Study finds erythritol in obese people. EVERYBODY FREAK OUT!--NOT

(Tom) #1

Just to get ahead of this, the abstract from this paper (which is behind a paywall) is observing that erythritol is produced from glucose, and that the subjects who had higher A1c levels had higher amounts of eythritol in their blood. People on other keto FB pages are worrying, but here’s how I see it, based upon what I was able to find:

  1. The study is looking at endogenous erythritol, not exogenous. There’s nothing here indicating that use of erythritol is inherently bad.
  2. There’s no assertion that said erythritol is metabolically active, it’s just there.
  3. Given that it’s secondary to glucose intake, it’s more likely a marker for glucose intake rather than a cause of weight gain itself.
  4. I’ll defer to the chemists in the gang so far as rate limiting steps, but If I hork down enough candy to fill the trunk of a small German automobile, I’m willing to bet that it would push the production of erythritol and all sorts of other metabolites.
  5. It will be interesting to see if this can become a useful marker for carbohydrate intake, but Lord knows, it probably wouldn’t be adopted because they’ll just keep seeing that diabetics eating the standard recommendations have elevated levels and it would require too much thought to consider lowing carbohydrate intake.
  6. I also wonder how exogenous intake would affect these levels.
(jketoscribe) #2

It sounds to me like blaming the water for the fire. Since fires are fought with water, there’s a lot of water lying around and water damage after a fire. So by the logic some would apply, water is dangerous and causes fires because it’s always present where there’s a fire.

It might be interesting to measure endogenous erythritol to measure carb intake, but trigs already seem to be a good marker. I think I recall Dr. Westman saying that he can use trigs to see if patients are really being compliant with low carb or not. If they aren’t coming down precipitously, he knows that too many carbs are going in.

(Dustin Cade) #3

all of these articles are always pointing fingers, always looking for an easy out when it comes to obesity… so and so is fat because xyz… its not the standard american diet, he was eating erythritol and he is fat, we see a lot of this in fat people, this is what is making them fat… not being able to see the forest for the trees… click bate, scare tactics…

(Arlene) #4

As long as the waters stay muddy, the truth will be difficult to find. Confusion and fear. That’s been the protocol. That remains the protocol.