Glucose And The Brain's Energy

[hazelm]

This morning, while looking for some answers about carbohydrates and glucose, I accidentally stumbled onto a comment that surprised me.  I did not try to  read the article since I saw immediately that the poster was telling everyone to take all carbs out of their diets and eat only fats.  But, in scanning, I saw him saying that it is no longer believed that the brain requires sugar (fructose) for energy.

 

My question:  Is this true?  What is the current scientific evidence that the brain needs or does not need sugar for energy?  the last I knew, the brain was said to be the one area of the body that does require sugar in the form of glucose.

 

Thank you. 

Edited February 3, 2018 by hazelm

[Vmedvil]

Alright, the Biochemist part of me can answer this question. We will begin with the power source of all cells then go to more exacting types of cells, which is the biochemical pathway or Metabolic Pathway Glycolysis. 

 

 

We can already see here that the cell converts glucose which is a type of sugar into Fructose during this pathway to generate ATP from ADP which is the primary source of power in the cell. So, what your friend said about the body not requiring Fructose is false it seems that even Glucose gets converted to Fructose, they are all different classes of sugars but what I think he was pointing out does the body actually require raw fructose to produce energy to find this answer we need to dive deeper into the Biochemistry of Energy generation in the body/cells. 

 

There are many types of sugars created in nature, here are many forms of "sugar"  or scientifically called Carbohydrates. 

 

Which the Disaccharides and polysaccharides are just different combinations of monosaccharides. 

 

 

But, the question remains does the body actually need all the types of Carbohydrates to function at peak. we need to look at the total metabolic pathway of the mitochondria, the Chemical power plant of  the cell, to see an exact solution.

 

 

And we do see that this chemical power reactor does actually require inputs of both fructose and glucose to function at peak efficiency, which does not necessarily need to be in the form of raw Fructose the body has the ability to split complex sugars into simple sugars, like Sucrose which is just Fructose + Glucose but at some point it does need both Fructose and Glucose to generate chemical energy in the form of ATP from Metabolic Pathways. I will warn you that glucose is much more important than Fructose, as Fructose is more of a side reaction not always required , but without  Disaccharides or polysaccharides containing Glucose or Glucose you will die from lack of Energy to your proteins and cells starting to go into necrosis from lack of maintenance functions being carried out without a power source, but I will say that all Glucose does get converted to Fructose during the reaction so Fructose is always required at some point.

 

 

All animals cells require the function of their mitochondria to survive unlike plant cells that need their chloroplasts to survive having a different energy source, brain cells are no different being a type of animal cell being from the same Stem Progenitor cells.

 

Edited February 12, 2018 by Vmedvil