Ideas like these keep disseminating:
"Each cell can only oxidize one substrate at a time."
"We know that both glucose and fats can't be metabolized at the same time."
Some have embraced the notion that the body can't oxidize multiple substrates at the same time. Others have sophisticated this notion to argue that the body can use them in combination, as indicated by gas exchange tests, but only in separate tissues. However, both perspectives still share the premise that different substrates can't be oxidized together within the same cell. Despite the tendency for one substrate to prevail and outcompete the other, a cell can oxidize a mixture of substrates simultaneously. Inhibitions can also vary in degree of severity.
PDHc is the most interferred enzyme set:
Carbohydrate refeeding after a high-fat diet rapidly reverses the adaptive increase in human skeletal muscle PDH kinase activity
3a9a3a13-0f5c-4f6c-8679-07e5abb44add-image.png
Skeletal muscle fuel selection occurs at the mitochondrial level
2179642d-22e9-486e-88a9-91aa177369c8-image.png
Despite differences in practice, only in support that their simultaneous catabolism is possible:
Chronic hyperglycemia reduces substrate oxidation and impairs metabolic switching of human myotubes
82caedb1-fc8a-446e-9bf0-18a18c847c3b-image.png
Related to the topic, the TCA cycle serves for both catabolic and anabolic purposes, with part of metabolites being diverted and lost, needing replenishment. Common fatty acids can't replenish these losses because they yield acetyl-CoA (2C), which adds carbons in equivalence to what's eliminated in a TCA cycle 'turn' (−2C), making the oxidation of fatty acids dependent on other substrates. In contrast, glucose can generate oxaloacetate (4C) and refill the TCA cycle beyond oxidative losses.
When oxaloacetate (from glucose) and acetyl-CoA (from fatty acids) combine, the product is treated indiscriminately, and parts derived from glucose are eventually oxidized. This allows glucose to sustain fatty acid oxidation through a direct derivative or indirectly through glycerol, lactate, and related molecules. It's the idea behind Jorgito Campo de Rosas' saying that "fats burn in the fire/flame of carbohydrates", which appears to have some validity. The dependency seems to become evident when the need to synthesize glucose is high, drawing from oxaloacetate and preventing acetyl-CoA from entering the TCA cycle. Otherwise, we would have to rely on amino acids as an alternative for replenishment. Cancer cells can exploit this relationship (notably with glutamine, but also glucose) to favor biosynthesis while maintaining TCA cycle function.
He bases a whole segment on the following assertion:
"What's stopping ATP citrate lyase (ACL)? What's pulling the CoA out of the cytosol so that the ATP citrate lyase doesn't have the COA it needs? Well, when you burn fats or when when you are oxidizing fats, the fats have a CoA group added to them to make an fatty acyl–CoA and then they are brought in as a fatty acyl–CoA into the mitochondria through carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1 (CPT-1). This CoA is added to the fats in the cytosol of the cell. So, essentially, the fatty acid oxidation is depleting the cytosol of the CoA. So ATP citrate lyase is unable to take the citrate and convert it to acetyl-CoA by adding the CoA group because there aren't the CoA groups available."
He's relying on a image whose author omitted reactions and, for some reason, also brought 'Acetyl-CoA Synthetase' and acetyl-CoA to the picture.
23ddba67-0bac-4e0b-a043-d2bc7531b1a4-image.png
When long-chain fatty acids are imported, the CoA is left behind for reuse:
c293c30c-2c31-4dab-8bed-94bfce87495c-image.png
Therefore, CoA isn't being "pulled out of the cytosol" as stated, quite the opposite: one of the functions of carnitine is precisely to preserve the cytosolic and mitochondrial CoA pools relatively stable, accepting the acyl groups to free up CoA for other purposes in the compartment of origin.
What could be argued instead: in fatty acid overload, the rate of attachment exceeds the release, and this could deprive cytosolic enzymes of CoA. Alternatively, that CPT1 inhibition prevents the release of CoA. But these are different lines of argumentation.
Miguel is a positive addition to discussions and is of good service to others. It's only unexpected to come across issues of this kind in a pretentious material titled "masterclass". In decades of authoring and despite being knowledgeable, it's difficult to remember any piece published by Ray with connotations of expertise, setting people up to be schooled by a master.
It's also unexpected that the video reproduces "a bunch of graphics" from other sources without any crediting. Sometimes it's challenging to trace the origin of certain images online, but not a single attribution can be found within the video, its description or comments section. Moreover, when the material is largely scripted from someone else's work, it doesn't hurt to give it a shoutout.