Glucose loading cures everything?
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I have hit the 4 month mark (now in month 5) on high doses of glucose. I decided to take a break to see if weight loss will be easier now than it was pre-glucose loading. I will still use glucose, but will just be using less.
I have also gone back on low doses of thyroid. Not sure if that's a good idea, but giving it another go.
Glucose has helped some issues, but not others, so far. But I have been struggling for a long time, so no surprise there. I think I probably need MORE glucose, but I also need to slim up since I don't need the excess estrogen from fat cells.
I'll be back if/when there's anything worth reporting.
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@S-Holmes Thank you for sharing your update.
I am interested to hear how you adjust to significantly reduced glucose.
On my end, I recently traveled and took 8 or 9 days off glucose (coming from 15 tbsp/day) and felt no ill effects or feelings of withdrawal. So I was pleased with that. Nothing definitively interesting, positive or negative, to report on my experience with dextrose to date. Some potentially positive signs, some potentially negative ones. I'm back at it for now (planning on doing the protocol for 6 months).
I do have a question for anyone trying this: Have you noticed any tremors or shakiness? I occasionally have noticed some based out of my forearm area the last couple months but I'm not sure if it is a new experience or one I just never paid attention to before (my occasional slight tremor based only occurred to me after a family member asked me to be on the lookout for a shared contact's shakiness). It seems like it comes and goes and I haven't identified a definite pattern yet (e.g. does it happen X hours before/after working out and/or X hours before/after glucose dose and/or on days I eat food X). Could be fatigue due to some workout stuff or could be blood sugar related or could be something else entirely. But I'm curious if anyone else has noticed anything shakiness/tremor-related.
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Maybe try having protein with your glucose (if you aren't already). I noticed I was needing more protein but I don't really know why. Maybe someone reading this thread can explain it.
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@S-Holmes I generally have a lot of protein but I will look out for any correlation between my protein intake and shakiness. Thank you for the tip!
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@jjk_learning said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes Thank you for sharing your update.
I am interested to hear how you adjust to significantly reduced glucose.
On my end, I recently traveled and took 8 or 9 days off glucose (coming from 15 tbsp/day) and felt no ill effects or feelings of withdrawal. So I was pleased with that. Nothing definitively interesting, positive or negative, to report on my experience with dextrose to date. Some potentially positive signs, some potentially negative ones. I'm back at it for now (planning on doing the protocol for 6 months).
I do have a question for anyone trying this: Have you noticed any tremors or shakiness? I occasionally have noticed some based out of my forearm area the last couple months but I'm not sure if it is a new experience or one I just never paid attention to before (my occasional slight tremor based only occurred to me after a family member asked me to be on the lookout for a shared contact's shakiness). It seems like it comes and goes and I haven't identified a definite pattern yet (e.g. does it happen X hours before/after working out and/or X hours before/after glucose dose and/or on days I eat food X). Could be fatigue due to some workout stuff or could be blood sugar related or could be something else entirely. But I'm curious if anyone else has noticed anything shakiness/tremor-related.
So, I have noticed that I need a LOT LOT LOT of thiamine. For me, it's not shaking, it's cramping. But thiamine completely fixes it. I take 500mg several times a day of HCl and about 100mg of allithiamine and then another 50mg at night.
So I would suggest you try to amp these up if you aren't already.
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@Ecstatic_Hamster Very interesting, thank you for sharing.
Is there any decent food source of thiamine? Basically just pork, right?
I've heard lots of people promote thiamine and its benefits (even at very high doses) but I'm generally resistant to supplements (despite supplementing 600 calories a day of dextrose
).Still, it might be something worth trying for me. I believe I've heard it referenced as sometimes being beneficial for clearing up foamy urine, which I do deal with.
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I wonder if soaking corn flakes in glucose can feed bacteria in the small intestine.
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@jjk_learning said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@Ecstatic_Hamster Very interesting, thank you for sharing.
Is there any decent food source of thiamine? Basically just pork, right?
I've heard lots of people promote thiamine and its benefits (even at very high doses) but I'm generally resistant to supplements (despite supplementing 600 calories a day of dextrose
).Still, it might be something worth trying for me. I believe I've heard it referenced as sometimes being beneficial for clearing up foamy urine, which I do deal with.
I don’t think there is a food source. If you are taking excessive glucose quantities as medication, perhaps thiamine can be considered similarly.
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I've been listening into the interview of Ray Peat with David Gornoski on A Neighbor's Choice
https://yelling-stop.blogspot.com/2021/08/interview-ray-peat-with-david-gornoski.html
and have found two bits which I find interesting and to the benefit of this dextrose topic:At about the 26:30 minutes mark, RP (being a fan of fructose, or mainly being a fan fructose in fruits, as the latter also provide potassium to help with the uptake of the fruits' glucose, sparing insuline) commented on R H Lustig's thesis of fructose being mainly all bad similarly to alcohol. RP said that he had looked up Lustig's sources and that those support Lustig's concept just as well as his (RP's) ideas about fructose.
He then mentions that the comparison between fructose and ethanol appears very unreasonable, as the so called "fructose effect" is actually a known antidote to alcohol poisoning.I've briefly looked that up. It's true that, in most individuals, administrating fructose speeds up the liver's ethanol metabolism. But it is still very contradictory whether that happens through increased ATP through fructose->glucose conversion or whether, independent of glucose, fructose metabolism lowers the liver's NADH/NAD+ ratio which in turn greatly enhances ethanol metabolism.
Also, this effect is only ACUTE, whereas any long-term administration of fructose quite certainly further enhances the detrimental effects of alcohol in the shape (NA)FLD (fatty liver disease). Maybe the liver effectively "feels even more drunk" by fructose which then signals for faster metabolism.At about the 44 minutes mark, RP mentions the daily sugar doses on top of a regular diet as used by two 19th century practitioners, one in Paris and one from England, who had both reported to have cured their diabetes patients by this non-catabolic therapeutic approach.
It was "a little over half a pound", i.e. >250grs of sugar daily. On top of a regular diet.So, that's another reference or benchmark on the amount of dextrose needed per day to achieve organ healing as a therapeutic minimum. I assume we could translate 250grs of saccharose to at least 125grs (1/2) of dextrose. Or perhaps effectively up to 166grs (2/3). About 16-21 tablespoons.
And another hint, which some may take as kind of a blessing, of the old man on the view of fructose being terrible as having a very valid possibility.
Mind, however, that RP talked about terminally ill type 1 diabetics with the sugar mainly for restoring a caloric balance and putting a stop to the hyper-cortisol catabolic state.
So with regard to such high additional sugar intake there was no consideration of cellular resistance (he did talk and know a lot about this, of course. E.g. by high PTH and high PUFA) and permanent shifts in glucose transport across cell or tissue(blood--brain) barriers or the possibility of removing the set-points of progressively incurred trauma as brought up by DS.I'm probably being repetitive with this here and my still finding the glucose loading fitting in very nicely between ponderings of Peat and Dinkov (and various less popular geniuses of whom they derived many of their stimuli).
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@CrumblingCookie said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
I've been listening into the interview of Ray Peat with David Gornoski on A Neighbor's Choice
https://yelling-stop.blogspot.com/2021/08/interview-ray-peat-with-david-gornoski.html
and have found two bits which I find interesting and to the benefit of this dextrose topic:At about the 26:30 minutes mark, RP (being a fan of fructose, or mainly being a fan fructose in fruits, as the latter also provide potassium to help with the uptake of the fruits' glucose, sparing insuline) commented on R H Lustig's thesis of fructose being mainly all bad similarly to alcohol. RP said that he had looked up Lustig's sources and that those support Lustig's concept just as well as his (RP's) ideas about fructose.
He then mentions that the comparison between fructose and ethanol appears very unreasonable, as the so called "fructose effect" is actually a known antidote to alcohol poisoning.I've briefly looked that up. It's true that, in most individuals, administrating fructose speeds up the liver's ethanol metabolism. But it is still very contradictory whether that happens through increased ATP through fructose->glucose conversion or whether, independent of glucose, fructose metabolism lowers the liver's NADH/NAD+ ratio which in turn greatly enhances ethanol metabolism.
Also, this effect is only ACUTE, whereas any long-term administration of fructose quite certainly further enhances the detrimental effects of alcohol in the shape (NA)FLD (fatty liver disease). Maybe the liver effectively "feels even more drunk" by fructose which then signals for faster metabolism.At about the 44 minutes mark, RP mentions the daily sugar doses on top of a regular diet as used by two 19th century practitioners, one in Paris and one from England, who had both reported to have cured their diabetes patients by this non-catabolic therapeutic approach.
It was "a little over half a pound", i.e. >250grs of sugar daily. On top of a regular diet.So, that's another reference or benchmark on the amount of dextrose needed per day to achieve organ healing as a therapeutic minimum. I assume we could translate 250grs of saccharose to at least 125grs (1/2) of dextrose. Or perhaps effectively up to 166grs (2/3). About 16-21 tablespoons.
And another hint, which some may take as kind of a blessing, of the old man on the view of fructose being terrible as having a very valid possibility.
Mind, however, that RP talked about terminally ill type 1 diabetics with the sugar mainly for restoring a caloric balance and putting a stop to the hyper-cortisol catabolic state.
So with regard to such high additional sugar intake there was no consideration of cellular resistance (he did talk and know a lot about this, of course. E.g. by high PTH and high PUFA) and permanent shifts in glucose transport across cell or tissue(blood--brain) barriers or the possibility of removing the set-points of progressively incurred trauma as brought up by DS.I'm probably being repetitive with this here and my still finding the glucose loading fitting in very nicely between ponderings of Peat and Dinkov (and various less popular geniuses of whom they derived many of their stimuli).
Great find. I'll read it again more thoroughly later.
I do know that "Peating" (drinking tons of oj) for nearly 20 years didn't help our temperatures as much as pure glucose has. I've even cut back to under 100 grams of glucose a day and temp is still really good. -
@S-Holmes said:
I've even cut back to under 100 grams of glucose a day and temp is still really good.
Under 100 grams of dextros per day? You are not going to starve out on us, I hope.
So about 4 months in you are needing less dextrose every day to maintain the benefits you've achieved so far? Have you cut back because of laziness or because of a decrease in the taste or craving for it?Here's a new thought of mine on the mysterious background mechanisms of glucose loading, and the origin of the causative shift to a lower metabolic brain set-point through repetitive experiences of great stress:
What if it's not only or at all about more glucose being transported into the brain but about the brain, once glucose-loaded and energy sufficient, keeping additional PUFAs out? Either by directly blocking the entry of free fatty acids into the brain or also by a much lower level of FFAs in overall circulation. Perhaps the glucose enters the brain just as much at the beginning of the dextrose protocol as it does many months later. And all this glucose saturating the brain in part overrides the anti-metabolic PUFAs, shifting the scales.
And over time, the already accumulated brain PUFAs naturally diminish mostly during inactive nighttime and sleep. And that brain PUFA diminishment, which removes the stress(FFAs!)-induced inhibitions on the metabolic rate, would be the actual effect of and reason for the benefit of the glucose protocol over the course of time?
It's fair to assume that there's more than one aspect and mechanism to the whole. Can anyone with a bit of brain expertise chime in and tell me about how naive or not this latest train of though is?
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@CrumblingCookie thanks for sharing your thoughts and findings!
I may have some more thoughts about this, but I am wondering what do you mean by "the glucose entering the brain"? I know that's something Dr. Stephens talk about, but what does that actually mean? Where in the brain? What in the brain is not having enough glucose, and is now getting enough glucose?
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@gentlepotato said:
I may have some more thoughts about this, but I am wondering what do you mean by "the glucose entering the brain"? I know that's something Dr. Stephens talk about, but what does that actually mean?
That's the thing that we don't actually seem to know about yet. It was Dr. DS who raised the idea of an inhibited, down-regulated entry of glucose from the circulation into the brain. Which could be overridden by either a high enough glucose concentration gradient or the stability of its constant supply in the circulation. That could involve e.g. some very specific glucose transporters or other forced behaviours of the barrier/capillary lining cells responsible for the nutrient exchange. He speculates, that such uptake of glucose into the brain would normalize and rise to eventually provide the brain with all its original energy needs over time.
Dr. DS also hypothesizes that glucose from starches are taken up differently into the brain than glucose. Which always made me wonder how that could even physically work, since starches are made up of a network of glucose molecules, so the glucose molecules resulting from starch will be the same. It kind of sounded as if there would have to appear a magic portal or extra vein channeling all the dextrose glucose to the brain but not the starch glucose. Because once the glucose, regardless of its origin, is in the general circulation, it's the same!
- So perhaps it's about the spike of glucose absorption? But regular small amounts of glucose seems to work very well for many people, too, so that should not explain why a similar rate of glucose extracted over many hours from a big carbohydrate meal fails to provides similar benefits. On the other hand, we know that the whole process of digestion and maintenance of the gastrointestinal tract requires an enormous share of all incoming energy, especially so when things are out of whack. I therefore cannot even exclude the idea of a functional net caloric deficit being met with an all-net, not to be digested input of glucose.
- Perhaps we need to dissect the notion of a general circulation with regard to the locality of resorption? Which for dextrose starts as soon as it enters the mouth and then mostly in the stomach. Whereas glucose from starches will be taken up after enzymatic breakdown in or after the duodenum. And all throughout the ileum. And a remainder still in the colon.
Then, perhaps dextrose taken up from the stomach enters a more direct route to the brain, whereas everything further down the intestinal tract drains into the enterohepatic system, first benefitting the liver (and burdening the liver; see next point)? - Also, with digestion of carbohydrates spread out along most of the intestinal tract, there will be a range of bacterial metabolites and fatty acids produced. And of course the endotoxins. All going firstly to the liver, which if all goes well, just about balances the benefits with the burdens and fills up its glycogen stores first.
- Would any great excess amount of glucose supplied to the liver by the enterohepatic way perhaps preferably be fed into lipogenesis? Instead of passing it on/dumping it all into general circulation from which it would reach the brain? Similarities to the widely known significantly different metabolism of liposomalyl/transdermally/transgingivally applied steroid hormones as compared to them being taken orally with a first-pass through the liver?
- Or is the spillover of intestinal byproducts like fatty acids and endotoxins past the liver significantly great enough to suppress resorative results of glucose? If that were the case - and since taking dextrose with regular meals still brings about all the benefits - would it be the ratio of glucose to intestinal byproducts being crucial?
- Or is it the new thoughts above, with not the route or regulation of entry which takes glucose to the brain being decisive but a shutting-off of the entry of fatty acids by the brain when it's feasting on glucose? And subsequently, over time, ridding itself of such bad fatty acids and the aftermaths they had incurred?
Similar to the concept of the body/organs/bones/brain sucking up all other bivalent cations like lead and aluminium at an increased rate when there's deficiency in the actually required calcium?
@gentlepotato said:
What in the brain is not having enough glucose, and is now getting enough glucose?
Good thought. Maybe the whole matter is even particularly selective to certain brain regions. Like with the activities of dopamine and serotonine. On the other hand, the need for glucose is so basic and general that I doubt it matters. I don't know whether there are regional differences of capillary or perhaps even glympathic brain micro-anatomy which could point to local differences in the influx of nutrients or efflux of metabolites.
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@CrumblingCookie less than we think is known about starch digestion. It could be that starch does not simply turn to maltose and then glucose.
It is always assumed that maltose turns into glucose somehow but I don’t think it does. It is very complex actually.
So actually, starch is NOTHING like eating glucose.
It is processed mostly in intestinal lumen and produces many sugars including sucrose and fructose and galactose and lactose.
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@CrumblingCookie said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
@S-Holmes said:
I've even cut back to under 100 grams of glucose a day and temp is still really good.
Under 100 grams of dextros per day? You are not going to starve out on us, I hope.
So about 4 months in you are needing less dextrose every day to maintain the benefits you've achieved so far? Have you cut back because of laziness or because of a decrease in the taste or craving for it?Here's a new thought of mine on the mysterious background mechanisms of glucose loading, and the origin of the causative shift to a lower metabolic brain set-point through repetitive experiences of great stress:
What if it's not only or at all about more glucose being transported into the brain but about the brain, once glucose-loaded and energy sufficient, keeping additional PUFAs out? Either by directly blocking the entry of free fatty acids into the brain or also by a much lower level of FFAs in overall circulation. Perhaps the glucose enters the brain just as much at the beginning of the dextrose protocol as it does many months later. And all this glucose saturating the brain in part overrides the anti-metabolic PUFAs, shifting the scales.
And over time, the already accumulated brain PUFAs naturally diminish mostly during inactive nighttime and sleep. And that brain PUFA diminishment, which removes the stress(FFAs!)-induced inhibitions on the metabolic rate, would be the actual effect of and reason for the benefit of the glucose protocol over the course of time?
It's fair to assume that there's more than one aspect and mechanism to the whole. Can anyone with a bit of brain expertise chime in and tell me about how naive or not this latest train of though is?
I'm needing to get my weight under control. Do not want to buy new clothes. The problem is that I don't know if the extra weight is from inflammation (water) from healing (I've had pcos for many years), or from actual fat. But I have gained one or the other on glucose. I also really struggled with gerd while on the high doses. My husband is still doing well on the high doses. In fact, on days when he doesn't get enough, his mood suffers, so I make sure to keep his glucose lemonade glass full.
I'm learning what glucose can and cannot do. I use glucose now instead of sucrose for sweetening beverages, etc. And when I get a new ice cream freezer will make fat free ice cream sweetened with dextrose.
I have permanently added glucose to my arsenal and when I start feeling blue or agitated, I take a little to restore equilibrium.
In other news, and something I'm very excited about...I have a doctor friend I've known for many years who maps and stimulates brain pathways for healing and symptom management. She has a few patients who are also friends of mine. I introduced them to Dr Stephens when he was here for the health conference and they are collaborating on a research project to learn more about how glucose heals. One friend has migraines and the other ADHD. It should be very interesting.
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apparently the ideal ratio of glucose:fructose for athletes' regenerating glycogen during / after exercise over 1 hr is 66g dextrose to 33g sucrose. this gives the right ratio without having to buy pure fructose powder.
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@sneedful said in Glucose loading cures everything?:
apparently the ideal ratio of glucose:fructose for athletes' regenerating glycogen during / after exercise over 1 hr is 66g dextrose to 33g sucrose. this gives the right ratio without having to buy pure fructose powder.
do you have a cite please? This is interesting.
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@Ecstatic_Hamster this is a website marketing a product, it has references https://www.torqfitness.co.uk/news/understanding-glucose-fructose-ratios
I determined the dextrose:sucrose ratio making the equivalent 2:1 glucose:fructose just by doing the math on the glucose:fructose ratio of sugar and confirmed it with chatgpt. simply because it is easier to buy dextrose only and nearly everyone has plain sugar in their pantry. this way you don't have to buy fructose powder if you're making a sport drink.
66g:33g is also per hour of exercise, im assuming it is for steady state cardio or weightlifting or some sports without long rest periods. this is probably not for weightlifting with long rest periods.
in the link and in other references (this is mostly mainstream exercise science) you can see that the ~100g total (the exact number to be ideal is apparently 120g but whatever, it's easier and simpler to communicate 66g:33g) drink is meant to last for an hour and this ratio actually is more effective at replenishing glycogen than dextrose alone.
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@sneedful said:
this is a website marketing a product, it has references https://www.torqfitness.co.uk/news/understanding-glucose-fructose-ratios
It refers to these papers:
Fructose and Sucrose Intake Increase Exogenous Carbohydrate Oxidation during Exercise
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/9/2/167
Integrative physiology of transcellular and paracellular intestinal absorption
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28724701/
A Step Towards Personalized Sports Nutrition: Carbohydrate Intake During Exercise
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4008807/What emerges from a brief look into these is that there's a performance benefit in sports starting with 22grs/hour of glucose. They found that intestinal glucose resorption happens through SGLT1 and GLUT2 and maxes out at c. 1gr/min. Fructose resorption on the other hand goes through GLUT5, GLUT2, GLUT8, GLUT12. Effectively, when aiming for the endurance sports performance benefits with glucose servings in excess of the max. hourly resorption, there's the additional route of resorption for fructose. This allows for even higher carbohydrate intakes at 1.3-1.8grs/h and higher oxygenation and performance in endurance sports, and allegedly is also more pleasant/less distressing to the intestine than glucose only at >60grs/hour. It seems most of the added fructose converts to circulating lactate. And using sucrose instead of fructose offers a lower dosing thresold, maxing out at c. 1.2-1.3grs/h because the prior splitting of sucrose becomes a limiting factor with these hourly amounts.
Afaik everybody here doing the glucose protocol is way below a dosing of >60grs/h.
The second paper listed above could be interesting about the details of glucose absorption.@S-Holmes I'd scrounge some of that dextrose icecream off you! Also curious about those future results from your friends. Really cool that you have other people closely around you who are following through with the dextrose.
I'm wondering whether there are other things for you to approach. Perhaps something about closing that gastroesophageal sphincter or increasing your stomach acid so the stomach won't pump as wildly in trying to make up for such a lack. Or maybe lots of iodide with regard to pcos and low stomach acid or overall low glandular activity. Don't know! -
@S-Holmes I'd scrounge some of that dextrose icecream off you! Also curious about those future results from your friends. Really cool that you have other people closely around you who are following through with the dextrose.
I'm wondering whether there are other things for you to approach. Perhaps something about closing that gastroesophageal sphincter or increasing your stomach acid so the stomach won't pump as wildly in trying to make up for such a lack. Or maybe lots of iodide with regard to pcos and low stomach acid or overall low glandular activity. Don't know!
It's interesting that you mention iodine. I use it both orally (Lugols) and topically (povidone). My sister (deceased) had throat cancer so I'm likely a good candidate for that as well. I've had throat issues all my life, usually strep. Remember Dr Peat said everyone over 50 has cancer cells which are usually (hopefully) dealt with by their immune system. Drs. Brownstein and Sircus recommend iodine at high doses for people with cancer. So I use several alternative cancer "treatments" (aspirin, Georgi's B vitamin protocol, iodine, chlorine dioxide, fenbendazole and ivermectin occasionally). My thinking about what was going on with the high dose glucose was that it was trying to heal my throat, causing swelling and inflammation. It stopped when I reduced glucose. Dr. Stephens would say I need MORE glucose. But I have to try and drop some weight before doing high doses again.