Thanks for stopping by and commenting on my Diet Wars article. I’ve browsed through your site and appreciate the well-written, evidence-based posts.

This a really interesting study. Wondering how this translates to the average person? Are there dietary recommendations from the study to maximize performance during exercise?

Keep coming with the questions.

Yours is exactly the attitude that we need when it comes to public policy concerning our health in general and our obesity problem in particular.

A good scientist is skeptical…they don’t try to back up their beliefs by ignoring research or massaging test results to support their hypotheses.

I am sure there is a lot more to this research.

It may very well turn out to be completely wrong.

But, then again…

I did not mean to imply that the research for lactate is not good.

I was really just asking (because I don’t know) is what levels lactate are at when we are not exercising?

The reason I ask this is because if the levels are very low between times of anaerobic exercise, then the brains of people that never exercise would not be getting this fuel that seems to be better than glucose, and this finding would only benefit those that exercise regularly.

Which, of course, is a good reason to exercise. That doesn’t mean it’s a good reason to eat low-carb with the purpose of “supercharging” one’s brain.

This is what I meant by saying “perhaps there is more to it”.

I don’t have online access, but I read (and copied) the article from the journal at the U of Toronto medical library.

This study is not the definitive word on neurobiology.

It is simply the first step towards refuting the commonly held belief that the brain can’t function without glucose.

The current RDI for carbs is based on this belief that our brains need 130 gms of glucose per day to function properly.

This study opens doors to entirely new areas of brain research related to understanding lactate’s specific neurological effects.

Researchers are now looking at lactate as a treatment modality for various brain ailments.

Never mind the fact that it challenges one of the strongest arguments that mainstream obesity researchers rely on to refute a low carb approach to weight loss.

I hope that this study allows mainstream researchers to feel free to investigate all avenues of weight loss research and not feel pressured into following the company line – calories in v.s calories out.

Obesity research has become very politicized over the 50-100 years. This is not how we get good science.

Good scientists should never set out to prove their argument. They should begin with a hypothesis, test that hypothesis, report the findings and begin again.

Research into low carb has been marginalized for years. As a result, funding is hard to come by, and when it does, the research is criticized politically, not scientifically.

I am hoping that research such as this serves to level the playing field

McBloggenstein:
Perhaps there is more to it than this. But does there have to be? And does it matter how long lactate is the primary fuel? If lactate is being produced, the time to exhaustion is shorter. So whatever we get is a bonus, no? And no, we are not anaerobically exercising all the time, which is why the brain uses glucose and/or ketone bodies.

There is some research which suggests the brain performs better on ketones than glucose. So maybe the point regarding title of the post is to think about what the research is saying rather than just dismissing it.

I would say you should be more specific in how long lactate remains the primary fuel for the brain after a person is through exercising. What I mean is, we are not anaerobically exercising all of the time.

So our brain is not feasting on lactate 24/7. What about other times? If weight lifting raised our lactate levels for long after exercise time is over, I would point that out.

Otherwise, I feel as though your title suggests that a low carb diet is good for the brain, although I know you are just saying that the brain has “alternative fuels”.