Low Toxin Videos Is your brain sugar deficient? with Dr. David Stephens

[charlie]

Another incredible interview with Dr. David Stephens. If you have not seen this thread which is related to this video, it is definitely a must see.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eup7FAzsZQI

 

[Pranananda]

Here are my notes on this video:

Dr. David Stephens is a neuropsychologist. He has discovered a way to heal mental illness, and once the brain is healed, the body can heal better. Even if you don't technically have a mental illness, but your brain is operating at less than normal levels for you, you can benefit from his techniques.

Every time a person has a head trauma, and it can even be minor, or has some other physical or psychological trauma that activates the sympathetic nervous system, meaning they go into the fight/flight/freeze response, the body goes into a hyperglycolic state, where the brain has more access to glucose for a period of 15-20 minutes. When this time is up, the brain down regulates this glucose in a way that the brain permanently loses access to about 2% of the glucose it had before this trauma event.

Do this enough times, having physical or psychological traumas, and the brain becomes starved of glucose permanently, as this glucose down regulation is cumulative. In this state, you may just have lower cognitive function, but you may also develop mental illness. And the body may also begin to suffer as the brain is under fueled. Diabetes, dementia, anxiety, depression, autism, suicide ideation, addiction, and other diseases can develop from this.

Dr. Stephens treats people by having them take glucose/dextrose, which you can get over the counter as dextrose. This bypasses the dietary pathway of glucose to the brain, and the brain gets fully fueled by glucose. After six months of treatment, the mental health is restored, as is diabetes and potentially other illnesses that were triggered by an under-fueled brain.

After six months, this glucose supplementation is no longer needed as glucose from the dietary pathway is sufficient.

 

[JudiBlueHen]

@Pranananda - excellent summary!
I just listened to the video and know for certain my glucose "thermostat" is way too low - I had a head collision in school sports, and I had two serious auto accidents. and certainly other less notable traumas. These certainly contribute to my chronic low energy, headaches, tinnitus, and low mood.

 

[mosaic01]

Here's a bit of speculation, expanding on Dr. Stephens' theory in regards to blood sugar.

The body tightly regulates blood sugar via diet. And a damaged brain needs a constant supply of glucose, so a higher blood sugar level is needed.

But for some reason, eating plain sugar or carbs usually leads to highs and lows in blood sugar. So you get a short relief in symptoms, but an hour later, blood sugar falls and everything gets even worse. That's why many people stop eating sugar. A stable blood sugar is better than a fluctuating blood sugar.

What is needed for regeneration is a constant source of fuel that increases blood sugar without leading to a rapid fall afterwards.

And dextrose for some reason is able to bypass this homeostasis and directly increase blood sugar to a point where the brain senses that enough sugar is there and immediately consumes the sugar from the blood, without this leading to a problematic reduction in blood sugar once the sugar is consumed.

Basically I think the mechanism Dr. Stephens describes is that a traumatized brain has a dilemma - it needs massive amounts of glucose, but once it starts consuming all of the sugar in the blood, blood sugar falls to dangerous levels and this causes even more damage to the brain and body, increasing stress hormones and catabolism. So the only intelligent reaction is to shut down parts of the brain and body that are not essential for survival and reduce glucose consumption as much as possible.

This means that a lot of the carbs in the foods eaten do not reach the blood, the glucose uptake from the gut is reduced.

And increasing starches and carbs does not help, because the homeostasis between digestion and blood sugar does not allow for a strong increase in blood sugar that can feed the brain. The digestive process may be too energy intensive, or too slow to push blood sugar high.

But once you ingest dextrose regularly throughout the day, the brain suddenly receives a new signal - extra glucose is available beyond what the digestion offers. This glucose can be freely taken from the blood into the brain without risking a permanent lowering of blood sugar. So the brain starts waking up again, regenerating itself after years of shutdown and hibernation.

Not only does the brain shut down itself during "glucose starvation", it also lowers the amount of glucose that is available to organs, thus slowing down important processes like digestion and detoxification. Suddenly people feel that their body is breaking apart, but they make the mistake of focusing on gut, liver or kidney issues while ignoring that these are controlled via the brain, especially by the hypothalamus, which is part of the limbic system.

The extra glucose is free for the body to take - it does not need to invest any energy into digestion. It shifts the entire homeostasis into energy abundance and regeneration. Parts of the brain that were not essential for survival, like the prefrontal cortex, now get enough energy and start working again, and the limbic system that was busy with survival gets some rest. The limbic system that was focused on survival for years needs to be re-wired. This can be a somewhat difficult process that needs to happen alongside taking glucose, as Dr. Stephens explains. The thoughts and behavior patterns related to freeze, fight or flight need to be replaced.

Healing the brain with dextrose/glucose is the foundation for successful diets or detoxification of any kind and should always be the starting point. Everything else is secondary.

The brain gives priority to regulating its own adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration. In that postulate, the peripheral energy supply is only of secondary importance. The brain has two possibilities to ensure its energy supply: allocation or intake of nutrients. The term 'allocation' refers to the allocation of energy resources between the brain and the periphery. Neocortex and the limbic-hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (LHPA) system control the allocation and intake. In order to keep the energy concentrations constant, the following mechanisms are available to the brain: (1) high and low-affinity ATP-sensitive potassium channels measure the ATP concentration in neurons of the neocortex and generate a 'glutamate command' signal. This signal affects the brain ATP concentration by locally (via astrocytes) stimulating glucose uptake across the blood-brain barrier and by systemically (via the LHPA system) inhibiting glucose uptake into the muscular and adipose tissue. (2) High-affinity mineralocorticoid and low-affinity glucocorticoid receptors determine the state of balance, i.e. the setpoint, of the LHPA system. This setpoint can permanently and pathologically be displaced by extreme stress situations (chronic metabolic and psychological stress, traumatization, etc.), by starvation, exercise, infectious diseases, hormones, drugs, substances of abuse, or chemicals disrupting the endocrine system. Disorders in the 'energy on demand' process or the LHPA-system can influence the allocation of energy and in so doing alter the body mass of the organism.

The selfish brain: competition for energy resources - PubMed

The brain occupies a special hierarchical position in the organism. It is separated from the general circulation by the blood-brain barrier, has high energy consumption and a low energy storage capacity, uses only specific substrates, and it can record information from the peripheral organs and...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Sebastian B]

Can I substitute white rice and sourdough bread with dextrose while following the glucose protocol to avoid gaining fat?

 

[Ras]

Can I substitute white rice and sourdough bread with dextrose while following the glucose protocol to avoid gaining fat?

If you could, I presume Dr. Stephens would be doing so.

 

[orangebear]

So... a certain doctor posted his thoughts about dextrose/glucose and he thinks it's as dumb as eggs. I read the post and it seems to me like he's not quite understanding the premise but I'm not going to risk my membership by confronting him.

 

[Krigeren]

Can I substitute white rice and sourdough bread with dextrose while following the glucose protocol to avoid gaining fat?

I began the 3 tbsp 3x per day of Dextrose starting protocol Dr. Stephens recommends on Sunday, my (high) FBG measurements have been a fair bit lower compared to the previous week, and I've lost a little under 3lbs BW (some water, I'm sure), while consuming roughly 10% more calories (avg per day) compared to last week. Unlike some here apparently my appetite has increased a bit.

I believe I had a "bile dump" today and I've also had more energy & my resistance training workouts have been great. Sleep has been hit or miss though. And like I said it's only been five days,

Maybe give it a shot starting on a day off from work where you don't have to travel far in case it bothers your stomach (mine's been fine). I also stopped Niacin last Saturday but am still doing a lower vA diet and still taking some Zinc Picolinate.

I use NOW brand Dextrose, Thor Torrens said he used NutriCost I believe.

 

[Ras]

I began the 3 tbsp 3x per day of Dextrose starting protocol Dr. Stephens recommends on Sunday, my (high) FBG measurements have been a fair bit lower compared to the previous week, and I've lost a little under 3lbs BW (some water, I'm sure), while consuming roughly 10% more calories (avg per day) compared to last week. Unlike some here apparently my appetite has increased a bit.

I believe I had a "bile dump" today and I've also had more energy & my resistance training workouts have been great. Sleep has been hit or miss though. And like I said it's only been five days,

Maybe give it a shot starting on a day off from work where you don't have to travel far in case it bothers your stomach (mine's been fine). I also stopped Niacin last Saturday but am still doing a lower vA diet and still taking some Zinc Picolinate.

I use NOW brand Dextrose, Thor Torrens said he used NutriCost I believe.

I've been doing something of a fast this week, consuming only NOW dextrose and psyllium. My workouts have been outstanding. Energy, mood, and sleep are good.

I'm planning to resume a normal diet with added dextrose next week. I bought this fifty pound bag of dextrose, to do do a six month trial of Dr. Stephens protocol.