Does Diet affect Stuttering?

[minnatrix]

Hi all,
For months, I have been thinking about a diet I went on a couple of months ago. It was a diet called the Anabolic Diet. It implements a different approach to losing fat while gaining muscle. The diet called for during the weekdays, a person would eat a 60%Fat/35%Protein/5%Carbs. Then on the weekends, called for a carb load which basically means you would eat a diet that consists of 30%F/10%P/60%C. Your body adapts pretty quickly and starts using fat as the main source of energy instead of running on carbs. Also there have been people who have gotten blood tests before and during the diet and reported that their bad cholesterol was at its lowest ever and the their good cholesterol went up.

Just follow me a bit more and I'll get to the relevancy of this diet to my stuttering. This is small log of my experiences on the diet:

Week 1:
I was extremely tired the first week. I knew my body was desperately craving for carbs. It's mentioned in many sites that the transition to have your body change to a fat-burning body causes fatigue and drowsiness the first week so it wasn't exactly anything that surprised me.

Week 2:
The fatigue was going away and I was no longer drowsy. Originally, I had never been a morning person but I started waking up every morning without being tired but rather enthusiastic. Words flew easily from my mouth without obstroction and when there felt like a obstroction was coming, I remained calm and somehow it left before it would affect my speech. One bad thing I noticed was that my thinking was limited and not up to preferred eficiency which was probably due to the lack of carbs. I asked around and was told to eat fish. It hepled a bit.

Week 3:
I felt the limited brain functions were going away a little but they were nowhere near completely restored. I have not stuttered for a while. I began to think that it might to be the fact that I am not eating carbs since eating carbs releases insulin and makes one sleepy, I wondered what else it would affect. But I prove myself wrong when I have the carb-ups on the weekend and find that I still do not stutter. At the end of week 3, I weighed and tested my body fat and found that I had dropped my 15% bodyfat to 10% and gained 5 pounds. The diet was definitely doing what it was cled it could do and I enjoyed absolutely no stuttering.

Week 4:
I am continuing the diet and everyday I jumped out of bed in the morning with no fatigue. My energy levels remain constant throughout the day instead of when I was eating a normal diet and would either get quick energy boosts from carbs or I became sleepy..

Week 5:
I still have not stuttered into week 5. My carb-up days prove the same and I still do not stutter. My wrestling practice eventually took its toll since fat is not a good energy source for high intensity activity that requires carbs. I then had to quit because I began realizing that fat is definitely not a good energy source for a wrestler but this diet would go well if anyone does cross-country.

Week 6:
I slowly notice my stutter coming. I would feel the obstroctions coming when I was talking, instead of it disappearing, the obstroction came and I would commence to stutter.

This diet has me very intrigued and I was wondering if any members of this forum are interested to check these links to read more detailed information about the Anabolic diet:
10 Reasons You Should Get On the Anabolic Diet
Why the Anabolic Diet works & How
How To Get Started On The Anabolic Diet
The Anabolic Diet For Women

If you are interested in doing this diet and would consider following the diet to a point or actually want to then all I ask is that you make a journal on Stuttering Forum and detail your experiences with the diet and if it reduces your stutter at all. This could be really interesting.

[climberszen]

[/QUOTE=minnatrix;21712]Hi all,
For months, I have been thinking about a diet I went on a couple of months ago. It was a diet called the Anabolic Diet. It implements a different approach to losing fat while gaining muscle. The diet called for during the weekdays, a person would eat a 60%Fat/35%Protein/5%Carbs. Then on the weekends, called for a carb load which basically means you would eat a diet that consists of 30%F/10%P/60%C. Your body adapts pretty quickly and starts using fat as the main source of energy instead of running on carbs. /QUOTE]

If you are a female, you have watch those diets that are high in protein, because women can easily take in to much protein in diets like this. The result, longterm, that you start suffering from "protien toxicity" in that state you mobilize calcium. In extreme cases where women have eaten high protein diets for years, they can have at the age of 35 yrs old bones of a 65 year old or worse!!!

Also, very view people understand that the body uses fat as its primary eneregy source during low energy output states. If you are laying on the couch watching TV, you are mostly burning fat... just not much of it. Carbs only become your primary energy source if you are in the "high aerobic" output state. People that create diets very typically are not biologists and make these diets without understanding the repurcussions of screwing with diet.

As for diet impacting speech.... foods with high caffiene levels for me... to much coffee, chocolate.. and so forth increases stuttering for me.

[minnatrix]

Can you cite me a study that states there is a significant risk and a higher risk of a high protein diet leading to osteoporosis for women under the age of 35 than say the consumption of caffeine or alcohol? The study I read used women aged 35-59. As you grow older, your kidney functions decline so I can see where it becomes important for both men AND women to watch their protein consumption. There is also a study that states high protein only leads to loss of calcium only if there is inadequate calcium intake. There is still a large debate on whether protein causes the loss of bone density, and I guarantee that for every study that says high protein diets cause loss of bone density, there is a study that disagrees.

The person who made this diet is Dr. DiPasquale. He holds an honors degree in biological science, majoring in molecular biochemistry (1968), and a medical degree (1971). So he isn't some idiot who just made this diet out of the blue. In his book, he explains and cites studies on how this diet is healthy. There is also anecdotal reports of this diet actually lowering bad cholesterol and increasing good cholesterol without comprimised kidney function.

Yes, caffeine causes me to stutter as well. Is it only chocolate that causes you to stutter or is it any food that is high in sugar? Or maybe it is a combination of both the caffeine and sugar in chocolate that makes you stutter? I find that foods high in any sort of carbs, be it complex or simple, makes me sleepy and stutter.

Now that I think about it, there is absolutely no research in how the foods we consume can affect our stutter.

[Vermillion]

Are you still on this diet?

You said week 6 you started stuttering again. Could your increase in fluency from week 1-5 be due to the placebo effect?

[climberszen]

Originally Posted by minnatrix

Can you cite me a study that states there is a significant risk and a higher risk of a high protein diet leading to osteoporosis for women under the age of 35 than say the consumption of caffeine or alcohol? The study I read used women aged 35-59. As you grow older, your kidney functions decline so I can see where it becomes important for both men AND women to watch their protein consumption. There is also a study that states high protein only leads to loss of calcium only if there is inadequate calcium intake. There is still a large debate on whether protein causes the loss of bone density, and I guarantee that for every study that says high protein diets cause loss of bone density, there is a study that disagrees.

The person who made this diet is Dr. DiPasquale. He holds an honors degree in biological science, majoring in molecular biochemistry (1968), and a medical degree (1971). So he isn't some idiot who just made this diet out of the blue. In his book, he explains and cites studies on how this diet is healthy. There is also anecdotal reports of this diet actually lowering bad cholesterol and increasing good cholesterol without comprimised kidney function.

Yes, caffeine causes me to stutter as well. Is it only chocolate that causes you to stutter or is it any food that is high in sugar? Or maybe it is a combination of both the caffeine and sugar in chocolate that makes you stutter? I find that foods high in any sort of carbs, be it complex or simple, makes me sleepy and stutter.

Now that I think about it, there is absolutely no research in how the foods we consume can affect our stutter.

The reason why women are at higher risk is because they typically have lower body mass. Thus... a "typcial" woman that eats say 2 cans of tuna a day will mobilize calcium over time. 2 cans of tuna = ~12 oz of protein. This is perfectly fine for a "typical" male because of the increased body mass.

here are some references that suggest the topic:

J Nutr. 2007 Dec;137(12):2674-9. Links
The effects of dietary protein on bone mineral mass in young adults may be modulated by adolescent calcium intake.


Am J Clin Nutr. 1998 Sep;68(3):749-54. Links
Comment in: Am J Clin Nutr. 1998 Sep;68(3):523-4.

Osteoporos Int. 2007 Dec;18(12):1661-7. Epub 2007 Jul 17. Links Dietary protein intake and bone mineral content in adolescents-The Copenhagen Cohort Study.

From my brief literature search.... it does appear that not all "proteins" are equal in dietary consumption.

[climberszen]

Oh and yes... you are correct to say it is a highly controversial topic... and you are correct that the problem "seems" to occur only if you fail to take in enough calcium......

And i did not know who the diet creator was.... and sadly though most people that create diets like the Atkins diet do so with little or no understanding of physiology.