Therapeutic HFCS?

[chrisjmay]

Great topic for a first post, I think.

I know HFCS is the devil incarnate for most folks. I wasn't sure why it was "bad" until I saw RP mention the starch residues and astronomically higher than advertised calorie content.

http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/24/1_MeetingAbstracts/562.1

Starch seems anti-metabolic and that's reason enough to avoid HFCS on the regular. But hear me out here: I had an accident that turned out favorably and I want to source this lovely community for similar experiences.

An old friend asks me if I smoke (I do) and breaks out a pipe and packs it (with pot) which turns into another packed pipe and eventually a total of four. Normally, a single inhale (of smoke) will cause brain fog, which I would describe as dizziness and distraction, unless I get enough sugar.

I risk understating how miserable this feeling is -- I've been investigating and unsuccessfully treating a mysterious illness I contracted after a long bout of emotional and physical stress three years ago. Treating sugar like a drug eventually clears the fog and opens up entirely new ways of thinking about maintaining the complexities of higher thinking, you know, the kind you need to outsmart the institutional roles American culture pigeonholes individuals into. Hypoglycemia, or what seems like it, has been a prison sentence. Reading Ray Peat's articles over the past three months has been instructive like years of schooling has not.

"...get in the habit of watching processes or things--such as “signs” and “symptoms”--develop through time.”

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/howdoyouknow.shtml

Space AND time?! Da-doy!

Anyway, I smoke four times what I'm used to, because among other reasons intimate social arrangements demand your reciprocation sometimes. I'm expecting a horrible crash. I accept a regular American Coke and drink it. No crash.

http://www.gkdating.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/coke_regular_ingredients.jpg

I did something similar this past weekend. Another intimate arrangement where you don't want to refuse a gift. Recording a band, smoking cigarettes, smoking pot, and I'm without any kind of high octane metabolic fuel. Pick up a gallon of OJ to start washing down half a cheesesteak before the noise and smoking starts. Eight hours through the festivities, sure, my mental state petered out a few times, but considering the stress involved, it's a success. I'm engaged, interested, steady on my feet, landing a few funnies.

So I want to ask y'all if something similar has happened to you. Clearly, you can see at least part of my problem: that I'm still smoking. But smoking is a sort of stress test and has some value for hacking metabolism.

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED HFCS AND LIKED IT?

 

[charlie]

Chrisjmay, welcome to the forum.

Another thing about HFCS is the heavy metal content.

 

[chrisjmay]

Hi, Charlie! You are a workhorse on this forum. Thank you so much for the opportunity to air out my concern.

I know I should stop smoking. I don't think it's that easy. And if my inclination is to smoke, it complicates the experiment to stop. I think you can thrash your metabolism in worse ways, too. But please, I'm asking for help hacking and will take all substantiated opinions.

 

[cbar09]

Thanks for the topic! I'll share my n-1 experience.

I'm not a regular drinker by a long shot but, on occasion, I will imbibe with some close friends.

In the last of these episodes, I drank probably half a gallon of OJ before going out and a quart after in the morning.

I had the equivalent of 18 (yes 10 + 8) drinks throughout the night (9pm to 2:00 am) mostly in the form of white russians and vodka (milk/coffee/cream FTW).

Amazingly I had very few hangover symptoms. No headache or general aches or pains. I had a bit of a nauseas feeling as I was on a bus for 4 hours early the next morning, but in general I felt incredibly alert and focused. I remember the entire night perfectly and was quite on my game, social-wise.

I had some farm fresh hard boiled eggs and coffee/sugar/milk for most of the next day and never looked back.

I don't plan on doing this again anytime soon, but it was a rather exciting experiment to witness. If I had tried this while I was low carb paleo, I most assuredly would have blacked out or worse.

It's interesting you mention the benefit of sugar when smoking. I find I get worse hangovers from smoking than from drinking - possibly because I really like to drink sugary mixed drinks whereas with smoking, I'll end up eating lots of glutinous, PUFA-laden, greasy pizza

I think everything is a spectrum when it comes to health. I find it perfectly plausible that the sugar/caffeine/CO2 combo in coke outweighs the dangers of HFCS in the short term. If your liver is burdened by PUFA/heavy metal/other toxins, the effect of drinking some easily digestible sugar and caffeine should give you some temporary relief.

 

[j.]

My personal experience is that HFCS is really bad. I feel dizzy after I drink it and am unable to do difficult mental tasks for like two hours.

 

[chrisjmay]

cbar, thank you for sharing your experience. I have some comments to continue the conversation.

I had the equivalent of 18 (yes 10 + 8) drinks throughout the night (9pm to 2:00 am) mostly in the form of white russians and vodka (milk/coffee/cream FTW).

Amazingly I had very few hangover symptoms. No headache or general aches or pains. I had a bit of a nauseas feeling as I was on a bus for 4 hours early the next morning, but in general I felt incredibly alert and focused. I remember the entire night perfectly and was quite on my game, social-wise.

I can relate. I don't crave alcohol but I think I discovered my mind's capacity for complex thought following long, boozy nights. And when I asked Ray Peat about the correlation between drinking and thinking, he suggested it could be high serotonin:

Have you ever had a thyroid test or tried a thyroid supplement?
High serotonin activity is often present in hypothyroidism, and alcohol can probably provide temporary compensation for that.

I've known I had "too much" serotonin ever since enjoying LSD and Tianeptine. There were too many bad trips from the supposed happy neurotransmitter with Lexapro (SSRI) and Amitriptyline (TCA). Ondansetron sharpens my vision, but the one day this week I took it (2 mg), I had only been drinking OJ (as opposed to OJ and milk) and there was a pungent ammonia smell coming from my armpits. I asked the internet about this and Ray Peat had the best answer:

During fasting and other intense stress, the kidneys destroy a large amount of protein to form ammonia to maintain their ability to excrete acids, so using a large amount of the alkaline minerals can reduce the protein catabolism.

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/calcium.shtml

Who knows. In general, the less drugs I take and the more I eat, with an emphasis on sugar, the better I feel.

I find it perfectly plausible that the sugar/caffeine/CO2 combo in coke outweighs the dangers of HFCS in the short term.

I completely agree. I'm picking up a can or two of Coke at lunch to continue the experiment.

 

[chrisjmay]

My personal experience is that HFCS is really bad. I feel dizzy after I drink it and am unable to do difficult mental tasks for like two hours.

j., I'm sorry to hear that. How confidently can you exclude confounding variables? Are you having a Coke with a large pepperoni pizza? Or are we talking about a rogue soda in an otherwise metabolically-supportive diet?

 

[j.]

My personal experience is that HFCS is really bad. I feel dizzy after I drink it and am unable to do difficult mental tasks for like two hours.

j., I'm sorry to hear that. How confidently can you exclude confounding variables? Are you having a Coke with a large pepperoni pizza? Or are we talking about a rogue soda in an otherwise metabolically-supportive diet?

This could be something that happens just to me. The discomfort increased over time. After 1 year of experiencing the discomfort somehow I considered the possibility it was HFCS. So I started reading the labels of all the foods that gave me trouble and they all had HFCS. Then I tried Pepsi with real sugar and I was fine. Then I tried Pepsi with HFCS and I had the symptoms. I tried oreo cookie with real sugar and had no problem. Oreo cookies with HFCS gave me the symptoms. And the same thing happened with every other food, including bread with and without HFCS. Another of the symptoms was slurred speech.

I haven't heard or known anyone else who reacted that way by the way.

Also, this was when I had a ***t diet with lots of PUFA. I haven't tried HFCS since I started Peating.

 

[chrisjmay]

And the same thing happened with every other food, including bread with and without HFCS. Another of the symptoms was slurred speech.

This happens to me when I attempt to spark the metabolism without adequate fuel. ***t, too much MILK does this to me. So I wonder if for you HFCS was merely icing on the PUFA cake.

I am off to drink some high-fructose-y cola.

P.S. Am I missing an easy way to give credit when quoting something in the thread?

 

[charlie]

I can relate. I don't crave alcohol but I think I discovered my mind's capacity for complex thought following long, boozy nights. And when I asked Ray Peat about the correlation between drinking and thinking, he suggested it could be high serotonin:

Very very interesting.

 

[key]

HFCS and sugar are similar(both contain about 50/50 fructose/glucose). I don't think much of the starch-type particles are absorbed, considering I used to drink a lot of soda and was skinny, but they can have negative effects through endotoxin. I drink it if I need sugar and that is only available but I usually get sierra mist.

 

[Jenn]

You HAVE to feed the liver, so HFCS is better than nothing. Absolutely. The CO2 is also highly beneficial.
HFCS is not real fructose though, it's synthetic, as it is derived from a food that doesn't contain any fructose naturally. Some HFCS is almost 90% synthetic fructose to glucose.

 

[Kasra]

Jenn: What's the significance of the fructose in HFCS being synthetic?