
The key to a great work ethic? Glucose - herbertlui
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/starting-out/the-key-to-a-great-work-ethic-glucose/article11259295/
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JshWright
Hmm... so the body somehow 'uses' this mysterious 'glucose' to produce
'energy'? This sounds like a major breakthrough in biological studies!
</sarcasm>

"I think it’s important to build up routines, habits, and things you repeat on
a daily or weekly basis so that you’re not wasting glucose or decision-making
bandwidth..."

Seriously? This person clearly has no idea what 'glucose' is, or how the body
metabolizes, stores, and uses sugars.

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vijayjeyapalan
I didn't know that... Can you expand then on what glucose is and how it
metabolizes, stores and uses sugars?

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JshWright
Glucose is 'simple' sugar, like Fructose or Galactose (as opposed to 'complex'
sugars which are just chains of simple sugars).

Glucose is what your cells oxidize ('burn') to make energy. Assuming you are
reasonably healthy (namely, your liver and pancreas are functioning properly)
your body will keep the amount of glucose in your blood around 80 to 110 mg/dL
(4.4 to 6.1 mmol/L for those of you not in the US). It does this in a variety
of ways... You body can produce more insulin to shift the glucose into the
cells, and some cells (mostly in the liver) can chain lots of glucose
molecules together into a big 'storage' molecule called glycogen. If your
blood sugar drops too low, your body will cut back on insulin production and
start releasing glucose from your glycogen stores.

Another side effect of your blood sugar getting a little low is that you get
hungry, and being hungry is distracting. It not that your body is _actually_
low on glucose... A normal healthy adult has plenty of glycogen stores, and
long before those are depleted your body will start breaking down stored
lipids into their component fatty acids, which your cells can metabolize just
as effectively as glucose.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sugar>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycolysis>

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ArtB
> around 80 to 110 mg/dL (4.4 to 6.1 mmol/L for those of you not in the US)

uhm, aren't both metric? mg/dL looks like "milligrams per deciliter" to me

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JshWright
Yeah, they're both metric (you have the units right), but for some reason the
US tends to use the mg/dL convention, where the rest of the world (or at least
Canada and Europe) use the mmol/L convention.

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noptic
Every byte of bandwidth wasted on this article is a byte to much. Act now!
Together we can stop bs (byte slips)

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venomsnake
So ... they tested whether the participants have more energy on sugar rush or
hungry. And the ones having fuel had more mental endurance. Surprise.

To actually test the glucose hypothesis you have to compare fast with same
calorie intake of sugar/starch/fat/protein/ and see the results.

Currently it just means you make better decisions while not hungry.

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vinojeyapalan
"Building routines means you eventually require less glucose consumption to
perform the same tasks. They become automatic habits" - this is genius!

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nextw33k
My colleagues just pointed out that the study of substituting diet sweetener
for sugar in participants is flawed.

It doesn't prove that the sweeteners are also having an effect. There should
be a control of drink without sweetener or glucose.

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bjterry
I find it comical that The Globe and Mail, an apparently reputable newspaper,
linked to a Livestrong content-farmed post in one of their articles.

Also, an alternative to StickK is Beeminder, which is, in my opinion, a
superior service.

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Evbn
Revisit your assumption

Globe and Mail is Canada's NYPost.

