Recherche,
The list is as follows:
1) Glucose
2) Glucose
3) Glucose
Apparently, Mannose also is capable of sustaining metabolic activity
in the brain and crossing the blood-brain barrier. It is not normally
present in blood, however, and therefore I didn't include it in the
list.
See Brain Energy Metabolism
(http://www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000064/CH064.HTML) by Pierre J.
Magistretti, Luc Pellerin, and Jean-Luc Martin. It is an excellent
review of the topic.
As regards efficiency, the situation is binary. Glucose is the only
nutrient significantly metabolized by the brain under physiological
conditions. With glucose, your brain works; without it it doesn't.
Therefore glucose may be said to be 100% efficient in improving the
brain's efficiency.
Since people don't eat glucose constantly, yet the brain rquires it
constantly, it is fortunate that your liver can convert glucose to
glycogen for storage, then back to glucose again as needed. In order
to keep your brain functioning efficiently, it would be wise for you
to eat foods made of long chains of sugars, commonly known as
carbohydrates, on occasion, in order to top up your stores of
glycogens. Simple sugars don't work as well, since they cause sudden
peaks in blood levels and the outpouring of insulin, which leads to
increased cellular uptake of glucose leaving less for your liver to
metabolize into glycogen. Other cells make glycogen, too, but in
smaller quantities that do not contribute as significantly to
maintaining a constant flow of glucose to your brain.
Hence, if you want your brain to function properly, be sure to eat
carbohydrates before your liver runs out of glycogen. Since (depending
upon your body mass and metabolism) you can expect your main liver
glycogen stores to start running out within about three days of
beginning a complete fast, it is probably wise to eat sometime within
2-3 days before a test or other brain excursion, in order to achieve
peak efficiency.
That's it. Your brain doesn't metabolize any other major nutrients.
Glucose is the only one.
If you were thinking about things like Ginko Biloba, then you mean
nutritional supplements, not nutrients. These do not fall into the
category "nutrients", since they are not metabolized by the brain.
Furthermore, they do not measurably increase brain "efficiency" since
we, for the most part, don't understand brain function and therefore
have no measure of "efficiency". Finally, the evidence supporting them
does not fall into the realm of science.
Alan kali |
