[Bon mots]

I don't know Maggie, I'm not a doctor...just an amateur and know enough to worry myself I suppose! :-)

I have some audiobooks from Dr. Andrew Weil, a kind of fitness guru. I learned of this there.

I am what is known as a "hardgainer". I can lift a lot of weight, but don't ever seem to get big like a Schwarzenegger. I took all the protein supplements, work out five days a week with really heavy weights... but no big results. I wasn't eating any carbo though. Avoided it like the plague... then learned of gluconeogenesis. It was first found to occur during starvation, but Weil says it can happen on low carb diets.

I would like to know. Ping me if you get an answer!!

[najida]

Gluconeogenesis is like running a race on prosthetic legs...
Glucose via carbs is the bodies prefered source of glucose for brain function...
But when deprived of CHO, the body has to use other (less efficient sources) to get glucose...which puts more work on hepatic and renal function.


Even now,
We rarely go below 40% CHO in the diet with diabetics...I have kids on insulin pumps who have gone as high as 60% CHO because they are in sports....(the preferred being around 50% for most folks)...

Even the ultra-high PRO tube-feeding formulas (Promote, Traumacal) for wound healing are 25% PRO, 52% CHO and 23% FAT (the need for CHO for efficient energy). Diabetic tube feedings are 20% PRO, 40% CHO and 40% FAT, with 15 gm of fiber. The fat and fiber slow down the glucose uptake because it isn't complex (can't be in liquid form).

So, yeah...
CHO is an important component of the human diet.