Friday, March 13, 2015

IS there an "essential carbohydrate" after all?

Last night, i spent far too much time trying to find a "candy recipe" to make inositol easier to consume in tablespoon-quantities.  It made me think of something, as inositol is so sweet and powdered-sugar-like....  I just googled "carbs in powdered inositol."  Serving size, 1/4 teaspoon -- 1 g carb.  Two tablespoonsful = 24 grams.

Having a suspicion that my body may not convert phytates or glucose to inositol any better than it does beta-carotene to vitamin A, this means i NEED to ingest isolated inositol.  This means i have an "essential carbohydrate."

Bummer.

I failed to mention yesterday, in my general discussion of this stuff, that most of inositol's magic comes from it being what is called a "second messenger" for our bodies' neuro-and-hormone-transmitting system.  The major players travel through our bodies till they come to the cell wall, then hand off the message to these second-messengers like a relay-racer hands off the baton.  If there's insufficient inositol in my system, for example, the TSH may be carrying urgent messages to my thyroid for more-more-more, and my thyroid not registering the message in its full amplitude.

No wonder if -- IF -- some people think that raising their intake of carbohydrates raises their thyroid's performance.  It might just mean that some of the carbs they're eating are being broken down properly to inositol, and effectively giving a "hearing aid" to their glands.

I didn't get an awful lot of answers, googling "inositol and thyroid" -- mostly one damn rat study over and over.  I wonder how much attention is being paid to this potentially-important connection.

Bear in mind that this is just a preliminary hypothesis!  But not only is the conclusion from observation logically plausible, the mechanism is, too....

9 comments:

  1. Hi Tess

    "There are three kinds of foods--fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. All of these provide calories. But the carbohydrates provide calories and nothing else. They have none of the essential elements to build up or to repair the tissues of the body. A man, given carbohydrates alone, however liberally, would starve to death on calories. The body must have proteins and animal fats. It has no need for carbohydrates, and, given the two essential foodstuffs, it can get all the calories it needs from them."

    Sir Heneage Ogilvie, former vice president of the Royal College of Surgeons, England.

    Note. He said Man, Women are a whole different ball game.

    Heading for the shelter.

    Kind regards Eddie

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    1. :-) Eddie, i think grabbing your coat and running for the shelter may be your favorite form of exercise!

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  2. You haven't seen him carrying cases of wine up two flights of stairs to our apartment. LOL

    All the best Jan

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    1. that's a very important form of exercise, too! :-) weight-lifting, cardio AND leg work....

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  3. I could have sworn I'd posted a comment on yesterday's post, but it hasn't shown up.

    I find I'm very sensitive to too much inositol - if I take it (1-2 teaspoons) daily for a few weeks, I'll become very tired and sleepy most of the time. I think it's a supplement I'd be better off cycling or using in very low doses, but trying to work out a routine seems to be too much effort, especially since I don't really notice much initial benefit to taking it. I think it's a supplement that will have a highly variable response for individuals.

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    1. Blogger does that every once in awhile -- some days, i'm stubborn enough to try to post on someone else's blog up to a dozen times before it'll "take" ... and other days i just give up. :-(

      yes, even though the suggested dose is a quarter-teaspoon, some sites say results don't show up for neurological issues for months while using up to 18 grams! i hear some people get gut issues with it, too, and have to work up to a large dose quite slowly.

      complicated supplement ... and i haven't seen very many articles about it, either.

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  4. Tess: There may be such a person, but he or she has yet to be captured in the lab. All of the studies that I've looked at (30+) show no difference in basal metabolism between different macro combinations, with the possible exception of protein.

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    1. thanks for coming around and reading, Sam! yesterday was only my second of using more than a couple of grams of myo-inositol, and although my experiment is confounded by the increasing day-length, my improved energy and "tendency to move around" are a delightful surprise.

      so i'll be using about ten grams/day on a continuing basis, and see how that pans out in the long term. :-) some supplements start strong but fizzle out (like SAMe), and some start slow and gain speed (like gelatin).... now that i'm taking an outstanding multivitamin, the number of my continuing "necessary" supplements has diminished significantly.

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  5. Not sure where you got that info but it is not true.

    1/4 t of inositol is only 600mg, so even if this were glucose it would only be maximum .6g.

    Inositol may taste sweet, just like the amino acid glycine, or the molecule stevioside, but it has no calories and no carbs. It is a b vitamin. many things in nature taste sweet but are actually energy free.

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