Extract:
Ray Peat's ideas are unorthodox, thought provoking, and awesome.
No matter what your criticism of him, he is doing his own thing, which I respect. Having said that, it doesn't mean that I didn't think some of his nutritional recommendations were completely batshit insane upon first glance.
I could not even begin to grasp [Peat's decisions] until I remembered a [fasting] technique that Dr. Datis Kharrazian uses to "unwind" insulin resistance in his patients:
What's with the maple syrup you ask?
In an interview with Jimmy Moore, Dr. Kharrazian explains that having a constant flow of glucose is an important part of supporting the glucuronidation pathway, which needs to be in working order to inactivate "used up" estrogen in the liver and brain. The simple sugar boosts the patients glucuronic acid levels enabling them to clear out their "old" hormones.
I have an immense amount of respect for Dr. Kharrazian. If the first thing he does with his insulin-resistant patients is feed them sugar-water, then there is more to insulin resistance than I originally thought. In other words, if up-regulating glucuronic acid is the starting place in reversing insulin resistance for Dr. K's patients, then Ray Peat may not be so crazy after all.
Peat believes that estrogen, cortisol, and adrenaline, in unfavorable amounts, are the hormonal culprits behind bad health. Peat has numerous, highly referenced articles presenting evidence for his theories.
Peat's idea that simple sugars are benign and even beneficial is fascinating. It makes me wonder if those of us who do poorly on low-carb paleo diets have some kind of glucuronic acid deficiency.
