1. Can low carb "cure" glaucoma?
Low card can't "cure" anything. Low carb is a diet that is used, alongside other lifestyle changes, to control the progression of metabolic syndrome. It is a palliative treatment only.
As far as glaucoma is concerned, there are many different types of glaucoma and all of them are completely treatable in the modern world. In fact, glaucoma treatments are so effective in this day and age that you can describe this once blinding condition as technically "curable".
2. I've heard about a "documentary" called 'Reversed'. What do you think of it?
All this stuff is just another money grab by known low carb quacks. Many of these types of films are floating around out there. Once you have seen one, you have seen them all.
I have seen a snippet of this one and that was enough to see that it's just another emotionally driven documentary to grab at your heart strings since the "science" it's based on is plain incorrect. If you like watching this stuff, that's fine but don't expect to resolve your metabolic issues. The only thing this can do for you is deliver false hope, but some people are just fine with that.
3. I follow a "low carb doctor" and he measures ketone levels in his patients to determine if they are being "cured" or not. Is this a good strategy?
That is foolery. It's just a way to make the patient think that "something is happening" so therefore, "it must be working".
A diabetic has poor insulin function. Insulin does a lot more than just facilitate glucose into cells. It also controls ketones from fat burning. This means that diabetics can make ketones very easily as their insulin is not very good at regulating ketones or anything else. Measuring ketone levels in a diabetic is a waste of time. It simply shows you that they are burning fat. Whoopee! They are still fat and diabetic. Diabetes is not the inability to burn fat. It is the end stage of metabolic syndrome, a condition of poor blood glucose regulation.
A rise in ketone levels from eating low carb is expected in a diabetic as it's expected in anyone else. When insulin lowers, it makes you more prone to producing ketones. This means nothing. Literally, nothing. You can achieve the same thing with calorie restriction. It's the way the body is supposed to work. Ketones do not "cure" diabetes. The diabetic is still diabetic and will continue to be while producing ketones.
Diabetics burn fat, like everyone else. In fact, they have excess fat in their blood to burn. Diabetics burn glucose. They for sure have plenty of glucose in their blood to burn. Diabetics burn through their lean muscle mass too and they don't even have much of it to spare. Everyone burns fat and glucose, including diabetics. The difference is that diabetics don't burn enough stored fat and can't keep themselves from storing more. This isn't resolved with ketones. This is resolved by stopping the metabolic adaptation that keeps this cycle going.
It's really sad the way these low carb "doctors" take advantage of these desperate people who don't understand basic metabolic function or biology. They are duped by fancy and mysterious words like "ketones" and think that some magic is occurring in their bodies. Throw the word "insulin" in there, which is one they have heard their doctor mention before and they think they just found the Holy Grail. These people want to hold on to the belief that there are "easy quick fixes" out there, so they will take whatever these "doctors" tell them at face value since their own doctors haven't been able to "cure" them. At least, not easily nor quickly.
Once you get past how sad this is, it becomes rather disgusting that there are parasitic people that would do this to these sick people. These "low carb doctors", well the ones who are actual MD's, took an oath to do no harm and I suppose they justify their actions by telling themselves that they aren't really doing harm. They are just not telling these people the whole story and these people do get somewhat better so it can't be that bad. After all, they can't get any worse. The problem is that they do. They continue getting worse.
Not only are these people robbed of money, they could use for better food and walking shoes, a lot of them also stop their medications, ignore serious symptoms, follow diets that make their problems worse, all while living a lie. The worst part is that they don't even live long enough to realize it. By the time they wake up, it's too late.
4. How many carbs a day is still considered low carb?
This is subjective as there isn't an "official" number for what constitutes "low carb" that everyone agrees on. It really depends on who you ask but if you were to take all low carb diets and take a range from them, then you can say low carb diets fall anywhere between 30 - 200 grams of carbs a day. Remember, we are discussing low carb, not no carb. No carb would be 0 carbs a day.
Below 30 grams a day would be considered ketogenic. Above 200 grams a day would be considered moderate carb until it reaches the Standard American Diet (SAD) of well over 300+ grams of carbs a day, which would be considered high and/or ultra-high carb.
As a side note, people who advocate for the Dietary Guidelines, will swear up and down that SAD does not have such a high carb allotment but that's only true of people actually following the daily calorie recommendation, which none do because they can't. No one can. So, the way the diet is actually followed, not the fantasy, does push carbs way over 300 grams a day.
A good rule of thumb is to just use the Atkins model which defines true low carb as up to 100 grams of carbs a day. Just stay away from sugar and grains.
5. Is it true that things like red light therapy, saunas and "grounding" will help overweight/obesity?
Absolutely not. I don't want you to get caught up in nonsense because you won't get anywhere and people with metabolic problems do not have much time to waste on dead ends.
The only thing that has been shown to be successful in reversing and halting the progression of overweight/obesity/metabolic pathologies is lifestyle. Lifestyle comprises of diet, exercise and stress mitigation (sleep, fasting). None of these things work by themselves, except for exercise which is the only one that has been shown to have benefits irrespective of the others, but the best outcome is to incorporate all of them.
6. If sugar and carbohydrate consumption has decreased why is obesity still an issue?
I've answered this before and it's multi factorial. Sugar consumption has dropped in the past several decades because there is no need to add sugar to anything. It's already been added to the products being sold. So even though individual sugar consumption has decreased, food manufacturer usage has increased exponentially.
Foods like ice cream, soda, candy and deserts have been on the decline for several decades because of calories in/calories out (CICO) compliance, plus the "healthy foods" renaissance that has taken over the diet sphere. So obvious "junk foods" have been pushed to the side in lieu of "healthy fats", "healthy grains", "healthy sweeteners", "healthy fill-in-the-blank".
But "junk food" aren't the carbs that make people fat. Fat people have been passing on the dessert at restaurants since before they got fat. It's the grain based "healthy" products that are the main culprits for obesity. These foods are impossible to consume within CICO parameters as they are so nutrient void, and disrupt blood glucose so profoundly, that you would be unable to stick to calorie deficits without feeling uncomfortable enough to make it stop. So even when the overweight/obese person declines the dessert at a restaurant, it doesn't make a bit of difference when they just ate a basket of multi-grain bread and a plate full of whole grain pasta only to be ravenously hungry an hour later.
This is the main problem with CICO combined with a high carb diet. It becomes impossible to follow as the macronutrient composition keeps you hungry, due to a disruption in blood glucose homeostasis, they it truly only works in a perpetual state of starvation (chronic hypoglycemia). This prolonged time in hypoglycemia will eventually result in metabolic syndrome anyway. So, you can see diets, which are carb based, have made people fatter and this is why you see a linear increase in obesity alongside a decrease in sugar consumption. Decreasing sugar calories while still eating high carb, doesn't work.
Overweight/obesity are also time dependent conditions. It takes a chronic, long-term assault on blood glucose for weight gain to become overweight/obesity as it takes time for metabolism to adapt to the point to where it begins piling body fat exponentially while sparing it at the same time. The journey to obesity is just as slow as the journey to leanness. The only difference is that obesity is a guaranteed destination while leanness is not.
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