Comparative assessments of dietary sugars on cognitive performance (2018)

Because biopsychoholisticepigenomicgenomicnutrition as a field is only just getting started, food is easily more complicated than brain activity.

You can get more insight by discarding all studies that were performed in a timeframe of less than a year.

I don't think I'd inherently read all the conflicting reports from people as obviously mis-attributed noise. I don't think there's strong enough reason to expect everybody to response similarly to the same diets.

Not only does everybody have unique genetics, environments, and histories, but how sure are we that all the people saying they do keto, for example, are doing the same thing?

It's a giant complex mess, even if you assume humans are prefect and infallible observers and attributers of cause to effect. Which, as you pointed out, they absolutely are not. At all.

So not only do you not have the expectation that individuals will respond similarly, the difficulties in ascertaining what any individual is actually doing, you also have to deal with misattributed experiences, and the ability for our brain to play tricks on us.

And that's even assuming everybody is acting in good faith. Which they almost certainly are not, considering money can be involved.

I've yet to come up with any decent way of approaching these topics. There are so many confounding factors I don't even know where to begin.

Turning yourself into an endless experiment and figuring out ways to blind yourself and measure results (which is yet another rabbit hole...) is honestly starting to look like the most viable way to get to some kind of 'truth' for this stuff, at least for you, now. Though even at this extreme, time is limited.

Otherwise... I guess you just do what you feel like and do something different if you feel bad. If you feel good doing whatever you're doing, maybe that just has to be good enough. Because I don't know how to actually get any deeper than that in any reasonable way.

One problem is it's notoriously hard to get subjects to follow a diet and accurately report it. Due to both practical and ethical constraints you can't keep human subjects locked up and eating only what they're allowed to eat. I think this goes a long way to explaining all the conflicting results out there.

When I look at the garbage people buy in supermarkets and all the products that are peddled (in Europe btw, I understand US has a lot more "choice") no wonder people have no chance of winning. You go to a doctor being "markedly obese" with some additional health issue, they will not believe you'll ever get better. The fact that you could lose 20 or 40kg doesn't even enter their mind. Instead they give you blood-pressure meds and other things to "manage the symptoms". With the medical industry depending on adding things to the list of purchases you have to make instead of just advising to stop eating people will continue to be fat and unhealthy.

The whole dietary and supplements industry is a historic dumpster fire of corporate disinformation. I recently came across a YT channel where they made a point about water diet in which the author advertised all kind of supplements that he recommended (incl an affiliate link to these products). I was like "serious? the whole point of water diet is to stop stuffing your face not to make a trip to the pharmacy"

I bring this up specifically because once you've done water diet for 30 or 40 days (or whatever crazy limity you thought you couldn't achieve), everything that dietary/medicine science suggests looks like it's a scam to profit from the weak and gullible. I was in a really horrible shape just before divorce, sick, depressed, overweight, ... (felt horrible especially because I used to run marathons nearly every year so I missed feeling great a lot). When I attempted my first water diet there was no YT channel and no research other than stern health warnings by the quacks. I knew it had to work because my dad was on water diet once a year when I was a kid. In his 40ies and he became so good at it that he lasted over 2 months (he also had gained a lot of experience with this over the years and slowly built things up).

First time I tried it I managed to do it for 2 weeks but then caved watching my family eat dinner every night. Still I felt proud AF. 2 years later I lasted 40 days. It not only got rid of all my fat but there was also no brain fog. And it boosted my confidence tremendously. It made me confident that I could keep going after 30 days that it was actually really hard to stop since I had became mentally so strong. I literally had to force myself not to go one more day "because I came this far already"

2 weeks into the 40 days I was still going for runs of up to 1 hrs/daily and ran until week 3, then changed to walks. I was dropping ~1kg almost every day the first 10-14 days and then 0.5 - 0.7 /day. The amount of mental energy I had was like I was on some kind of secret drugs (only without the side-effects). I didn't feel tired as long as I had 4-5 hrs sleep per night. I did lose some muscles but I also lost _all_ of my fat and despite people talking about "jo-jo effect" and saying "ugh you're just losing water", I never gained more than a few kg afterwards (still true today and it was almost a decade ago).

few weeks after finishing the diet and getting into a normal eating cycle, I was being able to continue my running routine which I was used to from my marathon times. The weight and pressure on joints were no longer an issue. I don't believe in organized religion but I still felt a moment of "awakening" during those days. The amount of clarity I had in my head can only be described as "spiritual" with a huge capacity to analyze many things at the same time. I imagine this is what microdosing feels like only the results are real and not imagined. I suddenly understood why fasting is a common theme in every religion. It was life altering in every sense.

While I've never done 40 days again I do every couple of months 3-5 days and once a year up to 10 days. The rest of the year I'm on an IF plan of 20:4 and it's laughably easy simply because my brain has the memory of having lasted once a lot longer and because of it I know my body quite well. The reason why I still do this is that I want to replicate that mental power I learned I could have in a sustainable and safe manner (I no longer have the kg/reserves to just not eat for a month LOL). Having learned this also now allows me to sometimes keep going for days without food on my summer long distance hikes through the wilderness if I'm forced - and it's a lot less scary if I know I'm out of resources as long as I got water.

Most people will not do water-diets because they can't picture not eating this long. But you're hungry only for the first couple of days. The rest is easy in comparison. What makes other types of dieting hard is a constant on/off cycle in which you need to go through the hunger peaks over and over. Beat your mind first then beat your body is much more effective.

PS: after I did the 40 days I ended up having kidney stones. Not from the diet but the diet flushed it all out which were the result of couple of years of terrible diet (and would have been something I'd have to eventually go through anyway). There are some doctors who say if you have cancer cells your body might actually eat them as these get attacked/eaten first). IDK probably needs citations and more research but since I have taught myself to experiment with this I kind of feel sorry for those who are getting gamed by latest research on what causes people to be fat. Stop eating. Don't do the stupid "eat less" or eat better advise - that comes second, and it comes automatically anyway. First learn that you have power and are able to survive for several months if needed. Problem solved and you can skip debunking whatever clueless academics are saying in their studies (who probably most of them are fat and unhealthy themselves anyway).

Because a) you can’t dissect and a human being and connect them to instrumentation for test and measurement like you would to a machine, and b) the meticulous wide scale testing available to drug companies costs billions, which no one would invest for dietary insights.

Very good point

Luckily you can create a Venn-Diagram and arrive at something pretty universal.

First understand three things:

1) People are very different; genetics, microbiome, allergies and daily habits makes different diets great for different people. We are talking diets as different as super high fat keto, compared to high carb vegan that can probably all be great.

2) Most people thrive with the mysterious 80-20 rule, meaning don't go overboard unless of course trying to achieve something like Keto or are allergic. Most people do not need "very dogmatic" diets.

3) Diets are linked to lifestyle, microbiome, social setting and other factors that we are only beginning to understand, so don't look at anything in isolation.

Then look at the universals:

- Don't bomb your system with high amounts of simple carbohydrates too quickly, unless very active or in a fasted state. It will wreck your insulin system.

- Don't eat to much processed foods, they are always way lower in nutrients, and if fortified, still missing phytonutrients and often contains too much sugar etc.

- Eat a varied diet and cherish high density nutrient foods like dark leafy greens and offal. Lots of foods today have less nutrients because of horrible soil quality.

- Learn to listen to your body also foods are somewhat psychoactive if you start listening to the queues. Try an elimination diet if having problems, otherwise adjusting these things are often key: Dairy, Fats, Carbs, Caffeine, Fiber, Meat and more contested; classes of greens like nightshade, organic / non pesticide, raw vs cooked.

- Try fasting or just eating at different times of the day or skipping meals.

- Lots of people are Vitamin D deficient, and supplementng is easy. Omega3/6 ratio is also out of whack in most people but this is harder to fix.

- Keep an eye on the field of gut-brain-axis, microbiome etc, there seems to be a revolution around the corner, and its a key to understand everything from mood disorders to skin problems, weight loss and autoimmune diseases. But we aren't a place where there is hard data on "what to do" besides fecal transplants.

I find it takes about 10 to 20 articles to give context into the ongoing conversation that is any particular journal article.

You are describing a real world scenario of drinking fruit juice versus eating the equivalent fruit, and the results are stunning.

> But would the latter really affect you vs. a meal without carbs?

Yes. The body will prioritize sugars, and thus carbs, over fats in both processing and energy extraction. That is problematic in that the rapid processing of sugars produces a result similar to a stimulant drug while consumed fat is just stored without use. Dropping carbs has allowed me to feel focused constantly without need for caffeine and minimizes sensations of hunger.

I dunno. I’ve only read the abstract [1], but I feel like the second paper was like, “glucose = bad because of glycemic response? Nope!” And the first paper was just like, “glucose = bad”

That is, the earlier paper noticed that consuming glucose/sucrose-containing beverages reduced cognitive performance compared to consuming beverages with no glucose, and the later paper was trying to figure out why. And to figure out why, the second paper compared glucose and isomaltulose (glucose-containing saccharides with different glycemic responses) to see whether a sugar’s predicted glycemic response could account for the differences in cognitive performance noticed in the earlier study between beverages with glucose and those without.

[1] This second paper’s abstract doesn’t mention glucose vs. no glucose’s effects on cognitive performance like the earlier paper does.

I was keto for six months a year or so ago and definitely felt sharper at the time as well. Turns out I like carbs more than clear headedness

I've read that keto diets cause brain fog. I searched it quickly and a bunch of results turned up, too.

Is keto intended to be a long term diet?

This is probably from the increase in cortisol that accompanies VLC. I get the same feeling with alternate day fasting.

You can get the same effect with much less lifestyle disruption just by exercising. Specifically low intensity cardio trains your body to metabolize fat efficiently.

I felt noticeably sharper on keto, which at the time I felt like was primarily a lack of sleepiness and an increased ability to focus for necessary durations. Thats how it felt, would love to see non subjective data on this.

Same here. The brain likes to run on ketones.

I‘ve heard claims that it also slows neurological aging, no idea how valid that is.

The research on that whole area of psychology is inclusive at best, despite making a fun and compelling narrative.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29591537/

My impression was that was just a theory based on the assumption that fruit was worth evolving to eat. It could be a happy accidental source with calories; or it could have been a great source of calories that was the best option at the time, but is no longer.

Or did plants evolve colored fruit because the plants with colored fruit were recognized most easily and thus spread the most by animals (including humans)?

Earlier fruits didn't have anywhere near the sugar content of the cultivated ones today. In fact, many fruits of old were inedible (e.g. apples).

Sources of sugar such as sweet fruits and honey were rare delicacies, not daily occurrences.

Humans in various regions would have adapted over 1000 generations to better match their environment.

We live in a VERY different world now.

The fruit we have today is so much higher in sugar than back in times when the vision evolved.

Not starving >> slight brain fog

Fruit comes with fiberand vitamins. I suspect that's the real difference.

N=49

Interesting results, but I'd take them with a grain of sugar until they get replicated several times over. Especially since they match my bias that sugar=bad.