the above two methods, exceeding the baseline. In other words, if Atkins' diet plan is adopted and he only eats one meal a day, then his BHB level is about 1.5mmol, and on this basis, ketone food is supplemented to increase it to 2.5~3.5mmol. The simplest way is to eat MCT nutritional powder. By combining various methods, we can "approach the ketone value standard of soldiers" Compared with nutrient solution, MCT nutritional powder can improve your endurance by 2~3 times, so you can eat more nutritional powder.

Metformin: He will titrate the daily dose (low at first, then slowly increase) until he feels gastrointestinal discomfort (diarrhea or reflux), and then slowly reduce the dose. This will allow him to get his own threshold online. For most people, this upper limit is in the range of 1500~3000 grams per day.

Dichloroacetic acid (DCA): For some reasons that are not fully understood, in some cases, a certain dose of dichloroacetic acid which is relatively harmless to normal cells can kill cancer cells. Domi's initial dose is 10mg/kg (his weight is 100kg), and then gradually increases, and finally reaches the level of no more than 50 mg/kg. When the dose reaches this level, you will feel the symptoms of peripheral neuropathy [thiamine (vitamin B 1) can inhibit neuropathy]. The dosage used in clinical trials is about 20 mg/kg body weight. Taking dichloroacetic acid seems to be suitable for all diet schemes, including high carbohydrate diet.

I once asked another trusted doctor of medicine the same question: "What would you do if you had a terminal brain tumor?" I didn't tell him DOM's answer. The following is an anonymous answer from the medical doctor.

If I have a malignant brain tumor, I will do this:

1. No radiotherapy;

2. adopt a ketosis diet with calorie restriction and eat exogenous BHB；; Meanwhile;

3. Take metformin 2 ~ 2.5g daily.

4. take dichloroacetic acid;

5. Adopt hyperbaric oxygen treatment scheme;

6. Use appropriate amount of rapamycin regularly.

7. Check the tumor regularly to see if the checkpoint inhibitor (an immunotherapy) is effective.

But I'm not sure I can recommend these practices to everyone.

* books recommended by DOM

Cancer by Thomas Seyford: This is a book that all students are required to read.

Travis Christoffersen's Tripping over the Truth: Domi gave this book as a gift to seven or eight people in the past year or so.

Francis Collins' The Language of God: The Belief of Scientists.

* videos recommended by DOM

Video of alessio Faisano's speech: "The human intestine doesn't work like Las Vegas: the waste produced by the intestine doesn't stay in the intestine."

An idea Dom wants to promote in America.

Ketone Pet Temple (KPS): The organization will be funded by Epigenix Foundation and is dedicated to helping dogs with terminal and incurable cancer. Their goal is not to provide hospice care for dying dogs. Of course, they care about and cherish these animals, but what they do is not to take dogs away from their owners, but to provide dogs with the same level of pioneering and metabolic cancer treatment as humans.

[1] Bulletproof coffee refers to black coffee with coconut oil, butter or cream. -Editor's note