I have only taken two small doses of d-ribose so far (5 gm after walking and 10 gm before dinner). That's probably not enough to assess any impact on my muscle recovery from exercise or ability to regenerate glycogen. But both times I have noted an incredible mental calmness, about 30 minutes after taking it, which allows me to focus and work a bit better.

I have a strange neurological issue I have had since about 18 where my left eye is always wanting to close and go to sleep. Right eye stays wide awake. No one would ever notice this in conversation with me. It's something I can easily control in interactions with people, but the internal feeling of left-side sleepiness is constant and annoying and it is there all the time even when I get up from a night of restful sleep. After taking d-ribose, I am no longer aware of that neurological symptom. I don't feel the left-side sleepiness at all. So that's a fairly profound and noticeable thing for me.

Does d-ribose cross the blood brain barrier and directly provide energy to brain cells? I read one paper that suggested d-ribose does not cross the blood brain barrier in significant amounts. I wonder what that would suggest that this neurological symptom appears when glucose is the energy source but disappears when d-ribose is available in surplus? Any neurologists in the house?

The whole effect with mental calmness only lasts about 30 minutes for me.

 

Just to have it on file here, this is a nice overview of different theories of how d-ribose temporarily suppresses glucose production in the liver:

http://www.bioenergy.com/pdf/mf/sl/ribose & blood sugar/ribose_blood sugar_science 070303.pdf

There is some increase in insulin when d-ribose is taken, but that alone is not enough to explain all of the glucose-lowering effects. Several researchers think d-ribose is interfering with an enzyme needed by the liver to convert glycogen to glucose.

 

Interesting, what you have written in the last couple posts, Pone. I'm not sure the body actually uses d-ribose for energy. Jack hinted about this some time ago.
Perhaps d-ribose is like DHA from seafood. Too precious to be used for ordinary energy. Maybe it is used for infrastructure instead? DNA and RNA?

My experience with d-ribose is that larger amounts aren't necessarily better. 10 g would probably be my max. I did try baking a cheesecake using d-ribose, but I didn't like the results. Texture was off.

 

I use 15 g of d-ribose in 3 divided doses and never subject it to any heat. Avoiding heating up any of my supplements has been always my strategy, without anything to really back it up.....

It definitely gives me a lot of energy, but I wonder now if I am beginning to get too dependent on it for that... I noticed that my energy was significantly lacking when I would forget to use it....

 

nonchalant hits the homerun.......it is the critical component in RNA and DNA ubiquination

 

Teacher's pet... LOL

 

Hello nonchalant. If you reference that link I put up on the insulin and glucose effects of d-ribose, and start browsing the literature, what you will see is that there are many studies that do an analysis of mannitol, ribose and fructose and compare their effects against glucose. So - right or wrong - the researchers treat ribose as a sugar, but a sugar with a different metabolic pathway than glucose.

I'm not qualified to even guess at how d-ribose is metabolized. And - by the way - you get the feeling reading the science papers that the researchers don't fully understand ribose either. You read a lot of comments in those papers about their observing some effect and not fully being able to explain why it is happening. I look forward to reading Jack's stuff and reading more widely about ribose metabolism. If d-ribose is capable of glycating proteins as harmful AGEs, then I'm not sure it matters if they produce energy or simply facilitate other biochemical processes. The end result of glycation of a protein is still a bad thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-product

Anyway, let's be clear that there are no free rides. You eat glucose and you get some AGEs too. In fact the uncontrolled diabetic is glycating his body away internally and doing huge damage. You slow roast meats in the oven at high temperature, and you just turned that meat into a glycation factory and you are serving yourself a large amount of AGEs. There are some papers out there showing AGEs in common foods using common cooking techniques, and it's clear AGEs are a big problem just in common foods cooked at high, dry heat. The AGE link I put up was just a warning flag that maybe you wouldn't want to drink many hundreds of grams of ribose every day without really studying it.

In my case I'm looking at difficult trade offs. I'm having problems keeping glycogen in my muscle. I can't use glucose to replenish that because I'm prediabetic and my insulin resistance means I won't process whatever glucose I present to my body efficiently. If I were able to use ribose post-workout and it managed to build back glycogen for me, while simultaneously keeping my glucose low, that might be a very good thing. I'm at the very beginning of the journey in understanding ribose. As long as I'm doing work to see what others have found about it, I am just sharing that research with an interested audience that might help me put all of those data points into a framework.

 

Oh, really important point here: these researchers may have been loading up the mice with way more ribose than they could safely metabolize. In other words, they may have deliberately overloaded their systems and left a lot of ribose hanging around in the blood. That excess of ribose is what would allow the harmful glycations they measured. That's a totally different scenario than just taking the amount of ribose your body can metabolize quickly.

I didn't read the paper critically enough to determine if the doses they were giving were megadoses or not.

 

Jack, can you elaborate on this idea?

I have seen some really interesting neurological effects from d-ribose and want to see if I can match that to your point here.

 

How will d-ribose be metabolized if you are not in the PPP?

 

In the literature, 10 grams or more of D-Ribose has a well-known effect of inducing slight hypoglycemia after 45 to 60 minutes. So, *if* you had low blood sugar to start, ingested 15 grams of D-Ribose, then no surprise at all that you had the reading of glucose = 55 a while later.

The studies also agree with your observation that five grams of D-Ribose does NOT induce much hypoglycemia.

You might want to use a glucometer to measure your blood sugar prior to ingesting the D-Ribose. If blood sugar is low, you might want to have a small amount of starchy carb at same time as D-Ribose to offset the hypoglycemia. You should be able to balance it out with experiment.

 

In my experience, it will destabilize things without enough Ubiquinol and Magnesium. The magnesium seems to be the most important, think ATP production and proper hydration for protein synthesis and unfolding perhaps....

 

MamaGrok, D-Ribose isn't stimulating your cravings. It's the steep and rapid drop in glucose that stimulates hunger. Control the rapid drop in glucose and you will probably stop the cravings. I'm sure that is tricky because too much glucose and you then get a steep rise in glucose and then rebound hypoglycemia, which just keeps you on a cravings treadmill.

Wonder if you should think about installing a Dexcom 24x7 glucose monitor and start to learn in real detail what level of starchy carb intake would relieve your hypoglycemia without causing glucose to rise abnormally. You might want to keep a bowl of sliced yams around and learn to weigh out just enough to give you 5 grams of starchy carbs. Start to experiment with what ultra-small starchy carb meals do to your glucose levels and how you rebound from that. My guess is your hypoglycemia can be relieved by 5 to 10 grams of starchy carbs and you are probably ingesting 20 grams or more.

 

I'm getting Magnesium 200 mg twice a day from Doctor's Best which is magnesium chelate/lysinate chelate.

I just started the Life Extension Ubiquitol 100 mg once a day.

How important is Acetyl L-Carnitine in this mix?

I'm doing the Ribose a few 5 gm doses during day, and after each exercise session 10 to 15 gm. I have gotten a few nasty hypos after exercise, so I might have to add a little starchy carb after exercise as well.

 

I did not read it that way. I understood that D-Ribose causes glycation with the bovine albumin more rapidly than any other sugar in vitro. Furthermore it was observed to damage nerve cells in vitro at concentrations lower than those found in the blood. However there is no evidence that in vivo it causes these issues making it unclear as to what other mechanisms and factors may counter this propensity in vivo. They identify several areas where things are "unclear" . I do not know enough to figure this out. I can guess that as they readily cause glycation and misfolding, the redox potential and hydration will play a significant role in their interactions with proteins.

 

Have you ever questioned how LR and IR you may be and whether vigorous exercise is your friend at this stage of the journey?

I believe I started with Dr. K's recommendation of 2grams per day of Acetyl and I took 300-900 of Ubiquinol initially. I took 4 forms of magnesium for a couple of months until things leveled out. The ones he recommends including Glycinate. I now mostly just need glycinate and occasionally Malate. I take 200-300mg most days.

 

I am completely freaked out here. I don't understand what is going on but I am posting a link to an animal study and when you click on it the browser is opening to a totally different study, on bovine serum. That is the WRONG study. Let me try here again.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0024623

Okay, the above link now works. Wow, that is frustrating.

Look at the biopsy brain slices they did on those animals at the ends of the experiment. Their brains are completely glycated from excess Ribose. It is NOT a serum study!!!

The more I think about this study, the less I worry about it. It only pertains if you take large doses of Ribose beyond what your body can quickly metabolize. I think the person taking five grams has nothing to worry about. I take 15 grams after exercise and I think the muscles are so starved in that state they have no problems metabolizing 15 grams of Ribose.

The guy or gal I worry about is someone who is insulin resistant and takes 50+ grams of Ribose all at once, without benefit of exercise. That *might* be a situation where a lot of unmetabolized Ribose sits around in the blood for hours, and some of that can glycate proteins.

 

I am starting to read through the Leptin Rx, and I did cut back on the amount of exercise I do.

I am frustrated by my attempts to discover how LR and IR I may be because:

1) My Endo refuses to let me get the tests that Jack wants to help diagnose LR. I'll get them anyway, but more delay, more hassle.

2) My Endo refuses to let me get the glucose-insulin tolerance test that would show insulin resistance until I increase my carb intake (which is a whole can of worms we don't need to discuss here...I'm defining the obstacle not agreeing with it).

There is a really simple test they can give you in fasting state to quantify insulin resistance known as the "Insulin Tolerance Test". They inject small amounts of insulin and watch glucose response for just 15 minutes. It turns out that calibrates with high accuracy to the clamp tests they do in research studies. Yet almost no lab gives this test. Almost no Endo even knows it exists. When I told a Stanford Endo about it she said "Oh, that's cool. No, we don't do it."

So even defining the condition, in order to start attacking it, is not a simple thing sometimes. There are no excuses for not getting to the bottom line and getting the information you need. But I'm learning you shouldn't expect everyone to support you.

 

Maybe, Pone/Persistence (which one to use?)... you make it all way too complicated.. I guess it just adds to your stress
Why not just trust the nature, stop vigorous exercise, just do a sprint/week - some yoga walking, climbing trees, dipping in the ocean etc. Eat the good stuff, avoid fake light after sunset, spend less time in front of the computer and more time out in the sun... I cannot see how you body will heal truly otherwise...
and do not forget the nude tanning. Have you started yet?

 

I'm already going in this direction Inger. And if I have many more doctor visits like this last one, I'll soon be walking around insane, naked and tanning.

But, I think it is important to solve problems you really have, and don't waste time solving ones you don't have. If my pancreas is weak and doesn't produce enough insulin, that's one case. If the pancreas is strong and produces a lot of insulin, but my body doesn't respond to it, that's a different case. If my body responds to insulin well, but my liver just overproduces glucose between meals, that's a third case. You can't blame me for wanting to know which problem I actually have? I mean treat the actual disease, not some theory about what the disease might be.

I'm doing the Leptin Rx in any case.