Brown sugar crystals - one source of dietary glucose.
You're on a low carbohydrate diet. Somebody tells you you'll starve your brain. Everyone knows the brain runs on glucose. Carbohydrates are essential to making glucose, right? Wrong.
Fact: your body can make glucose without carbohydrates. Your brain will not starve if you're on a low carbohydrate or even a no carb diet. (Eating a no carbohydrate diet is not optimal due to probable vitamin, mineral and antioxidant deficiencies, not a lack of glucose.) The mechanism by which your body makes glucose, when carbohydrates are limited or not present in your diet, is called gluconeogenesis. "Gluco" meaning glucose (blood sugar), "neo" meaning new, and "genesis" meaning to create.
Gluconeogenesis is the process by which glucose is made by your body, primarily in your liver, from non-carbohydrate sources. This means your body has the capability to convert other fuels like fat and protein into glucose as needed. This biological process exists because we were never designed to eat a predominantly carbohydrate diet. This option didn't exist for most of human existance. We ate mostly animals, berries and other fruits when they were in season, roots, nuts, and some wild plants like herbs until agriculture was developed.
While it's true that the human brain runs on glucose, science has proven the human body doesn't need carbohydrates to make the glucose it needs. Yes, your body can use dietary carbohydrates to make glucose. But it doesn't need carbohydrates to provide itself with glucose. Eating too many refined carbs can actually rob your brain of the glucose it needs.
A high carbohydrate meal or snack, like a sugary soda, a bowl of cereal, or a bagel, raises blood sugar (glucose) rapidly. Your pancreas responds by sending the hormone insulin into your bloodstream in response to high blood sugar. Insulin tells your cells to shuttle this excess glucose from your bloodstream and store it in your fat cells.
This response to a high carbohydrate meal means the glucose available to your brain has actually dropped. Lower circulating blood glucose means less glucose for your brain to tap into. In other words, too many carbohydrates in your diet are worse for your brain than too little.
Reference: Bio-Medicine's Increase in sugar...decrease in brain function!!!
LLVLC On YouTube: Gluconeogenesis On Low-Carb
More on Gluconeogenesis: Carbwire July 11, 2008 Gluconeogenesis: The Definitive Reason Why Your Body Doesn’t Need Carbs
Comments
I appreciate your article & agree completely that highly refined, simple carbohydrates should not be a predominant food source; however, complex carbohydrates are, and have always been, extremely important as a nutrient source. You even said it yourself when you described early nutrition sources: "berries and other fruits...roots, nuts, and some wild plants like herbs" every single one of these contains high levels of complex carbohydrates.
In fact, our bodies, particularly our brains, rely on dietary carbohydrate sources for function. While it is true that we can generate glucose internally, we do not generate enough to sufficiently fuel both our brain and our body. As a general rule, 50-60% of dietary intake should come from complex, healthy carbohydrates...exactly like you listed in your article.
Thanks for the good article. For people interested in learning more about gluconeogenesis or carbohydrate restriction in general, the Metabolism Society is a great resource. Their website has much of the science that supports proper nutrition and many good articles. Here is the address:
www.MetabolismSociety.org
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