Do you need carbohydrates to thrive, or even survive? This really shouldn't be a debate anymore, the evidence is overwhelming against it. Humans have not only survived but thrived in much harsher and life-threatening conditions, such as the ice ages, for 99% of human existence… pic.twitter.com/cY3I1a44wd
— Anthony Chaffee, MD (@anthony_chaffee) March 5, 2026
3:24. If our normal insulin was made for carbohydrates, then why is it that we had to make a new insulin for this? In fact, when type 1 diabetics go to a ketogenic approach and they're not taking in carbohydrates, they still need some insulin, especially for protein but the insulin that most matches that protein curve is actually our normal insulin. So they are given the old style insulin that actually perfectly matches that protein curve. So our insulin is designed for protein not carbohydrate.
TEETH & DENTITION
Secondly, our teeth and dentition. Carbohydrates select for certain bacteria that actually cause cavities in our teeth. No animal in the wild eats a natural diet that rots their teeth. If an animal loses its teeth in the wild, it dies because it cannot eat, it cannot function. And so no natural biological diet will cause any species of animals to rot their teeth. So by definition, any food that rots the teeth of any animal is not designed for that animal, and it's not good for that animal. Oral health is a window to the overall health, especially cardiovascular health. And anything that causes tooth decay is likely to cause other issues in the body. And any food that brings about the wrong bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities and rot the teeth is obviously not meant for that animal. And like carbohydrates are not meant for us. We see a clear break in the dentition before and after agriculture. People did not need dentists and neither do animals. Immediately after agriculture, we see jaw formation shrink. We see fallen dental arches and we also see rotting, broken, crooked teeth because we started eating food that was not designed for us biologically and while we can survive on it we are not going to attain optimal health from it. So there are two pieces of hard evidence that show that humans are absolutely not designed to eat carbohydrates. Recently, you'll hear influencers talking about how stressful it is on the body to make its own glucose. It's not stressful at all. Again, this is our natural normal metabolic state. This is the natural metabolic state of humans going back millions of years. It's a natural metabolic state of nearly every animal on Earth. 70% of animal species are carnivores. The protein and fat, and so they run on that, that's what a ketogenic state is. Then herbivores who largely eat fibrous plants, and that's most herbivores, don't actually break down that cellulose into the glucose molecules it's made out of because they can't make cellulase. No vertebrae animal is able to make cellulase. It's the microorganisms in their gut that break down the cellulose, consume the glucose, and as a byproduct release saturated fat. Then those bacteria microorganisms die off and they're absorbed as protein and other nutrients. So while a gorilla just eats green leaves, 70% of what they absorb is saturated fat. 30% from protein, very little from carbohydrate.
5:59. Cows can get nearly 80% of their calories from fat and 20% from protein so again they're running on fat not carbohydrates so if we were supposed to run on carbohydrates primarily we'd be one of the few animals on Earth that does so. So these people try to talk about biochemical pathways, and when you listen to them it's very clear that they've never taken biochemistry. They talk about how gluconeogenesis converts protein into glucose and this could elevate cortisol. First of all, cortisol is important. It's vital for life. You die without it. Look up Addison's Disease. That's an absence of cortisol. It's very dangerous, and people get very sick. But also just because we use cortisol does not mean that we're in a stressed state or that that cortisol is super physiological, meaning above what our body naturally wants. But most importantly the protein pathway of gluconeogenesis is really one of the last pathways that your body goes down in order to generate energy. The predominant energy when you're in ketosis is actually from fat it's ketones. So you take that fat in the form of triglyceride where it has a glycerol backbone and three fatty acid chains along with it. That goes to your liver, the glycerol backbone breaks off, the three fatty acids get turned into ketones and the glycerol gets turned into glucose. So this is happening naturally and automatically in order to generate ketones. You're also generating some glucose as well because some of your cells do still use glucose, generally the ones without mitochondria, like your red blood cells because you need mitochondria to burn ketones. So this is called the glycerol pathway, and this is the primary pathway of energy generation and gluconeogenesis when in a ketogenic state. Until and unless you run out of all of your fat stores, you will not start cutting into your protein and your muscles to go down gluconeogenesis to make glucose muscle and protein are too important of a resource to just waste turning into glucose ammonia and if this isn't converted into urea properly it can build up and cause protein poisoning when you're getting an overabundance of protein that can harm you this is usually seen when people are eating very high protein diets with very little fat and very little carbohydrates.
