Hyperlipid: Eating Carbs Depletes Vitamin B1 and E Stores

[ttlaitin]

A blog-entry from Hyperlipid:


Eating carbs (instead of fats and proteins) increases your bodies needs for certain vitamins
You need vitamin B1 to metabolize glucose. Eating carbs will deplete your body from the vitamin. B1 is water-soluble, so your body can't store it well. you must have a B1-source in your diet. If your B1 resources are low, you'll get beri-beri.
Eating carbs depletes also vitamin E storages.
These vitamins are required less if you eat only fat and protein.


Interesting. makes you wonder about the "recommended daily intake" values. and after reading this, its easier to understand that a long time ago, people could actually live without vitamin pills...

"Fat storage and retrieval"
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2007/12/fat-storage-and-retrieval.html

[rightnow]

The Taubes book also points out that eating carbs appears to increase the body's need for Vitamin C. People eating nothing but meat/fat for 1+ years in research or "for life" in some cultures, never get scurvy. Yet sailors at sea for months got it. Because they were living mostly on carbs.

It's an interesting idea when you think of it. Much more research is needed on this and it may turn out that far more vitamins and/or minerals are depleted or more-needed with carb intake. All along we have been told we need to eat fruits and vegetables because of their vitamins, for example. And yet, the sailors didn't need oranges to give them vitamin C to prevent scurvy unless they were eating carbs. Had they been eating meat and fat like Inuit they would have been just fine. So it makes me wonder just how much the obsessive 'need' for fruits and vegetables might be an artifact, in both research and publicity and cultural tradition, not of the raw need for them, but of the need for them to "compensate for" our carb intake.

[Angeline]

Yes I was fascinated by the explanation of vitamin C. I always had trouble reconciliating the lack of scurvy with an all-meat diet.

The way Gary explains is that vitamin C uses the same shuttling system than glucose for distribution in the body. He compares it to two strangers trying to flag the same taxicab. Except that glucose is favored over vitamin C. So when you eat a lot of carbs, without eating a lot of vitamin C to compensate, you end up with deficiencies. Less carbs means less glucose, therefore more "taxicabs" available for the Vit-C.

[Wifezilla]

In this scenario, the glucose is a hot young woman with big boobs. I am the vitamin C :p

[Legeon]

I wonder if fat and protein eat up any vitamins during digestion. Has anyone heard of such a thing?

[tom sawyer]

Might need more pantothenic acid (B5)? It is converted to Coenzyme A which is used in the beta oxidation of fatty acids (fat burning).

It is an interesting concept, tailoring your vitamin requirements to your specific diet. I would think that a low carb diet done sort of like a paleo, would give you all the vitmains and minerals you'd need. But I do sort of follow more of a "biochemical equivalent" philosophy (ie, I'll eat cheese because it is high fat and protein even though it wasn't on the menu 100000 years ago). So it may be that I'd want to supplement those vitamins predicted to be used in greater abundance by a metabolism fired by fats and protein.

On the other hand, I'd imagine that we'd get pantothene ( and the other B's) from meat so really you shouldn't have to supplement if you're eating a diet that isn't loaded with processed stuff.