Also see:
Carbon Dioxide Basics
Universal Principle of Cellular Energy
Carbon Dioxide as an Antioxidant
Comparison: Oxidative Metabolism v. Glycolytic Metabolic
The Glucose Song
Promoters of Efficient v. Inefficient Metabolism
Trauma & Resuscitation: Toxicity of Lactated Ringer’s Solution
Altitude Sickness: Therapeutic Effects of Acetazolamide and Carbon Dioxide
Low CO2 in Hypothyroidism
Protective Altitude
Protect the Mitochondria
Lactate Paradox: High Altitude and Exercise
Altitude Improves T3 Levels
Protective Carbon Dioxide, Exercise, and Performance
Synergistic Effect of Creatine and Baking Soda on Performance
Ray Peat, PhD on Carbon Dioxide, Longevity, and Regeneration
Mitochondria & Mortality
Altitude and Mortality
Lactate: a metabolic key player in cancer
Quotes by Ray Peat, PhD:
“Lactic acid and carbon dioxide have opposing effects.”
“Oxidation of sugar is metabolically efficient in many ways, including sparing oxygen consumption. It produces more carbon dioxide than oxidizing fat does, and carbon dioxide has many protective functions, including increasing Krebs cycle activity and inhibiting toxic damage to proteins.”
“If the oxidative metabolism of a cell is compared to a flame, lactic acid is the smoke that’s produced when there isn’t enough oxygen, or when the temperature is too low. Both a cell and a flame produce produce carbon dioxide when nothing interferes with their oxidation.”
The end product of respiration is carbon dioxide, and it is an essential component of the life process. The ability to produce and retain enough carbon dioxide is as important for longevity as the ability to conserve enough heat to allow chemical reactions to occur as needed.
“Sugar can be used to produce energy with or without oxygen, but oxidative metabolism is about 15 times more efficient than the non-oxidative “glycolytic” or fermentive metabolism; higher organisms depend on this high efficiency oxidation for maintaining integration and normal functioning: If there is a small interference with respiration, the organism can adapt by increasing the rate of glycolysis, but there must be enough sugar to meet the demand. A response to stimulation is the production of more energy, with a proportional increase of oxygen and sugar consumption by the stimulated tissue; this produces more carbon dioxide. which enlarges the blood vessels in the area, providing more sugar and oxygen. If the irritation becomes destructive, efficiency is lost: oxygen is either consumed wastefully, causing blueness of the tissue (assuming circulation continues: blueness can also indicate bad circulation), or is not consumed. causing redness of the tissue. As more sugar is consumed in compensation , lactic acid also enlarges the blood vessels.
If the inflamed or exhausted tissue is small, the lactic acid can be consumed by other oxidizing tissues, sufficient sugar usually can be supplied, and repair occurs. But a large inflammation. or profound exhaustion, will lower the blood sugar systemically, and will deliver large amounts of lactic acid to the liver. The liver synthesizes glucose from the lactic acid, but at the expense of about 6 times more energy than is obtained from the inefficient metabolism – so that organismically, that tissue becomes 90 times less efficient than its original state. Besides this, an idle destruction of energy molecules (ATP or creatine phosphate) will increase the wastefulness even more.”
“Besides the simple excitotoxic killing of nerve cells, the processes which impair carbon dioxide production set in motion the long degenerative process that ranges from diabetic lacticacidemia to dementia.”
“The balance between what a tissue needs and what it gets will govern the way that tissue functions, in both the short term and the long term. When a cell emits lactic acid and free radicals and the products of lipid peroxidation, it’s reasonable to assume that it isn’t getting everything that it needs, such as oxygen and glucose. With time, the cell will either die or adapt in some way to its deprived conditions.”
“Increasing carbon dioxide lowers the intracellular pH, as well as inhibiting lactic acid formation, and restoring the oxidation of glucose increases CO2. Inhibiting carbonic anhydrase, to allow more CO2 to stay in the cell, contributes to intracellular acidification, and by systemically increasing carbon dioxide this inhibition has a broad range of protective anti-excitatory effects. The drug industry is now looking for chemicals that will specifically inhibit the carbonic anhydrase enzymes that are active in tumors. Existing carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, such as acetazolamide, will inhibit those enzymes, without harming other tissues. Aspirin has some effect as an inhibitor of carbonic anhydrase (Bayram, et al., 2008). Since histamine, serotonin (Vullo, et al., 2007), and estrogen (Barnett, et al., 2008; Garg, 1975) are carbonic anhydrase activators, their antagonists would help to acidify the hypoxic cells. Testosterone (Suzuki, et al., 1996) and progesterone are estrogen antagonists that inhibit carbonic anhydrase.”
“Thyroid is needed to keep the cell in an oxidative, rather than reductive state, and progesterone (which is produced elsewhere only when cells are in a rapidly oxidizing state) activates the processes that remove estrogen from the cell, and inactivates the processes that would form new estrogen in the cell.
Thyroid, and the carbon dioxide it produces, prevent the formation of the toxic lactic acid. When there is enough carbon dioxide in the tissues, the cell is kept in an oxidative state, and the formation of toxic free radicals is suppressed. Carbon dioxide therapy is extremely safe.”
“Glycolysis is very inefficient for producing usable energy compared to the respiratory metabolism of the mitochondria, and when lactate is carried to the liver, its conversion to glucose adds to the energy drain on the organism.”
“These factors that impair respiration tend to shift mitochondrial metabolism away from the oxidation of glucose and the production of carbon dioxide, to the oxidation of fats and the production of lactic acid.”
“The presence of carbon dioxide is an indicator of proper mitochondrial respiratory functioning.”
“The presence of lactic acid, which indicates stress or defective respiration, interferes with energy metabolism in ways that tend to be self-promoting. Harry Rubin’s experiments demonstrated that cells become cancerous before genetic changes appear. The mere presence of lactic acid can make cells more susceptible to the transformation into cancer cells. (Mothersill, et al., 1983.)”
“CO2 does help to reduce lactic acid production, but if there’s a chronic excess of lactic acid it’s most likely from a B vitamin deficiency or low thyroid function, or both. Muscles lose magnesium easily with those metabolic problems, so a diet with some well cooked greens (or just the water they boil in), orange juice, milk, and cheese, with liver and shell fish once a week, could help.”
“The features of the stress metabolism include increases of stress hormones, lactate, ammonia, free fatty acids, and fat synthesis, and a decrease in carbon dioxide. Factors that lower the stress hormones, increase carbon dioxide, and help to lower the circulating free fatty acids, lactate, and ammonia, include vitamin B1 (to increase CO2 and reduce lactate), niacinamide (to reduce free fatty acids), sugar (to reduce cortisol, adrenaline, and free fatty acids), salt (to lower adrenaline), thyroid hormone (to increase CO2). Vitamins D, K, B6 and biotin are also closely involved with carbon dioxide metabolism. Biotin deficiency can cause aerobic glycolysis with increased fat synthesis (Marshall, et al., 1976).”
Each post is excellent to health and bodybuilding.
Carbon Dioxide keeps cells acidic and Lactic Acid makes cells alkaline?, please, could you explain it?…greetings from Cuba.
“Exercise physiologists, knowing that lactic acid is produced during exercise, and cancer biologists (especially since Warburg’s work showing that all cancers have a respiratory defect) who know that cancer tends to produce lactic acid, almost always talk about the “acidity” of the fatigued muscle or cancer cell.
While it is true that the entry of lactic acid into the blood tends to produce metabolic acidosis, the cell which is producing the lactic acid is actually more alkaline than normal cells. The simplest way to think of it is that the “acid leaving the cell makes it less acidic.” -RP
Also see: Herb Doctors: Alkalinity vs Acidity (2012)
http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2011/09/12/master-list-ray-peat-phd-interviews/
You need to take a look ta the Bohr Effect and Buteyku breathing exercises for asthmatics – OR for anyone who suffers adrenaline overload. I suspect carbs have a very base effect on the physiology of carnivores – as in famine. It produces adrenaline which, in turn produces hyperventilation which interrupts CO2 flow necessary to flow oxygen from the hemoglobin to the cells and loads the blood with oxygen that the muscle cells CAN access for immediate strength and energy so it can go hunt and rundown real food. Without the CO2, the CO2 and hemoglobin are locked together. With the restricted CO2 levels, the cells don’t get enough oxygen to continue with BAU (business as usual) – as takes place in the absence of adrenaline.
The Buteyku exercises illustrate this or something like this due to their “detoxifying” effect on the body. It’s like the perfect detox PLUS adrenaline cleaner.
It is believed that many people suffer from chronic hyperventilation which explains all of the chronic illness as pathogens can’t survive in cells with a normal flow of oxygen.
You’re going to be seeing evidence of what I’m talking about as zero carb athletes begin to be revealed by a sort of “super-performance”. They don’t hyperventilate, their brain cells aren’t starved for oxygen and they burn fat instead of glucose which requires very little, if any, “recharging”. They finish in much the same condition they started whether they are playing basketball or running an ultramarathon – like Tim Olson.
I’m very familiar with the Bohr effect as multiple other articles on this blog illustrate.
Your take on carbohydrate is backward. Adrenaline rises in the absence of adequate blood glucose. Adrenaline attempts to liberate stored glycogen (glucose) from the liver and release stored fat as supplemental energy. It’s adrenaline that does lead to hyperventilation (you’re right there), lowering CO2.
Carbohydrate helps lower adrenaline by assisting in providing the exogenous energy substrate that the internal environment is lacking. Secondly, carbohydrate oxidation produces more CO2 than does fat oxidation, and the body’s primary source of CO2 is cellular metabolism. So glucose oxidation is the primary source of CO2. If you’re worried about the availability of CO2, we need to think about facilitating glucose oxidation. Carbohydrate shaming is commonplace currently but very poorly thought out.