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mad cowboy
diet for a new america
laurels kitchen new
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don't drink your milk
milk the deadly poison
save yourself from breast cancer
the china study
marcia anzell
Your Stomach Knows Best
The Dangers of Sports Nutrition
question number one ... "distinctive sugars" From Stryer Biochemistry
The intravenous infusion of fructose into healthy volunteers leads to a two to five fold
increase in the level of lactate in the blood, a far greater increase than that observed following
the infusion the same amount of glucose.
(a) Why is gylcolysis more rapid following the infusion of fructose?
(b) Fructose has been used in place of glucose for intravenous feeding.
Why is this use of fructose unwise?
question number two ... the "camel's hump" From Stryer Biochemistry
"Compare the H2O yield from the complete oxidation of 1 gram of glucose with that of 1 gram of
tripalmitoylglycerol. Relate these values to the evolutionary selection of the contents in a camel's hump."
(the answers are at the end of this page)
triathletes and gastrointestinal distress
Ironman 1988 (I think the year was 1988) on television, we were following the leader Mark Allen approximately 11 miles into the run on the way to the big Bud can at 16 miles. There he was the race leader, soon pulling off to the side of the road to relieve his colon and small bowel of a large amount of "precious intravascular volume" that one does not want to give up at an event like the Ironman. At the least, it will compromise your chances of winning, as it did Mark's that day. Watching Natasha Badman vomit within the first mile of the run of the 2000 Ironman, reminded me of my overdistended and flaccid stomach in the 1984 Ironman, trying to run down the hill from the Kona Surf. Natasha was lucky that she was able to vomit what was most likely hypertonic sports nutrition and go on. I would have been better off to vomit rather than try to continue with a stomach full of Gatoraid. How many triathletes have experienced nausea, vomiting and diarrhea during training and racing? Even Mark Hargreaves, Ph.D. (hired mouth for the king's sugar business) of the Gatoraid Sports Science Institute warns: "Ingesting carbs in too concentrated a form could impair fluid absorption and cause an upset stomach."
your stomach knows best or
how can a "potato" be "too concentrated"
Thank Mother Goose that most people's stomachs are smarter than most people's brains. How can that be? The stomach has gastric mucosa that secretes hydrochloric acid to help digest food. It has peristalsis to help mix the food around and empties the stomach usually in approximately 30 minutes. Then the pyloric channel, (not the English channel) controls when and how the stomach empties. Not much in the way of Betz cells there. How can he say that? The stomach can't be smarter than the brain. Well, lucky for the mass of humanity, especially those that find amusement in doing three event events like the Ironman, and fortunately lucky for pseudoscientists and hired mouths of the king's sugar business, aka sports nutrition -the stomach knows best.
the dangers of sports nutrition ... part 7999
Under the general catagory of FITNESS in the August 2000 issue of Triathlete Magazine, Mr. Stan Down penned an
article, "The Science of Race Fueling" part 2. Let's first, (as my one-time editor cautioned me about some
of my other writing to try to establish credibility at the outset) look at Mr. Down's credentials.
He is founder and former owner of Gofaster Bicycles Incorporated and now publishes two popular online portals for
triathletes. Not that a scientific background is requisite for writing about scientific issues (John Robbins and Nathan
Pritikin seemed to do pretty well), but it would be helpful to at least have some real insight into what you are
writing about and at least offer something better than standing off of your bicycle for three minutes as proof
of your hypothesis.
Paragraph two discusses when to eat during the Ironman. Correct on that one Stan,
while you are on the bike is a good time to eat. I know, I ate
five lettuce and potato (all unprocessed) sandwiches in Ironman 85 while riding my bike.
I even ate a sixth sandwich while running through the streets of Kailua.
These sandwiches were totally unregulated. Get that, unregulated sandwiches
at the Ironman, where's Val Silk when you need her? At least my non-regulated sandwiches stacked in
my rear bottle cage were very accessible (see paragraph three). Worried about salt? Salt the sandwiches. Worried
about potassium, don't -or eat a banana if you must. My front cage had plain water. My top tube had no gu or
gels or other sucrose laced poisonous and noxious temporary diabetes inducing substances courtesy of the king's sugar
business.
a recipe for a long "hibernation"
or at the least, a large "camel's hump"
Moving on we come to paragraph four, "During a long distance event, a good plan is to eat a gel once every 20 minutes. That takes care of 300 calories hourly." If we preface that with the large pre-race meal recommended in part one of "The Science of Race Fueling," your insulin level will be high at the start -and stay high for the whole event, should you survive. I guess the latest thing now in sports watches will be a new watch that beeps every 20 miuntes to remind you to take your gel, and raise your serum INSULIN and osmolality levels even higher than they already are. Sucrose or any simple sugar in causes the insulin level to rise, usually more than is necessary for a given quantity of these substances. Soon all the recently ingested sugar finds it way into your cells courtesy of insulin and you bonk, unless before that happens you put more of this poison in your system. Then what happens? Serum osmolality remains high, possibly goes even higher and insulin levels rise higher than before. If one repeats this exercise in dietary insanity every twenty minutes during a Ironman bike ride you will be lucky if you live to make it to the Kona Surf. The increased insulin levels, "signal the fed state." The high insulin levels and low GLUCAGON levels do just the OPPOSITE of what you need during the Ironman. Insulin prepares the body for fasting -it is part of the reason man evolved. Insulin facilitates protein and glycogen synthesis -not breakdown and it suppresses gluconeogenesis by the liver. Insulin facilitates fatty acid synthesis and inhibits breakdown and utilization of triacylglycerols (fat). By inhibiting your fatty acid utilization you also increase your need for water since the burning of fat yields 1.82 times as much water as burning the equivalent amount of glucose. A high insulin / glucagon ratio decreases circulating catacholamines (epinephrine and nor-epinephrine). This leads to increased utilization of glucose by muscle and inhibits fatty acid utilization. Sucrose hydrolyzes quickly to glucose and fructose. Many of the other simple sugars utilized in these noxious gels and bars also contains large amounts of fructose. What's wrong with fructose you might ask? Fructose was once used as a caloric replacement in IV fluids. This practice was however soon discontinued because it was observed that in healthy volunteers, high levels of fructose led to increased production of lactate and increased metabolic acidosis. Just the opposite of what you want during the Ironman.
Warning ... Refractory Dehydration Ahead !
When serum osmolality remains that high what does the body do? Back to human physiology -homeostasis. The body does not like having its serum hyperosmolar so it tries to reduce the serum osmolality by excreting the excess ions via the kidneys into the urine. Then, as anyone marginally acquainted with renal physiology knows, "so goes the ions -so goes the water." In order to restore the body's serum osmolality back to normal you deplete intravascular volume. How else could well-trained world class triathletes be collapsing near or around the finish line of what is probably the best aided event in all of triathlon. By relying on this poisonous non-food for nutrition during these events you are at great risk for REFRACTORY DEHYDRATION. The light at the end of the tunnel of the bike ride at Kona will turn out to be a steam engine coming the other way! What kind of science or pseudoscience would advocate temporary induction of diabetes mellitus -acute sugar toxicity, in people trying to accomplish in 17 hours or less an event like the Ironman. Even stupid stomachs know better than that.
train your metabolism
not your salt metabolism
Compounding one disaster with another: "There is a school of thought that fuel uptake, like salt metabolism is trainable." from paragraph 8. Question -what is the name of the school that offers a course in training your fuel uptake? As far as training your salt metabolism, that school is called applied renal physiology and you do not train your salt metabolism. The homeostatic mechanisms of the adrenal glands and the kidneys will adapt to heat exposure over time. It is not anything that anyone can train. Adaptation to heat is usually accomplished in two weeks. It is simply a homeostatic mechanism of the body that allows those who must labor in heat to gain some tolerance to the heat. I have yet to encounter a school that says you can train your body to absorb more rapidly over time -poison -that your body doesn't really want or need anyway. No, to date the school of "Diabetes Mellitus Induction" at least to my knowledge has not been granted a charter. Never fear though; once the king hears of this he will put his best physicians on this project and one of their first tasks will be to look up the Latin word for induction.
Some of the words were close: train, metabolism; now that's something we can do, train our metabolism. This is called enzymatic induction for those of you familiar with biochemistry. Contrary to current public opinion, the body does have many places to store energy for the long haul, including the long haul at the Ironman. In order to use these sources of energy such as liver and muscle glycogen and fat (triacylglycerols), we have to induce the enzyme systems that catalyze these biochemical reactions. It is a well established axiom of biochemistry that biochemical reactions are not substrate driven but instead are limited by the catalyst (enzyme). You can have many pounds of fat on your body and still be completely unable to utilize this source of energy because you have not induced and trained the requisite enzymes for the reaction to proceed at a rate that would keep you going at the Ironman. The amount of available energy stores in an average 70-kg human is extremely large. Why would anyone want to block access to these by ingesting "sports nutrition?"
| fuel reserves in a typical 70-kg man | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Organ | Available energy (kcal) | ||
| glucose or glycogen | triacylglycerols(fat) |
mobilizable proteins | |
| blood | 60 | 45 | 0 |
| liver | 400 | 450 | 400 |
| brain | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| muscle | 1200 | 450 | 24000 |
| adipose(fat) | 80 | 135,000 | 40 |
| from Stryer Biochemistry ...page 771 | |||
How to keep your body from ever learning
how to burn fat ... just load on sports nutrition
before, during and after your training and events
Following Mr. Down's prescription for race fueling will GUARANTEE that your biochemistry will never learn to burn fat. Filling your stomach with sports nutrition before your event quickly precipitates a high insulin level which soon inhibits fatty acid utilization and puts the body into a state of synthesis of glycogen and fat -not breakdown and utilization of glycogen and fat. Relying on sports non-nutrition during events like the Ironman is dangerous enough, but training on these noxious poisons can severely limit your career and possibly your useful life span. Really makes me wonder how an exceptionally well-trained athlete like Greg Welch can end up with ventricular tachycardia. That makes absolutely no sense to me unless he also has chronic sugar toxicity (adult onset diabetes mellitus), like I do, and it is affecting the blood supply to the conduction system / sino-atrial node or AV junction regions of the heart. The enzyme systems needed to fuel your body for the long haul from stored energy supplies in the body will never be induced and developed if you always block their induction with sucrose and other simple sugars while you train. That is a no-brainer. Don't believe me? Try stopping all sucrose and don't eat anything before your morning run (which should be your first workout). Start running every day for one to two hours using water only for aid. Initially you may have some trouble getting through these runs. You will probably feel hypoglycemic, maybe bonk, but stay with them. Usually in one to two weeks the hypoglycemic feelings will diminish and suddenly you will feel like you could run forever. Your weight will start to drop and your training will improve markedly. Training your muscles is one thing, especially for the short haul (100 meters or less), but to do long distance you must also train your metabolism to be successful. Remember, during the Ironman or any other triathlon, you are trying to utilize your "camel's hump" -not synthesize one.
standing down ... hyperthermia
hyperosmolality ... poor training ... who knows
While it may be true that the temperature of the liquid aid may be important, it is not nearly as important as the osmolality of the aid and especially the osmolality of what you have already put in your stomach. For over 23 years now I have trained and raced in a fairly wide variety of climates and conditions -everything from Ironman 84 with its high heat and humidity to 30 degrees below zero with 30 knot winds in the Vail Valley to the noon time runners club in Tucson, Arizona. Typically while running and cycling in the early afternoon heat of the Sonoran desert temperatures routinely reach into the high 90's and low hundreds. I have personally completed many 10-mile runs here in this heat with little, if any, aid other than as much water as I could put in my stomach at the start. You may not run fast in this heat, but it can be done.
In all my cycling and running I cannot remember one time where I ever had to "stand down." If you truly have to do this, I would definitely look into it. That is not right -your body is not happy with you. I would seriously wonder if this is not a result of early serum hyperosmolality, decreased intravascular volume and hyperthermia -all soon leading to refractory dehydration. Even in Stan's words when you stand down you finally are forced to do what you should have been doing in the first place, that is, drink cold water, but not as Stan puts it to "cool your stomach." In reality what cold water accomplishes is decreasing the osmolality of the fluid in your stomach so that it can start to empty isotonic or hypotonic fluid into the small bowel.
how to produce gastric ileus
Mr. Down's "sports nutrition aid training" is, in reality, a good way to reproduce "the dreaded gastric ileus" , by his own admission. The stomach does know best; the small bowel does not want any part of hypertonic fluid. This is one of the body's homeostatic "PROTECTIVE" mechanisms. The small bowel is where all the absorption of nutrients occurs in the body. It is well set up for this, as it is usually 15 - 20 feet long with many convoluted villi for absorption of nutrients -many times the amount of the stomach's surface area of semi-permeable membrane for osmolality based water movement to occur. It is bad enough to have a stomach that won't empty because you have made the mistake of filling it with hypertonic fluid, but if your stomach were to empty all that hypertonic fluid into the small bowel in its usual 30 minutes or less, step aside. Repeated doses of hypertonic fluids into the small bowel would suck so much fluid into the small bowel from the intravascular pool that you would probably be found somewhere on the road back from Hawi, a dried up thoroughly dessicated prune -with projectile diarrhea. No way you will finish that race in that condition. Fortunately, your stomach does know best. Try giving it a listen some time. The last time I had a gastric ileus was Ironman 84, when I tried to aid myself with Gatoraid. Ironman 85 was different: no morning of the race loading other than water, plain water, and normal whole unprocessed food on the bike. It was an hour faster than 84 and a whole lot easier to run. No walking, and "NO SPORTS NUTRITION!"
whole unprocessed food
does not require regulation
You don't have to regulate the kind of food you eat everyday, that mankind evolved on, not like you have to regulate a substance that is poisonous to the human body. The human stomach doesn't routinely reject food unless there is a reason, viral gastroenteritis, too much alcohol which can kill or too much sports nutrition which also can kill. Since I started my running streak over 21 years ago I have not had a case of viral gastroenteritis. I also have not consumed too much alcohol or beer. That leaves only one -sports nutrition, and I did consume too much of those dreaded toxins in Gatoraid during the 84 Ironman and paid the price trying to run down the hill away from the Kona Surf at T2. My stomach was so full of Gatoraid garbage that it hurt to run downhill. I was also so dehydrated that by that time I could hardly run anyway. Fortunately for me my stomach made me wait before it would empty until I finally put some cold water and normal food in it. Alternating running and walking I did however manage to finish in a dismal over 12 hour effort. At least I still have all my small bowel and colon and I didn't have to crawl across the finish line.
standing down according to
Mr. Down
may be good for you
sort of like a three minute penalty at T2
sucrose is not carbohydrate
The potato is a complete carbohydrate: 75% carbohydrate, 15% protein and 10% fat. Mother Nature's balance. Sucrose contains no protein or fat. It is a disaccharide composed of one molecule of glucose joined to one molecule of fructose joined by an O-glycosidic bond. The carbohydrate in the potato is in the form of starch: a highly branched polymer of many molecules of glucose hooked together. The enzymatic pathway for the degradation of starch in the potato is biochemically different than the hydrolysis and sucrase enzyme that very rapidly breaks down sucrose. Refined sugar lacks any of the natural minerals that are present in the sugar beet or cane. When ingested the body has to supply these minerals in order to process and metabolize this toxic substance. Sugar ingested every day causes the blood to become acid much the same as animal protein does. Add to increased serum osmolality, increased insulin levels and metabolic acidosis from sucrose, the previously noted increased metabolic acidosis caused by ingesting fructose, and it makes one wonder how anyone survives these races trying to fuel themselves with these poisons. One thing is for certain: both Mr. Down and Dr. Hargreaves agree that the stomach does not like this poison. l have never had my stomach say no to a potato.
what brand of organic potatoes do you prefer
Finally we are cautioned to consider the fluid replacement sponsor of your planned race! This is really going too far! Not only do we have to get ready for a grueling event like the Ironman, but now we have to make sure our brand of poison we are slowly killing ourselves with in our daily training will be available to really wreck our day at the event of our choice. Pretty soon there will be so much confusion about which toxic drink you want to wreck your event with that there will be committees to decide who gets what at what race. Then all the research into sports nutrition will be oriented towards discovering one generic substance that everyone can train on and race on ending all this confusion. I can see the headlines now: New Generic Sports Nutrition substance discovered -you can eat it at home -on your bike -even while you run. It's readily available everywhere good organic vegetables are sold and can be easily stowed on your bike frame. It never "makes your stomach upset." The new discovery: the potato, and all of Mother Nature's whole unprocessed, wondrous, event saving, great tasting whole organic foods. How about Kennebecs today?
One last topic for all the diagnostic radiologists out there. Gastric ileus at least to me certainly feels like an ileus, but I admit that the last time I had one, Ironman 84, I did not have an Upper GI while I was trying to run down the hill from the Kona Surf. Pylorospasm could have been just as much a factor as ileus. I'm not sure we really know just what mechanism, or most likely some combination of both mechanisms, our ever so wise stomachs utilize to keep poisonous and noxious substances from entering our small bowel. It' s really academic, however, because it doesn't matter how a smart stomach gets the job done. What really matters is that our stomachs are a lot smarter than we think.
answer to distinctive sugars
(a) The fructose 1-phosphate pathway (p.491) forms glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Phosphofructokinase,
a key control enzyme, is bypassed. Furthermore, fructose 1-phosphate stimulates pyruvate kinase.
(b) The rapid, unregulated production of lactate can lead to metabolic acidosis.
answer to the camel's hump
"One gram of glucose (molecular weight 180.2) is equal to 5.55 mmol, and one gram of tripalmitoylglycerol (molecular weight 807.3) is equal to 1.24 mmol. The reaction stoichiometries indicate that 6 mol of H2O are produced per mole of glucose oxidized, and 49 mol of H2O per mol of tripalmitoylglycerol oxidized. Hence, the H2O yields per gram of fuel are 33.3 mmol (0.6g) for glucose, and 60.8 mmol (1.09g) for tripalmitoylglycerol. Thus, complete oxidation of this fat gives 1.82 times as much water as does glucose. Another advantage of triacylglycerols is that they can be stored in essentially anhydrous form whereas glucose is stored as glycogen, a highly hydrated polymer (p. 605). A hump consisting mainly of glycogen would be an intolerable burden -far more than the straw that broke the camel's back!"
both of these question are from:
Stryer Fourth Edition ... Biochemistry
pages 508, 1024, 784 and 1030.
Thanks for your time and your attention.
Copyright © John Mericle M.D. D.A.B.R. 2000-2011 All Rights Reserved
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glucagon and weight loss ...page 6
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where the sugar freeway ends ...page 38
- high fructose corn syrup
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Seven Days of Great Tasting Vegan Meals
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select articles ...page 125
- Complications of Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery
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- 14 Simple Things To Reduce Your Risk of Breast Cancer
- Osteoporosis
- What Really Causes Osteoporosis
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- Why Organic
- rugrat ... Lymphoma -The Dangers of New Carpet
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- Vitamin C
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