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by arcticbull 1068 days ago
I think when people say "fat" they mean triglycerides - not free fatty acids - which includes the glycerol backbone. So it's not right to say that humans can't turn fat into sugar, they can.

Per the wikipedia article 90% of gluconeogenesis happens from lactate, glycerol, alanine and glutamate.
2 comments
Blackthorn 1068 days ago
Yeah, fair enough. That'll maybe teach me to not type abbreviated nonsense on my phone.
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Aerroon 1068 days ago
>Per the wikipedia article 90% of gluconeogenesis happens from lactate, glycerol, alanine and glutamate.

That's interesting! Glutamine vs glutamate ratio is supposedly something that affects motivation.[0] I wonder if (enough) gluconeogenesis thus boosts motivation?

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0760-6

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wuiheerfoj 1068 days ago
Is there an obvious way to modify that ratio?
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Aerroon 1068 days ago
The "word on the street" is that oral glutamine supplementation works for this purpose. My personal experience agrees with this (but the effect probably isn't very large).

In the morning I mix a tablespoon of glutamine into a glass of water and drink it. You can buy glutamine in supermarkets next to all the other protein supplements (glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body).

It's also helpful to your immune system.

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That being said, that's 'hearsay'. I am not aware of any studies that show that oral supplementation of glutamine improves motivation. That might just be due to time though. The original study showing that glutamine-to-glutamate ratio in the nuclear accumbens affects motivation was published in 2020.[0]

We do know that glutamine does pass the blood brain barrier.[1] There's probably a decent chance that oral supplementation of glutamine works.

Some downsides: it can make seizures worse. There's some worry about it having some effect on cancer, although that seems to be mixed - some seem to think it would increase the risk of cancer, others say it decreases it (cancer cells use glutamine as fuel).

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-020-0760-6

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12933350/

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