ATP, Thermogenesis and Leptin Man's Electrons

A little update on the adventures of a man we call Leptin Man here at The Asylum, Jack Kruse.  I skimmed his latest (6 page!) manifesto, and near as I can figure, his focus is on ATP stores.  His metabolic pathway du jour is the Pentose Phosphate Pathway (PPP).  Among many many words, he writes:

TRUTH BOMB:  This pathway has only a few major endpoints, but they are all massively important for human life.  It is designed to optimally restore RNA and DNA synthesis by providing maximum recycling of ATP;  and it allows for optimal formation of bio-energenic substrates to make replenish the mitochondria’s ability to increase total adenine nucleotides to re-establish optimal ATP stores from beta oxidation of fats.
THE KETOGENIC ATHLETE ALERT:   The reason fat burning takes 12-24 months to get maximum ATP production, is because the PPP uses D-ribose as its energy intermediate chemical to replenish the products of ATP hydrolysis. It seems performance athletes and their trainers missed this pathway in human biochemistry.    {all blue emphasis is mine}
OK ... I have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through the entire thing.  Be my guest, but at this point it is not even good entertainment.  Rather, I want to point out one huge thing wrong with where Jack is going here.  Remember thermogenesis?  Ice baths and all that jazz?  Well, thermogenesis is at odds with maximizing ATP.  Period.  The vast majority of the ATP produced from oxidation of either glucose or fatty acids is produced in the electron transport chain, the ETC.  The ETC basically creates little electrical potentials (voltages, like little batteries) by pumping H+ ions (protons)  to one side of a membrane, and harnesses that energy by letting those H+ flow back through a protein complex to "power" ATP production (Wikipedia has a good summary).  The "uncoupling" protein UCP1 is called that because it uncouples this, and instead of the energy being harnesses to phosphorylate ADP to ATP, it is released as heat.   It's like putting a short across the terminals of a battery -- rather than it powering a motor or creating light with a bulb or something, current flows through the wire. 

So, if you're trying to optimize your mitochondrial function, or something like that, eating electron-dense food (whatever that is) to maximize ATP production, don't do it while sitting in ice baths to become cold adapted and tap into your ancient thermogenesis pathway  Understand that these two metabolic "endpoints" are at odds with one another.  Jack is full of it as usual.  

One last thing caught my eye ...
The ATP-CP and glycolytic pathways are horribly inefficient at making large amounts of ATP to replenish energy stores. So when the exercise or diet continues the gradient of decline steepens quickly. This leaves “more space” in your electron chain, and further throws off the nanoscopic precision required to make ATP well. It means can not replace your ATP needs fast enough to offset the losses from your behaviors. Your brain makes decisions (low dopamine) to fuel with carbs because it has learned that ATP can be made fast this way, but your cells can’t fully re-energize this way because the fast fill system never fills the gas tank fully!!!! In fact, long chain fatty acids have huge energy potential for the host. One molecule of glucose has only six carbons. Glucose can make 28-30 ATP from it. One molecule of an 18 carbon stearic acid, a FFA, has three times as many carbons as glucose but makes five times the amount of ATP (147 ATP), while only having two times the caloric density of glucose. This shows you precisely why a calorie is not a calorie and why calories in and calories out makes little sense thermodynamically.
Jack posted this and removed it from some paleo group on FB and deleted it when it was countered by me on this blog back in August.  Jack the Quack is Back with Smack! But a Calorie is Still a Calorie.  Bottom line, it is amazing how closely the ATP generated per gram of substrate (glucose or fatty acid) relates to the caloric content attributed to them.  Not really ....

Comments

Unknown said…
He can talk the gibberish pretty good, though I am disappointed he didn't mention the nanonization of the ATP particulates as they disperse through the cordial ventricular matrix, resulting in non-ionic elasticity.
Chris Tunstall said…
And there I was thinking that molecular weight has some bearing on this ...
Jane said…
Jack produced some gibberish on Hyperlipid recently and I asked for references. He gave an enormously long list of them and not a single one addressed my questions. Still, it was better than last time when the very first reference he gave completely contradicted what he'd said.
CarbSane said…
Does anyone read these? I'm an avid science reader and I simply cannot get through them. I skim and use my search function to find the stuff folks quote to me. Otherwise I just cannot stomach it!
Jane said…
I can't either. You start out thinking oh that's interesting, but after a few paragraphs you realise there's nothing there. He seems to read a vast amount of stuff but with no ability to put it all together into a coherent whole. Somehow he believes it's coherent when it isn't. He needs to make mental images of what he's reading and fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle, which is how you understand things as opposed to just having a collection of facts in your head. I don't think he does that at all.
CarbSane said…
There's something clearly going on there. I remember being appalled by his writing. We all make mistakes and often I know I should have proofed better after the fact, but this doesn't account for his missing, extraneous and misplaced apostrophes and such which is why many questioned his creds at first. Then the questions over his practice arose -- he once claimed on Paleo Hacks that they put PH up on a screen or something to discuss in the OR! In any case, that suspension from his professional society came down and these things take some time to make it through the system. This "reinventing" may have come out of that. Who knows. I know he drinks a ton of wine according to multiple PaleoFX witnesses. I hate to see people buy into this sort of crap, but the information is out there so as they say, you can't help those who won't help themselves.
Unknown said…
Some people aren't playing with a full deck.
Harry's Acolyte said…
I'm no scientist, but I'm a bright enough fella. I read Kruse's crap and realize immediately that it's a bunch of gibberish. Unlike those blind followers of his who are willing to attribute their inability to decipher his stuff to their own shortcomings, I realize that if I can't read it and get a decent grasp on it that it's the writer's fault.

And by the by, some of those user comments on his blog might conceivably be written by him, for all I know. Who in the world would create the user name, "Krusing to Optimal in California"?
Harry's Acolyte said…
"he once claimed on Paleo Hacks that they put PH up on a screen or something to discuss in the OR!"

I remember that. LOL
CarbSane said…
Ha ha Krusing to Optimal in CA ... Well, who in the world pays for a webinar from this guy either? There are many who try to baffle with bullshit but I don't even think Jack is one of those. He plays BIG TIME off of the anti-establishment sentiment.

Some were saying his suspension from the professional society was a badge of honor.
Jane said…
'..he once claimed on Paleo Hacks that they put PH up on a screen or something to discuss in the OR!..'

Can you explain please? Dunno what PH and OR are.
CarbSane said…
Sorry ... PH = Paleo Hacks He claimed they put up a discussion on the screen in his operating room and were discussing it. I don't think he was practicing any more.
Jane said…
What? Paleo Hacks hacked into his operating theatre computer? And showed him a scene of people discussing it? And not only did this happen, according to him, but he can't imagine anyone will think him odd if he talks about it in public?

Unknown said…
Maybe they were reading PH for comic relief? Most of the questions are of the "Why does my poop smell?" variety.
Susanne said…
Does he really say "TRUTH BOMB"? I might have to steal that for class, or even for my next academic conference. "TRUTH BOMB: The stratigraphy in this deposit is mixed, with the latest material dating to LH IIIB2 Late. The ivory material is incised in a distinctively different style from that recovered in Trench VII, suggesting the destruction debris was transported from a different area of the Citadel, but still a residential or possibly, as I will show next, ritual area. BOOM."

In my mind, I hear everything Kruse says in the voice of Dr Teeth of the Electric Mayhem, as I have never heard him speak live. Please do not disabuse me of this notion if it is not true.
CarbSane said…
Yes! Truth bombs bursting in air everywhere over there!
Unknown said…
His license expires 4/30/13 - do you think he will renew it??

KRUSE MD, JOHN JUDE
HERMITAGE, TN 37076

Profession: Medical Doctor
Rank: Medical Doctor
Specialties:
Neurological Surgery License Number: 31606
Status: Active: Licensed

Original Date: 05/19/1999
Expiration Date: 04/30/2013

Originally trained as a dentist

GRADUATE/POSTGRADUATE MEDICAL/PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING


PROGRAM/
INSTITUTION CITY
STATE/
COUNTRY DATE OF
GRADUATION TYPE OF
DEGREE

LSU MEDICAL SCHOOL NEW ORLEANS,LA 05/23/1993 MD

UNIV OF CONN SCH OF DENTAL MED FARMINGTON,CT 05/25/1990 DMD

OTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING

PROGRAM/
INSTITUTION CITY
STATE/
COUNTRY FROM TO

LSU GEN SURG INTERN NEW ORLEANS,LA 07/01/1993 06/30/1994

LSU NEUROSURGERY RESD NEW ORLEANS,LA 07/01/1994 06/30/1999


Unknown said…
Someone needs to clue him in on the proper use of the apostrophe

http://paleodrama.tumblr.com/post/43187622817/i-know-i-have-so-much-trouble-with-shoveling

telomere's
piranna's

Jane said…
Well I finally read all 6 pages of Kruse's post. It's far worse than I thought. There really isn't a single paragraph that makes sense. He's even misunderstood the key paper, which does NOT show that liver glycogen is replenished from PPP-derived D-ribose as he thinks.

He says 'The optimal way to replenish glycogen for performance is to replete liver glycogen by using the PPP not glycogenesis.' The paper he links says this 'In conclusion, our results demonstrate that (a) only one-third
of liver glycogen repletion occurs via the direct conversion of
glucose to glycogen...'

OK, so you think Kruse might be right, perhaps the rest is made by the PPP? But no. '..only a very small amount of glycogen synthesis can be accounted for by the conversion of glucose to triose phosphates [this means the PPP] and back to glycogen.' Only 1-3%, actually. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC424028/pdf/jcinvest00123-0343.pdf

CarbSane said…
Thanks for doing the "work" here. My first interaction re: science with Kruse was when I requested references for his contention that magnesium deficiency always precedes insulin resistance. He kept saying it was in any biochem text and how he wouldn't do my research for me ;-) He dragged it over to Paleo Hacks where others listed a bunch of peer review articles linking the two (not my question) and he was like "see? there's a ton". Jack almost never quotes from the papers he cites, when he bothers with a citation (other than it's in your biochem text if you look, or it won't be in there b/c the authors are all idiots). Your example here is the reason why. Most of his followers won't bother with his references. I can't say I blame them, but if they are going to read and parrot his stuff, they ought be doing so more skeptically.

Speaking of D-ribose, the Eades promoted that in their 6Week Cure http://carbsanity.blogspot.com/2010/10/errors-in-eades-6-week-cure-i-d-ribose.html
Jane said…
Here's what one of Kruse's readers said about his post.
'Dr Kruse,
Without question, this has been the eureka moment blog for me. It's all coming together. Simple things that I had no idea had an effect on me, that were right in front of me,that you made us see for the first time. CT and this blog are the masterpieces for me. I think soon you will be flooded with questions and interviews that will become overwhelming. Thanks Much. Can't wait for the rest.'
an3drew said…
As pointed out above, are we certain about who is writing the comments on that blog? Are we certain that it's not a certain hedonistic doctor?

I'm not.
CarbSane said…
Sounds like Jack. He claims just a one page summary netted him 5 book deals. Ha! Sisson took a pass on his book back in the hay day of Jacko after seeing the first draft.
Jane said…
Interesting that it's Eades who thinks ribose is a good idea. He also thinks humans should eat vast amounts of meat. If you do that, you may be deficient in nutrients needed for healthy mitochondria (manganese!) so you might possibly benefit from extra ribose.
Unknown said…
Well....well.....well. Looks like Dr K finally got someone to publish his ramblings. Check out Amazon for the Kindle version of his book. Although with a price of $25 for a kindle book, don't think he'll sell a lot. I've heard it's just a reiteration of his blogs, but edited for grammar, spelling, writing style, etc.
CarbSane said…
Ha! Pretty sure that's self published. Meanwhile, he is moving. Mars?
Unknown said…
If you look at the book on Amazon it is self-published, but I have it from a good source (another author) that he hired a publicist to help him. Otherwise, no one would have been able to decipher his ramblings. However, the book doesn't contain anything about EMF which is his latest rabbit hole. He'll probably freeze himself before moving to Mars......oh wait, now its better to be near the equator which is supposedly the epicenter of Factor X. Moving from one theory to another faster than a speeding bullit!
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