Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here News Topic: Ketone bodies: from enemy to friend and guardian angel Show Notes: Robb substack article Lily Nichols book links Questions:    600 drinks a year Mike writes: Hey Robb, For a number of years my friends and I, all mid to upper 30’s at this point, have been back-of-the-napkin tracking our alcohol consumption. Why? To be honest, no real reason other than a little accountability to oneself, something to talk shit about in group texts, and potentially to nudge some improved habits. I led with the part that seems shocking. ~600 drinks last year. Every year I’ve counted has ranged from about 450-675, the low end being the years we had infants, the higher numbers being when I was 30ish and didn’t have a care. Here’s the question. 500+ adds up pretty easily for someone who likes to drink. 10/week can be 0-1-2-1-0-4-2 and often is, and I don’t need to tell you this but that becomes 520 drinks across the year. We all know alcohol is bad. Can you weigh in on your feelings about this kind of volume, given very very little of what anyone would call binge drinking?? 6 foot Male, ~165, 38 yrs old. Hike and/or lift weights approx 6 days a week and drinking doesn’t affect me negatively in any accute way. Is this bad? Any time I’ve had labs done they’ve been normal accross the board. What does Robb think?? I know less is probably better but is the juice worth the squeeze?? I like drinking, and again, very rarely drinking to imparement, and the count is very honest. Thanks, your fifth listener.   Carb tolerance Holly writes: I just tested sweet potato, utilizing your carb tolerance protocol using a CGM. While my blood sugar returned under 100 after two hours, the spike was significant at 60 over baseline. So would you say this food is okay for me because of the test at two hours or potentially still a problem if trying to minimize the glucose variability?   Stevia for Birth Control Jonathan writes: Hi Robb and Nicki, I'll first say that I really appreciate everything the two of you have put out into the world. My question is regarding the legitimacy of a Tik-Tok conspiracy about Stevia (I felt very strange typing that sentence). My wife and I have two young girls (coming up on 4 and 2 years old), and in June of 2023, we started trying for the third and final addition to our family. My wife got pregnant on the first try, as she did with the first two pregnancies. Miracles, yes, but a part of me was cursing this cruel, cruel world - my wife's pregnancy hormones cause a 180 on her libido. At the first ultrasound for fetus #3, however, we couldn't find a heartbeat - it turns out there was a "missed" miscarriage around week 9 or 10. It came as a shock to both of us, since the first two pregnancies were quite healthy, and conceiving was not an issue. We took a break from trying, but still have plans to try again in a few months. In the meantime, my wife is working on stacking the deck where she can to make sure her body is 100% ready this time around, so that we don't repeat the difficult experience we had last year. She recently came across a Tik-Tok video that warned of the dangers of Stevia - allegedly, native cultures used to use the Stevia leaf as a form of contraception. Despite heavy skepticism, I've looked into it a little bit, and it's not entirely baseless. A textbook written by Obama's former science czar, for example, contains an anecdote of native Paraguayans adding a powdered form of Stevia to tea to serve as a contraceptive. A cursory glance as more recent research has some mixed results in rats, but the "consensus" seems to be that Stevia is no issue. I typically tend to trust "ancient wisdom" passed down through generations, but the anecdotal evidence seems a little weak in this case. What is your take on the legitimacy of Stevia as a contraceptive? My wife, who probably did increase h