Hypercurious 3
Nutrition Basics – Carbohydrates
Before we praise or demonize carbs, let’s first understand what they are and where you find them.
Carbohydrates, molecularly, are formed from carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. They’re very small, and can be as tiny as only 7 atoms. A monosaccharide is the smallest, with the chemical formula (CH2O)n, where the n would represent 3, 5, or 6. If chemistry is but a faint memory for you, that means there are 3, 5, or 6 units of the (CH2O) molecule bonded together. The most basic forms of sugar are monosaccharides, and these include glucose, galactose, and fructose. They’re called simple sugars and are one molecule each. Glucose is the primary energy source for humans (regardless of diet, and we’ll talk about those details later), and it contains 6 carbon atoms.
Next up we have disaccharides. These carbohydrates contain two molecules of simple sugars. If two glucose molecules bond to each other, we get maltose. If a glucose molecule and a galactose molecule form a bond, you get the type of sugar found in dairy, lactose. When glucose and fructose form a bond, you get sucrose, also known as plain old table sugar. Sucrose is formed from plants, unlike lactose, which is formed in animals.
The next largest type of carbohydrates are called oligosaccharides, the pronunciation of which makes me glad I quit drinking. Oligosaccharides are chains of monosaccharides. There are less than 20 monosaccharides in this kind of molecule.
When there are more than 20 monosaccharides, these are called polysaccharides, where “poly” means “many.” Glycogen, the storage form of sugar that we hold in our liver and muscles, is a type of polysaccharide. Cellulose is another polysaccharide, it forms the walls of plant cells and can’t be digested by humans, even though we eat it all the time. Polysaccharides are the most abundant form of carbohydrate found in nature. All forms of starch are polysaccharides made entirely of glucose molecules.
Ok so that’s all cool and interesting but what happens when you eat it?
YOU DIE.
Just kidding. Unless you’re a diabetic without insulin and that’s not funny.
The carbohydrates you eat, both from sweets and from starches, are broken down into glucose through digestion, then absorbed into the bloodstream. Blood sugar is the measure of how much glucose is circulating in the blood at any given time, and it changes throughout each day based on the foods you eat, your sleep quality, your hormone balance, and even your stress level. It can be measured easily, by either a finger prick (cheap, painful), or continuous glucose monitor (not cheap in any way, not painful, provides robust metrics).
Glucose is also the first and easiest fuel for your cells to use as energy. For anyone with a healthy metabolism, burning sugar is just fine, and I wish I was one of them. For real, the mitochondria in your cells use glucose to generate ATP, the packet of energy involved in everything our bodies do all of the time. You will always have and always need some glucose in your blood, no matter how little of it you eat.
Where it gets messy is the wide world of processed foods. The sugar from a strawberry is going to get used more slowly that a spoonful of pure sugar. A strawberry is packed with a bunch of other things like vitamins, fiber, and water. Blood sugar raises slowly, and a little insulin is released by your pancreas to manage it. Sugar, the straight up kind, found in packaged goods everywhere, doesn’t have the nutritional buffer of the strawberry package, raises blood glucose fast and hard, stimulates greater insulin release, and is likely to cause a blood sugar drop within a couple of hours. If you’ve ever had a sweet or starchy breakfast at 8, then an energy crash, snack craving, and grumpy mood by 11, that’s what’s happening.
The role of insulin is to get glucose (and other molecules) from the bloodstream into the cells where it can be used. Insulin also shuttles extra glucose that we don’t need for energy, excess fat, and other excess molecules into adipose tissue for safe storage and use later. This is way more complicated than this little video, and we’ll get into it later.
So where we’re at on this is that insulin is released in response to glucose in the bloodstream. When all things are working right, you’re eating about the same amount of glucose that you can burn for fuel in the next few hours in the form of whole foods and you feel great all day.
When things aren’t working right, maybe you’re eating too many foods that break down into glucose, maybe you’re eating too much in general, maybe your metabolism isn’t working optimally for any of a hundred different reasons like hormone imbalances or environmental toxins or food allergies, adipose tissue proliferates, we gain weight in the form of fat, and we experience systemic inflammation as a reaction. All of these things cause further issues down the road.
For some people, there is a physiological issue that comes first to cause the overeating and gain of excess body fat. For others, it’s the excess eating that causes the chain of events.
So where do you find carbohydrates? All over the freakin place!! Pretty much if it’s sweet or starchy, it’s a carb. Fruit, honey, sugar, maple syrup, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup (ew), candy, ice cream, and juice are all carbs. Grains, rice, potatoes, pasta, pastries, breads, beans, and corn are all carbs too. Most of the lists you’ll find online that declare which carbs are good and which carbs are bad are just spouting the nonsense that’s gotten our country fat and sick in the first place. Your new rule of thumb is, the more unprocessed the better. The backup to that is, the more nutrients and fewest toxins the better.
And don’t you worry, gluten is getting it’s own show.
If you eat a diet that includes carbohydrates from whole foods and it’s working well for you, if you have energy all day, you can easily maintain your figure, you’re mentally sharp, and you feel great? Awesome, keep doing that.
If, like a whole lot of us, you think about carbs and gain ten pounds, your energy levels are erratic, half the time you can’t think straight, and you constantly feel puffy, maybe a diet with carbohydrates is something to reconsider. Which is the nice way of saying, try not eating carbs. Either less of them, or none at all. Because while carbs are the first and easiest choice for your body to use for energy, they’re not the ONLY choice, and there is solid evidence that most people don’t need them at all. They’re not essential. Your mind is blown. Good thing I’ll solve this mystery in the very next video.
If you want optimal health, and this is for the nerds and biohackers watching, you may want to consider reducing or nearly eliminating carbohydrates from your diet. There is growing evidence that shows this way of eating may improve various markers of health and longevity in humans. One strong theory is that keeping insulin low due to reduced intake of carbohydrates can improve how our bodies function.
One of my goals is to get a continuous blood glucose monitor, so I can have a boatload more data to analyze and pass along to you. I’ll be able to see exactly how certain foods, fasting periods, stressful situations, supplements, and sleep metrics affect the way my body manages its glucose needs. I’m planning on a Dexcom G6, and it costs money. As a supporter, this is the kind of thing your funds go to, which earns you faster, more personalized answers to questions and the ability to request deep dives into topics that are important to you. If you’d like to show your support, you can go through Patreon or directly through PayPal or Bitcoin.
*I’m not a doctor and this isn’t medical advice. If you want medical advice, talk to your trusted healthcare professional. Like I do when my knee feels weird. Or when I need that prescription for a Dexcom G6. Nothing I say is intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any diseases, because I’m not stepping on the toes of the FDA.
References:
https://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/cfb/carbohydrates.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5240084/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1204764/
https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/23311932.2016.1267691
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