I wonder if the body would use protein as energy if one meal's p:e ratio were >1 but the overall daily p:e ratio were <0.5 (e.g. only a lean steak for lunch but pure fat for breakfast and dinner)? Also is how much exogenous protein can be absorbed for structural purposes in a single meal relevant, here?
Regarding PUFA, is there a difference between seed oil which is likely over-oxidized and rancid and meat-bound PUFA which is not rancid or oxidized? Are all PUFAs a potential culprit or just the oxidized ones? By your hypothesis, when they are released into the bloodstream from body fat, in what state are they?
Could you also elaborate on how they are eliminated from the body? If they are released from body fat, what determines whether they are expelled from the body or returned back to body fat?
I have to admit, I don't know the answers to any of those. I'm pretty new to the whole PUFA thing, and most of it is a lot of speculation, anyway.
Probably highly likely that rancid, oxidized PUFA is way worse than regular PUFA. I saw a study where they tested deep fryer oil from various restaurants, and up to 75% of the PUFAs in there had oxidized into various aldehydes. At that point, it's literally just poison, I think. I suspect that "naturally occurring" PUFAs are protected from oxidation, at least to a degree. But do I know that? Not with any certainty. I guess the main takeaway is to avoid deep fried restaurant food at all costs.
If they are freed from body fat via lipolysis, they'd enter the blood stream like any other fatty acid from body fat, I'd suspect. My understanding is that lipolysis is always going on, and there's always a certain amount of free fatty acids in circulation in the blood stream, like blood glucose. If they are re-esterified into triglycerides/body fat again, or used in body tissue, probably depends on metabolic demand at the time. I.e. lipolysis puts FFAs into circulation, but if they aren't used (e.g. because there is so much glucose in the blood stream that no tissues end up burning fat), then they just get put back in.
About the P:E and protein per meal, good question. I have seen some people talk about "You can't use more than 60g of protein per meal" but I'm not sure. It also takes some time to digest food and so on, so maybe that protein will still be used a few hours later? This stuff would be cool to observe, but we'd need something like a CGM-style live monitor of FFAs and insulin and maybe even amino acids in the blood stream..
Instead of being trapped on Mars, Watney should be trapped on a vegan colony. Then he could science the shit out of our more immediately useful concerns. ;-)
He did try the potato diet for quite a while, just with the advantage of no annoying vegans around. In that case he probably would have built a still to vodka make out of potatoes and his own piss.
Why do you say the monk fruit extract is raising your insulin massively? This paper looked at the insulin response to a drink sweetened with monk fruit and none was detected. https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2016225
You are eating it rather than drinking it as was done in that paper, so that might make a small difference due to the cephalic insulin response (part of what that Lustig guy claims is a big problem with artificial sweeteners), but it would be strange, I think, if it were much of a difference. And it would be strange if it were raising insulin that much more than the carbs and protein in the cream already are.
Also, on Lustig's fear of insulin, why would it be bad to have an insulin spike after eating an artificial sweetener? He says chronic inflammation and cell proliferation. He's clearly oversimplifying things in that talk you linked. Is there actual evidence to say insulin spikes in situations like this are bad? I wouldn't be surprised if they were good!
He also fails to mention that the literature on glucose intolerance from "diet sweeteners" is not clear cut. I haven't seen anything on monk fruit in particular either.
I definitely understand quitting the monk fruit because it tastes bad, though.
I don't know for sure it raises insulin, was just a suspicion. The 3 days I added the monk fruit magnesium to my heavy cream, I experienced symptoms like when gaining weight: very strong thirst all day long. Then I gained a pound when I had been expecting to lose another pound! That plus it tasting way too sweet..
From the paper you mention:
> there were no differences in total area under the curve (AUC) for glucose (P=0.960) and insulin (P=0.216) over 3 h between the four test beverages.
> The consumption of calorie-free beverages sweetened with artificial and natural NNS have minimal influences on total daily energy intake, postprandial glucose and insulin compared with a sucrose-sweetened beverage.
Sounds like that's confirming what I'm suspecting?
No, you are misreading the study. The AUC is including the meal that was a an hour after the sweetened drink. The AUC (for both glucose and insulin) is negative for those that had the noncaloric sweeteners before the meal.
I wish I could paste pictures of the results in substack comments.
It's almost certainly because eating calories now makes you less hungry later. The point I make with bringing this study up is that the monk fruit is most probably not messing with your insulin, which was a major point you seem to be making in your post.
So I actually kinda tested it, very vague and crude. My last blood panel I was fasted completely and my insulin was 6.8. This time, I took a dose of the monk fruit magnesium 30 minutes before the blood draw, dissolved in a glass of water. Insulin was 10. Not a massive spike, the ref range goes from 2.6 to 25, but it is higher. Not sure if that's a natural fluctuation or caused by the monk fruit.
A change of 3.2 mIU/L in fasted insulin is indistinguishable from noise. In this paper https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/86/11/5457/2849520 they took two fasted insulin measure ten minutes apart. In figure one they show the difference in these measure plotted against the mean. So you'd be at 3.2 and 8.4, a pretty dense cluster.
You could raise your biotin and omega 3 by adding egg yolks- arguably more bioavailable than a pill type supplement. And YES I would love an insulin monitor! Ivor was working on one a while back but I think it is much more complicated than measuring glucose.
Yea I suspect so on insulin. But they're coming out with a ketone one soon, so maybe insulin not that far off? Probably at least 5-10 years, though.
Adding a few yolks is an interesting idea, that way I wouldn't raise protein substantially. I'll put it on the list to try. Then again, taking the supplements isn't that terrible/annoying. But I might try it once I run out of them. Thanks for the suggestion!
I wonder if the body would use protein as energy if one meal's p:e ratio were >1 but the overall daily p:e ratio were <0.5 (e.g. only a lean steak for lunch but pure fat for breakfast and dinner)? Also is how much exogenous protein can be absorbed for structural purposes in a single meal relevant, here?
Regarding PUFA, is there a difference between seed oil which is likely over-oxidized and rancid and meat-bound PUFA which is not rancid or oxidized? Are all PUFAs a potential culprit or just the oxidized ones? By your hypothesis, when they are released into the bloodstream from body fat, in what state are they?
Could you also elaborate on how they are eliminated from the body? If they are released from body fat, what determines whether they are expelled from the body or returned back to body fat?
I have to admit, I don't know the answers to any of those. I'm pretty new to the whole PUFA thing, and most of it is a lot of speculation, anyway.
Probably highly likely that rancid, oxidized PUFA is way worse than regular PUFA. I saw a study where they tested deep fryer oil from various restaurants, and up to 75% of the PUFAs in there had oxidized into various aldehydes. At that point, it's literally just poison, I think. I suspect that "naturally occurring" PUFAs are protected from oxidation, at least to a degree. But do I know that? Not with any certainty. I guess the main takeaway is to avoid deep fried restaurant food at all costs.
If they are freed from body fat via lipolysis, they'd enter the blood stream like any other fatty acid from body fat, I'd suspect. My understanding is that lipolysis is always going on, and there's always a certain amount of free fatty acids in circulation in the blood stream, like blood glucose. If they are re-esterified into triglycerides/body fat again, or used in body tissue, probably depends on metabolic demand at the time. I.e. lipolysis puts FFAs into circulation, but if they aren't used (e.g. because there is so much glucose in the blood stream that no tissues end up burning fat), then they just get put back in.
About the P:E and protein per meal, good question. I have seen some people talk about "You can't use more than 60g of protein per meal" but I'm not sure. It also takes some time to digest food and so on, so maybe that protein will still be used a few hours later? This stuff would be cool to observe, but we'd need something like a CGM-style live monitor of FFAs and insulin and maybe even amino acids in the blood stream..
Instead of being trapped on Mars, Watney should be trapped on a vegan colony. Then he could science the shit out of our more immediately useful concerns. ;-)
Haha I loved that movie :)
He did try the potato diet for quite a while, just with the advantage of no annoying vegans around. In that case he probably would have built a still to vodka make out of potatoes and his own piss.
Why do you say the monk fruit extract is raising your insulin massively? This paper looked at the insulin response to a drink sweetened with monk fruit and none was detected. https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2016225
You are eating it rather than drinking it as was done in that paper, so that might make a small difference due to the cephalic insulin response (part of what that Lustig guy claims is a big problem with artificial sweeteners), but it would be strange, I think, if it were much of a difference. And it would be strange if it were raising insulin that much more than the carbs and protein in the cream already are.
Also, on Lustig's fear of insulin, why would it be bad to have an insulin spike after eating an artificial sweetener? He says chronic inflammation and cell proliferation. He's clearly oversimplifying things in that talk you linked. Is there actual evidence to say insulin spikes in situations like this are bad? I wouldn't be surprised if they were good!
He also fails to mention that the literature on glucose intolerance from "diet sweeteners" is not clear cut. I haven't seen anything on monk fruit in particular either.
I definitely understand quitting the monk fruit because it tastes bad, though.
I don't know for sure it raises insulin, was just a suspicion. The 3 days I added the monk fruit magnesium to my heavy cream, I experienced symptoms like when gaining weight: very strong thirst all day long. Then I gained a pound when I had been expecting to lose another pound! That plus it tasting way too sweet..
From the paper you mention:
> there were no differences in total area under the curve (AUC) for glucose (P=0.960) and insulin (P=0.216) over 3 h between the four test beverages.
> The consumption of calorie-free beverages sweetened with artificial and natural NNS have minimal influences on total daily energy intake, postprandial glucose and insulin compared with a sucrose-sweetened beverage.
Sounds like that's confirming what I'm suspecting?
No, you are misreading the study. The AUC is including the meal that was a an hour after the sweetened drink. The AUC (for both glucose and insulin) is negative for those that had the noncaloric sweeteners before the meal.
I wish I could paste pictures of the results in substack comments.
But it sounds like, even with that, NNS didn't provide any benefit? You basically just eat more later.
Not sure if that is because NNS make you eat more, or if eating actual sugar makes you eat less (later).
It's almost certainly because eating calories now makes you less hungry later. The point I make with bringing this study up is that the monk fruit is most probably not messing with your insulin, which was a major point you seem to be making in your post.
So I actually kinda tested it, very vague and crude. My last blood panel I was fasted completely and my insulin was 6.8. This time, I took a dose of the monk fruit magnesium 30 minutes before the blood draw, dissolved in a glass of water. Insulin was 10. Not a massive spike, the ref range goes from 2.6 to 25, but it is higher. Not sure if that's a natural fluctuation or caused by the monk fruit.
A change of 3.2 mIU/L in fasted insulin is indistinguishable from noise. In this paper https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/86/11/5457/2849520 they took two fasted insulin measure ten minutes apart. In figure one they show the difference in these measure plotted against the mean. So you'd be at 3.2 and 8.4, a pretty dense cluster.
You could raise your biotin and omega 3 by adding egg yolks- arguably more bioavailable than a pill type supplement. And YES I would love an insulin monitor! Ivor was working on one a while back but I think it is much more complicated than measuring glucose.
Yea I suspect so on insulin. But they're coming out with a ketone one soon, so maybe insulin not that far off? Probably at least 5-10 years, though.
Adding a few yolks is an interesting idea, that way I wouldn't raise protein substantially. I'll put it on the list to try. Then again, taking the supplements isn't that terrible/annoying. But I might try it once I run out of them. Thanks for the suggestion!