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Saturday, January 22, 2005

It's all downhill from here

In a recent communication to a conference of the American Heart Association it was reported that hiking downhill removed blood sugars and improved glucose tolerance, while uphill hiking mostly improved levels of fats called triglycerides. So the real question is: do you remove blood sugar because your brain works more when you go downhill than when you go uphill or is there another mechanism at play...

[Update September 2008: an explanation is given in the comment section: "...When walking down the mobilization of glucose from liver or muscle glycogen is low and if there is still excess supply of glucose, it is stored in the form of glycogen or fat (triglycerides by example). When walking uphill mobilization of glucose is high, it can be done from the reserves of glycogen (fairly weak in the muscle and a little more important in the liver) at first and then triglycerides from fat tissue which in order to reach the muscle cells must pass through blood (hence increasing the blood level of triglycerides).." ]

2 comments:

  1. Lorsqu'on marche en descendant, la mobilisation de glucose à partir du glycogène musculaire ou hépatique est faible et s'il y a tout de même excès d'apport de glucose, celui-ci est stocké sous forme de glycogène ou de lipides (triglycérides par exemple)
    Lorsqu'on marche en montant la mobilisation de glucose est élevée; elle peut se faire à partir des réserves de glycogène (assez faibles dans le muscle et un peu plus importantes dans le foie) dans un premier temps et à partir des triglycérides des tissus adipeux qui pour atteindre les cellules musculaires passent par la voie sanguine (d'où accroissement de la concentration sanguine en triglycérides)

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  2. The translation of the previous comment is:

    "..When walking down the mobilization of glucose from liver or muscle glycogen is low and if there is still excess supply of glucose, it is stored in the form of glycogen or fat (triglycerides by example)
    When walking uphill mobilization of glucose is high, it can be done from the reserves of glycogen (fairly weak in the muscle and a little more important in the liver) in a first time and triglycerides from fat tissue that to reach the muscle cells pass through blood (hence increasing the blood level of triglycerides).."

    Igor.

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