[HN Gopher] Why thinking hard makes us feel tired ___________________________________________________________________ Why thinking hard makes us feel tired Author : yamrzou Score : 122 points Date : 2023-11-16 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nature.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com) | yamrzou wrote: | https://archive.ph/WJCMC | insanitybit wrote: | Should probably replace the link with this, since it's actually | readable. | theyinwhy wrote: | "Please submit the original source. If a post reports on | something found on another site, submit the latter." | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | insanitybit wrote: | OK but the original source is not accessible? | progne wrote: | Is glutamate : neurons :: lactic acid : muscle? | andbberger wrote: | no | adpirz wrote: | The lactic acid thing is a myth. | https://www.bostonsportsmed.com/2013/08/the-lactic-acid-myth... | User23 wrote: | Because it takes energy? This is pretty well observed in high | level chess[1]. | | [1] https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why- | grandmaste... | insanitybit wrote: | That hardly seems conclusive. For example, | | > Meanwhile, players also eat less during tournaments, simply | because they don't have the time or the appetite. "The simple | explanation is when they're thinking about chess, they're not | thinking about food," says Ewan C. McNay, assistant professor | of psychology in the behavioral neuroscience program at the | University of Albany. | | That seems far more likely. I'm sure many of us can relate to | working through lunch when we have an intense deadline, and not | even realizing we're hungry until hours later. | | > According to Ashley, India's first grandmaster, Viswanathan | Anand, does two hours of cardio each night to tire himself out | so he doesn't dream about chess; Kasimdzhanov drinks tea only | during tournaments and plays tennis and basketball every day. | Chirila does at least an hour of cardio and an hour of weights | to build muscle mass before tournaments. | | And apparently they're exercising quite a lot as well. | | This hardly seems to support that it's just brain power. And my | recollection is that focus does not significantly increase | glucose uptake in the brain - though _stress_ can obviously | increase heart rate, but that 's separate, one can focus | without being stressed. | pikma wrote: | If thinking hard required a lot of energy, wouldn't we expect | that thinking hard would cause an increased heart rate and | faster breathing? | tantalor wrote: | > watching letters appear on a computer screen every 1.6 seconds | and documenting when one matched a letter that had appeared three | letters ago. The other 16 participants were asked to perform a | similar, but easier task. Both teams worked for just over six | hours | | This is torture | solardev wrote: | It's like guitar hero's evil twin. | | After six hours, I wish the study would've differentiated | between "tired" and "murderously enraged" | sva_ wrote: | Probably got a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card in return | mholm wrote: | This is fairly similar to an ADHD screening test I took. I was | mentally exhausted after about 20 minutes of it. | deegles wrote: | This is a working memory exercise called "n-back". For true | torture try "dual n-back" where you also have to match a tone, | shape or color. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back | TonyTrapp wrote: | Sounds like something coming straight out of The Stanley | Parable. | frenchwhisker wrote: | Reminds me of a card game I played as a kid called Egyptian | Ratscrew, where one of the possible rules is to slap the deck | if a "sandwich" appeared (e.g. a 3, a J, then another 3), so | you always had to keep the card before the last one in your | head. I remember variations such as "double sandwiches"--which | made the 2-back into a 3-back--and many others. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Ratscrew | hx8 wrote: | I use to colloquially call this game "slap deck" as a kid. | The general approach taken was to add a ton of house rules, | such that it was a large test of working memory to keep all | rules in your head. We kept some simple rules to keep the | game approachable for younger children, and older | children/teens would continue to add house rules to make the | game more complex. In addition, game play would be very fast, | and often times patterns would be missed because no one | recognized it quick enough. | | Some of the rules that would sometime appear that I can | recall | | * Put 1 or 2 jokers in. Jokers are slappable | | * Doubles are slappable (3, 3) | | * Three (or four) face cards are slappable | | * Three (or four) cards of the same suite are slappable | | * Three (or four) consecutive cards are slappable (2, 3, 4, | 5) or (5, 4, 3, 2) | | * A player without cards can 'slap in' | pradn wrote: | I've taught this game to 3 year olds and college students - | everyone has fun with it! | iamwpj wrote: | Ahh, thanks for the memories! If it weren't for my slow | reflexes, I would have been much better at that game. | irrational wrote: | How many minutes could you last before you lost focus said, | "Screw it" and stopped really trying? I think I'd last maybe 5 | minutes. | Almondsetat wrote: | > This is torture | | I would like to ask everyone to stop for a moment and think if | in their line of work they are required to perform tasks like | this. Your job might be even shittier than you currently feel | like it is | derekp7 wrote: | The difference is the reward afterward. Learning to play a | complex piece on an instrument is mentally taxing, but | getting it right gives you that sense of accomplishment that | can't really be matched with anything else. Same with | debugging a program you are writing, or solving other types | of problems. | | Doing hours of arithmetic homework as a child didn't give me | that reward signal, so for me that was torture back then. | zulln wrote: | ChatGPT throw together that game in a few seconds if you want | to play it. | | https://github.com/zulln/misc/tree/master/lettergame | https://zulln.se/misc/lettergame/ | simonw wrote: | From https://www.npr.org/2019/09/18/762046422/the-chess- | grandmast... | | > Chess grandmasters spend hours sitting over game boards. And | yet, high-level players lose 10 to 12 pounds on average over a | 10-day tournament. | insanitybit wrote: | I'm wondering if they're just on amphetamines. | | > He taps his foot gently to keep his alertness on the highest | level while still not losing too much energy. He chews gum. | | Sounds like the kind of behavior you'd expect when hopped up on | something tbh | BurningFrog wrote: | You have to assume anything not tested for (that helps) is | used at the top. | DarmokJalad1701 wrote: | > You have to assume anything not tested for (that helps) | is used at the top. | | More like, at the bottom[1]. | | [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11SdThUNgLo | ephbit wrote: | First, my apology that I am making this off-topic remark. | | Remark: is it just me, or do other people too hesitate to | click a youtube link with no title given? | | I feel like I at least want to know the title of the | linked video, even if it doesn't reveal much about the | video. | | IMO it'd be very nice if people made a habit of | Ctrl+c/v'ing the title along with a yt link. | drivers99 wrote: | Good point. I think I've seen some subreddits with a bot | that does that for YouTube links. | | Title: Making Beads That Vibrate To Cheat In Chess | | Length: 18min, 54s | | Channel: MixMorris (102k subscribers) | | 17,364 views | | Oct 23, 2022 #chess #engineering | | Description: "This video speaks for itself." (sic) | klyrs wrote: | Thanks, I wasn't going to click and this confirms my | "never click a youtube" policy is sound. | tysam_and wrote: | And if your sense of humor is similar to mine, then you | might just find this video by DougDoug riffing on the | topic hilarious: | | Title: "I created the ultimate Chess Ai (it can cheat)" | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_wOsSda3Us | anon_cow1111 wrote: | I don't think I've clicked a no-context youtube link in | years. Sometimes when it seems like it might be worth | clicking, I just throw the hash into a search engine. | slkdjfalzkdfj wrote: | There actually are regular drug tests for professional | chess. | | The simple fact is that doing any kind of mindsport | intensely over an extended period is very draining. | tayo42 wrote: | I would think large swings like that are water weight. | They're probably really focused and not drinking or eating as | much as usual | insanitybit wrote: | I totally agree. My personal opinion here is: | | 1. They're stressed and therefor eating less, especially if | they're spending the daytimes of the tournament playing | games - hardly conducive to appetite, and in fact I expect | many will avoid food purposefully to try to not get that | sleepy-full feeling. | | 2. To a much lesser degree, increased stress == increased | heartrate == increased BMR. | | 3. Maybe, and I hate to speculate because of the stigma | (personally I don't care if chess players are doing drugs), | some amphetamine use, or at least caffeine, all of which | can suppress appetate further. | | I personally very much doubt that it's the thinking hard | that's actually burning calories. | | Unfortunately, I can't even read the linked post! It's | paywall'd. | bluGill wrote: | A pound of fat is 3500 calories. If a chess player eats | nothing at all they are unlikely to burn that many calories | in a day. Chess players do eat during a tournament. | Therefore weight loss must be water. | dekhn wrote: | That's not how weight loss works- you don't lose a pound | by "burning" fat. | Detrytus wrote: | How else would it work? You burn fat (as in: you turn it | into energy, powering your own living cells), turning it | into CO2 and H2O, which are then breathed out or expelled | with urine. | devmor wrote: | What? Yes it is. Your fat cells are turned into ATP via | Beta-oxidation and used for cellular energy. The excess | carbon from the processes is then exhaled as CO2 during | normal respiration and the water is sweated or urinated. | | When you lose about 3500 calories of energy via this | process, you have burned a pound of fat. | ergonaught wrote: | Absolutely water weight. | | I can drop 10 pounds this week trivially by triggering a | water flush (change in diet), essentially at will. Wife | absolutely hates it, but that's water weight. | lordnacho wrote: | Does amphetamine help concentration? | calamari4065 wrote: | Adderall is basically amphetamine. | tysam_and wrote: | That's like saying 'gasoline is basically an oil | product'. It literally _is_ mixed amphetamines, it's not | basically it. | Pyxl101 wrote: | Yes, it can. It provides a feeling of excitement or | enthusiasm for whatever you're doing, and can be channeled | into working hard for long periods of time. Especially if | your job already brings you some satisfaction, then doing | your job on amphetamine will provide more. Pilots in the | airforce (and possibly other warfighters) are given | amphetamine to augment their performance. | | I think of it as basically stealing energy or enthusiasm | from the future, though. You might feel energized and | focused now, but it comes at the expense of less energy and | focus when the drug wears off. The withdrawal effect is | pretty mild if you take prescription doses of it though, | e.g. Adderall (which is amphetamine). At normal moderate | doses, taken in the morning, almost all of that energy can | be recouped during sleep (though not all). I wouldn't want | to take it daily for a long period of time though, | otherwise you'll build up an 'energy deficit' that could | lead to a crash. | | P.S. I know people who have essentially destroyed their | lives by becoming addicted to amphetamine or meth. It's a | dangerous drug. | devmor wrote: | As someone who basically requires dextroamphetamine to | function, I've always found the notion of becoming | addicted to it crazy, nonetheless. If I don't set alarms | to take it, I will forget, for days at a time until I | suddenly realize why I haven't gotten much done and my | memory has been bad this week. | | I wonder if there is something about the dopamine issues | of the ADHD brain that prevents an addiction to | substances that aid it. | hereme888 wrote: | It depends. Raising those neurotransmitters (dopamine > | norepinephrine > serotonin) is a matter of balance. | | If a person already has good levels and healthy receptors, | and they suddenly raise them too much, it just makes people | obsessive and actually not focus well on the important task | at hand. | | It's a double-edged sword, always with warnings and side- | effects. | mewpmewp2 wrote: | Although if you are playing chess, obsessiveness with the | game would probably be good. But of course it will vary | greatly from person to person. | hereme888 wrote: | Actually, the sort of obsessiveness it produces | diminishes the ability to switch attention, so people get | obsessed over a particular train of thought and are | unable to evaluate other strategies. Basically you end up | obsessed over that one strategy, and motivated to do it, | instead of taking a step back to re-assess. | groby_b wrote: | Only if you have ADHD. | | If you don't, it's negatively impacting mental performance | - but it's really good at helping you to deliver slightly | subpar performance for grossly extended periods of time. | (Common uses: Crisis situations where you cannot step away. | Cramming for exams) | | I suppose you could call this a different form of | concentration, but AIUI it's more energy than | concentration. | tysam_and wrote: | Yes, and sometimes people view it as a zero net drug, but | it's not always a 1:1 relationship of borrowing from the | future. It's significantly helped me, and there are some | downsides, but the benefits have been far greater than the | negatives (and having the extra motivation is...incredible | since my brain does not really do that all that much | naturally). | tambourine_man wrote: | I've been tapping my foot ferociously since I was a kid and | the most I've been "on" is caffeine. Lots of it, though, but | the taping helps me even when I'm not drinking coffee. | Obscurity4340 wrote: | Not that its representative necessarily but have you been | screened for AD(H)D, the leg and foot tapping/shaking was | always a big thing for me. And its not parkinsons lol, | otherwise I've had it my whole life ;) | djbusby wrote: | Tapping or that thing where you keep the ball of the foot | on the floor and then shake the leg like trying to double- | bass hit a-la John Bonham? That's the one I do. Annoys the | heck out of everyone around cause it shakes things. So they | say Stop! Then get frustrated with my too-loud typing or | humming or... whatever, gotta let that excess energy out | somehow. | | Interrupting my focus state with "why are you doing that?" | - doing what? | pikma wrote: | There's another thread linking the same article, and it's very | unclear that this loss of weight is caused by the mental | effort. | | If thinking hard required a lot of energy, wouldn't we expect | that thinking hard would cause an increased heart rate and | faster breathing? | sva_ wrote: | It is a bit confusing to me because it is often said that the | brain draws about the same amount of energy, no matter what. | Perhaps people also eat less during tournaments. | MichaelDickens wrote: | ~~This is not true.~~ (edited to clarify, see [2]) Robert | Sapolsky's research approximated calorie expenditure using a | highly inaccurate methodology. Troubat et al. 2008[1] estimated | calorie expenditure by measuring chess players' respiration and | found that they only burned 10% more calories than normal. | | And anyway, the claim that chess players lose 1 pound per day | does not pass a basic sanity check. 1 pound of fat = 3500 | calories. If you raised all that energy instantaneously in the | brain, it would raise brain temperature by around 2500 C (the | average brain weighs ~1.5 kg and the brain is mostly water so I | figure 1 Calorie ~= 1 degree C per kg). Obviously the energy | doesn't release all at once and it wouldn't all be released by | the brain, but that's still an implausibly high energy | expenditure. | | [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18987876/ | | [2] When I said "this is not true", I was thinking of the claim | from the linked article that chess players burn 6000 calories | per day, which is definitely false. Upon re-reading, I realized | the parent comment did not actually make this claim. I am | agnostic as to whether chess players lose 1 pound per day | during tournaments, but if they do, it's definitely not because | they're burning 1 extra pound of fat. It's plausible that | they're eating much less and/or losing water weight. | cactusplant7374 wrote: | Thanks for the write up. I always wondered about this. | mtrees_io wrote: | Water is wet. I think we need a scientific analysis of "duh" | esalman wrote: | Water wouldn't be so wet if you were cognitively challenged. | rzzzt wrote: | That's another rabbit hole altogether: is water wet or does it | merely make other things wet? | stillbourne wrote: | Is water the only wet thing? Because when I'm drying my | liquid solvents I'm only removing the water. Is 100% ethanol | still "wet?" | mtrees_io wrote: | Ladies and gentlemen, gather 'round as we reflect upon the | profound wisdom imparted by the Log from Ren and Stimpy. In | the sacred realm of the animated, behold the Log -- a | symbol, a metaphor, a wooden beacon lighting the path to | enlightenment. | | Just as the Log rolls through the whimsical landscapes of | Ren and Stimpy's world, so too must we navigate the terrain | of job applications. The Log teaches us perseverance, for | even when faced with absurd challenges, it continues its | journey with stoic determination. | | Applying to jobs, my friends, is akin to riding the Log of | life. We must embrace the twists and turns, the | uncertainties of the job market, with the same unyielding | spirit. For just as the Log is steadfast in its purpose, so | should we be in our pursuit of meaningful employment. | | And lo, let us draw inspiration from the Log Song itself -- | a melodic reminder that sometimes, in the chaos of job | hunting, it's crucial to find joy in the simplicity of the | process. Whether it's singing about our resumes or crafting | cover letters, let the Log be our guide to finding humor | and joy in the journey. | | In conclusion, my dear congregation, as we face the job | market, let the Log's unwavering resolve inspire us to roll | forward with resilience and a sprinkle of absurdity. For in | the grand tapestry of employment, each of us is but a log | on the river of life, floating toward new opportunities and | adventures. Amen. | telios wrote: | A dry bar lacks water, not ethanol, and dry cleaning still | uses liquids, so I'd argue even the colloquial definition | is water. | mesarvagya wrote: | There was a discussion sometime back in reddit [1]: | | The conclusion: Pushing brain to its limit requires a lot of | energy. | | https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/17ms04d/til_... | nullhole wrote: | What's the difference between feeling tired and being tired? | | (I'm not going to pay 30 bucks to read the article, so it may | answer that question) | wouldbecouldbe wrote: | https://archive.li/WJCMC | b33j0r wrote: | So, ATP is a thing. The chemical bonds store the energy, then we | waste that on puns and being mad at our birth. | | Just don't tell Steve Lukather, somehow he never stops touring. | Totolly badass. | djokkataja wrote: | Previous discussion: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395 | anonymousDan wrote: | So is there any proven way to train yourself to have more | endurance wrt your ability to think hard? Would be an interesting | line of research... | mdaniel wrote: | previous commentary: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32430395 (2022; 189 | comments) | CapitalistCartr wrote: | I learned the real meaning of the word "thinking" the first time | I was at 4400m and had to pitch my tent. Thinking really does use | oxygen and effort. | blastro wrote: | Brain requires 12x the amount of oxygen per cell as a muscle | does. Brain is most expensive organ in body. | m3kw9 wrote: | Actually cheap because it does the most | fnordpiglet wrote: | Mine just sits around and worries all day. | tysam_and wrote: | I have chronic fatigue issues that go in and out of remission, | and the buildup of glutamate seems to by far be the biggest | factor for me. | | N-acetyl Cysteine and other blood glutamate scavengers (BGS) like | malic acid and pyruvate are indispensable in these scenarios. | They don't solve the issue but dampen it a bit. | | Additionally, a ketogenic diet helped me a lot. | | Most of all, high dose niacinamide holds it in remission at | times, though I have a theory it's caused by a well-set-in, | chronic infection as the reduction in symptoms with niacinamide | correlates with the symptoms of fighting off an infection (very | swollen lymph nodes, histamine release, sometimes nausea &etc, | headaches, some other clear indicators, etc). I've been on it for | about 7-8 weeks or so and we're still going! | | That said, having energy is a gift that is hard to quantify. | Chronic fatigue takes away your ability to think about anything, | so you have to have discipline to not think about anything | sometimes...which also takes mental energy. It's a bit of a | living hell, for suresies. | | Here's hoping I get to stay in remission. <3 :'))))) | rpmisms wrote: | Have you been tested for Lyme? This is textbook Lyme disease. | ryeights wrote: | If you don't live in a Lyme-prone area, Lyme is unlikely and | your risk of a false positive is high | rpmisms wrote: | It's spreading rapidly. Worth a shot. Undiagnosed Lyme is | horrible and can cause serious long-term damage. | tysam_and wrote: | The world is much more complex than this, unfortunately, | there are a significant number of etiologies which result in | CFS-like symptoms, it's one of the less studied umbrellas out | there. | | Lyme, babesiosis, rocky mountain spotted fever, etc, all | negative. I also did a urine Lyme DNA test a while back but | looking back on it, apparently that was not an extremely | reliable test (though the western blot has a decent amount of | false negatives as well). | | I believe it's a chronic yeast infection that's slowly | traveled up under the skin of my left leg for the last 7 | years or so. It started out as athletes foot in college, and | then when I got past the point of being too overwhelmed to | treat it, it had set in pretty well. | | I wondered if the two were correlated, but over the past few | years I've had increasing leg pain in that area, and the same | pain in my toe where the infection was. Of course, the nature | of this infection is that seems to be resistant to many OTC | classes of antifungals, so it did not budge. The most | effective agent was carvacrol/thymol, which is extremely | broad range (even against MRSA), but it macerated the skin to | a point of strong pain, bleeding, etc, all that jazz. Even | when it cleared up on the outside, there was a deep white | patch under the skin that you could see under the (healthy- | seeming) skin, which, of course, is its own unique class of | horror. | | About a year ago or so, I finally broke and decided to get | rid of the skin infection no matter what. I basically mixed | isopropyl alcohol and table vinegar and put it in the skin | after removing the top layer of dead skin, which as it was an | open wound was extremely painful. I used the reasoning that I | could temporarily damage the nerves with overexcitation via | the isopropyl alcohol stimulation, and that reasoning panned | out after an excruciating several days, after which my nerves | were damaged enough to no longer hurt under the raw vinegar | and alcohol combination. | | That at least cleared up the surface infection until I was on | the Appalachian Trail this year (which, yes, I did my two | months on it with chronic fatigue + post exertional malaise | (!!!!) !), where, more than a year later, the infection | inexplicably came back again. | | I found niacinamide in my search for treatment-resistant | infections, and it cleared up the surface infection within an | astounding 2-3 days. I started taking it orally, and became | extremely sick, it felt like I was being poisoned and doing a | mini-chemotherapy of sorts, so I slowed down and began taking | silymarin and NAC to help preserve liver and kidney function | (which seems to still remain okay so far). | | The process of treating it has been painful, as the initial | days caused a huge flare in leg pain in my left leg | corresponding with swelling of the lymph nodes almost | exclusively on the left side of my body, oddly enough (though | it seems to have balanced out, a bit). I was in the emergency | room on my birthday last year due to the leg pain, and they | couldn't figure it out so they offered a potential umbrella | diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome. | | It's hard to keep up with dosing as I do have a bit of an | aversion to feeling sick -- it quite literally feels like I'm | being poisoned! -- but, my CMP from even this week came back | okay, and I'm getting a feeling of underlying 'rightness' | despite the transient negative symptoms (including having to | pee every 2-3 hours...not fun). | | I've had maybe two dozen doctors, both in and out of the ER | (6 visits in the last year or so), or so give me that look of | not quite being able to know what to do. I applied to the | internal medicine program at the Mayo Clinic a few months ago | and got a form letter turning me down. It's not due to | incompetence, it's just that there is a long tail of | extremely complicated conditions that categorically fit an | umbrella of symptoms, but are extremely hard to actually | track down (and the semi-binarization of medical specialties | makes cross-disciplinary diagnosis extremely difficult for | these vague kinds of conditions). | | I'm sitting here now and can feel the leg pain when I focus | on it, for example. But I think treating it is worth it -- | especially as one has to work to live in many circumstances! | That said, this does not underpin how grateful I am to at | least have one avenue -- whether it's temporary or not -- | where I can have energy. | | This also doesn't cover things like the mast cell sensitivity | (diagnosed as not MCAS by _two_ separate immunologists, | though they both fall in the tryptase-test-philosophy camp). | I react to everything, including All Free and Clear | detergent, for example, and with food and such sometimes it's | just eating tons of meat (it's pure muscle protein and fat | and doesn't have things I can react to like lots of plants | do) and multivitamins to cover the nutritional gaps. | | I wish it were as simple as just having Lyme disease, as I | think that would be much, much easier for me personally. But, | I suppose to keep living we have to accept the limitations | that we have (and unfortunately this is not the only journey | of limitation I'm on -- I also have autism to a mild-moderate | degree!), and I had a number of years where I really | struggled (like, really really struggled). But all of that | said, I think although it's taken a few years, I've come | around the bend in accepting the challenges I've been given, | and am on that upward walk of learning to enjoy the life that | I do have access to in the meantime. It's not perfect, and I | have a lot of big bumps in the road, for sure, but the slope | for me is pointed up, and that's what I wished for for years. | And I'm enjoying life a lot more than I have in the past, on | average! :')))) <3 <3 <3 <3 :')))) | | Hope that answers your question. | rpmisms wrote: | Whoa, thank you for the comprehensive answer. I reach for | Lyme since it's one of the most common and under-diagnosed | diseases in this category, but you are definitely in your | own category here. Good luck, having something outside the | reach of standard antibiotics already makes doctors afraid, | and this would probably give an immunologist nightmares. | jonhohle wrote: | It sounds like you've looked into it thoroughly, but have you | had a blood iron test as well? My iron levels were not below | the normal range, but taking an iron supplement (Proferrin) was | profoundly impactful for me. I went from needing daily 1-2hr | naps back to a normal sleep cycle (and can even go on <7hrs | without feeling fatigue during the day). | tysam_and wrote: | Yes I tend to consume half a pound to a pound of red meat per | day (calories in -- rather extreme food sensitivities | unfortunately), so my iron levels are good. | rcfox wrote: | I'm curious how you came to start taking these supplements? | Were they prescribed by a doctor? Several of these appear to be | abundant in food (according to quick search results) so I | wonder if it's more of a digestion/absorption issue for you? | tysam_and wrote: | It took a reading a few thousand pages of ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | papers over a number of years (I made it a habit just to try | to crack this thing), this is one of those traditional 'fall | through the cracks' kinds of things. My PCP admitted to me | that she felt ashamed at not being able to help any further | and not knowing what to do, and she's internal medicine. | | I have reactions to nearly every food group out there, even | things traditionally safe for many (minus the ultra safe | things like rice, lamb, etc). | | It's definitely not a digestion/absorption issue, in fact I | have a reasonable belief that have barrier permeability | issues as things like taking GABA will result in respiratory | depression + temporary oxygen starvation for a few seconds - | half a minute or so (yay) followed by that emergency | contraction of blood vessels that the body does when trying | to get oxygen to muscles. That's one good indicator of | systemic barrier dysfunction, for example, as that is | certainly not supposed to happen in healthy people since GABA | is not supposed to cross the intestinal barrier (or the BBB | barrier for that matter) in healthy individuals (though I | wonder if one tiny benefit is making GABA slightly more | effective for me for anxiety over, say, the average person | due to potentially-increased BBB permeability). Additionally, | things like P-glycoprotein inhibitors (like piperine, etc) | cause me to react much more strongly to food/environmental | things. | | Apples would contain, say, the most pyruvate and malic acid | (though I react to apples pretty badly, sadly, I'll get | arthritis-like symptoms (which makes typing and manipulating | objects difficult, for example), though I take an OTC 5-LOX | inhibitor nowadays that is actually surprisingly quite | effective at preventing things like that from happening in | accidental food exposures. Still not enough to have apples | straight though, lol). | | So it's things like that. Most of this is things like looking | at the Krebs cycle, finding upstream things to targets that I | want that seem to perform well (like oxaloacetate, which is | sold at an outrageous price), and then putting them through | the empirical test pipeline to see if they hold up. | | Things like niacinamide for example I'm taking 1.5-2. grams a | day which would be hard to get from food, pyruvate is also | hard to get from food as well. I love the idea of food as | medicine, but unfortunately it's mostly calories in (and | thankfully I don't seem to react to multivitamins, thank | God). | | I've tried several thousands of dollars worth of supplements | over the last several years trying to find combinations that | work. This is most certainly harder than most of the machine | learning problems that I work on, as the loss signal is not | all that clear, really (unfortunately)! | | I am glad to have found something that seems to have a | positive impact, however! | andai wrote: | >I have a theory it's caused by a well-set-in, chronic | infection | | Have you looked into fungal overgrowth / candidiasis? Keto | seems to work for that too | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9583754/ | willsmith72 wrote: | i'm glad studies like these exist, and hope we'll see more and | more like it in future. But as the article mentioned, the more | interesting part is the follow-up. How do you improve your | decision-making and reduce tiredness? | trealira wrote: | I've found that exercise helps. I try to jog and lift weights | regularly, but usually I exercise for a few months and stop for | a few months. When I don't exercise, I notice I'm a lot more | tired and feel significantly colder than when I work out. | | Also, if I don't eat enough food, I feel tired throughout the | day as well. It makes me feel like I can't focus or think, but | then I'm fine after I eat. Maybe it's because I'm skinny. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-16 23:00 UTC)