According to the National Library of Medicine’s entry on the subject, “The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, very low-carbohydrate nutritional pattern that promotes a metabolic shift from glucose utilization to ketone production.” This switch can induce beneficial metabolic, neurologic, and endocrine changes in adherents to the diet. And this, as suggested in the subtitle of METABOLIC MAYHEM: The Art, Science & Pleasure of Weight Loss & Fabulous Metabolic Health, can yield marvelous physical results.
Author Maia Sutherland advances her book as being led by science. Indeed, almost all of the people who provide the glowing endorsements at the beginning of the book mention this science-literate approach. “What struck me most is how she interlaces practical science with real human experiences,” writes Shashikant Iyengar, who (it should be noted) is a “metabolic health coach”—not a scientist or doctor.
Sutherland is indeed excellent at relating her own experiences. The first part of the book is almost a travelogue recounting her adventures in various countries. She writes very well and with good humor, and her deft prose wittily captures her early hippy-ish years in the alternative-living hotspot of Totnes, England. Later, there are travels to India, where she begins a lifelong love affair with the country. Memorable passages recall her time there: “In the declining sun of the early evening, through a crack in the clouds, was indeed a mountain. A splendid present and close, an astonishingly tall and clear, perfect mountain.”
As pleasant as the sections recounting her travels are, the real meat of the book is Sutherland’s experiences with the ketogenic diet as a means of healing both physically and spiritually. To this end, there is a wealth of largely anecdotal information and tips on how a reader may utilize the author’s experiences to aid their own weight-loss or healing journey. What is notably lacking is any of the promised science. There is a serious lack of sources or citations relating to the medical facts and suppositions explored in the text. Even studies that are explicitly referred to as being flawed, or at least counter to the author’s own theories, are not provided as primary sources for the reader to be able to check themselves.
Sutherland suggests the traditional ideas that excessive fat and meat consumption can lead to ill health and cancer are “relentless propaganda,” but she cites neither the original tests that led to this way of thinking (which an interested reader might like to study themselves) nor any kind of solid scientific evidence that counters the claims. While the extended disclaimer that the author provides suggests that a reader should “do your own research,” the lack of any sources in the text doesn’t make that as easy as it could be. There is an extended afterword that lists “resources and further reading,” though this amounts primarily to lists of doctors whose work is sympathetic to Sutherland’s outlook and to websites that explore subjects similar to those covered in the book. There are no direct links to any scientific studies, either for or against the ideas promoted in METABOLIC MAYHEM, from which the audience may be able to dig a little deeper. Thus, the intrigued reader should cure Sutherland's pro-meat opinions with more than a grain of salt.
Maia Sutherland's METABOLIC MAYHEM: The Art, Science & Pleasure of Weight Loss & Fabulous Metabolic Health is a well-written and engaging personal story concerning the potential benefits of a ketogenic diet. Since the book lacks any solid evidence to back up its claims, however, interested readers may do well to use it as a starting point in thinking about dietary changes while doing their own additional research.
~ Kent Lane for IndieReader