Sunday, March 31, 2013

TCA rap

From Bert. Not advocating carb consumption but I can see that electron transferring flavoprotein dehydrogenase would need some serious effort to rap... So enjoy glycolysis and the TCA:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMBIs_Iw0kE&feature=player_embedded

Click-able, sorted!

Ta Bert. I enjoyed.

Peter

Now if I can get Ryan started on beta oxidation. Hmmmm....

12 comments:

bert hubert said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMBIs_Iw0kE&feature=player_embedded might actually be clickable!

Scott Russell said...

All I can say is, this is freaking awesome!

Kevin FST said...

Wonderful! I then clicked (serendipitously) on the Krebs Cycle song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-k0biO1DT8
which I enjoyed almost as much.

Peter said...

But I want beta oxidation! Want want want. But the TCA does seem popular for very amusing ditties!

Peter

js290 said...

Sexy beta-oxidation: http://youtu.be/pmfeF1DUTOM

ECT illustrated: http://youtu.be/jU2lnPwTXP0

Anonymous said...

I appear to have stolen your Youtube vid Peter! When someone sent me the link that they'd found on your blog, I assumed it was in the depths of your archive, not freshly blogged!

Carole AKA CarbSaneR

karl said...

OT:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v472/n7341/full/nature09922.html

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3145.html

Mainstream hype:
http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-205957/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/health/study-points-to-new-culprit-in-heart-disease.html?pagewanted=2&hp&pagewanted=all

Way to soon to think this is all true - sort of funny that people take Carnitine to prevent CAD.

Interesting if this plays out - IF it isn't the fat or iron in beef - but Carnitine - and then only if there is a particular flora in the intestines - I would suggest that there is likely other reasons for the change in flora - and probable interventions.

But that is a long IF -- and mice are not humans - ( yes I know about the human part of the studies ) - there are several other studies that need to be done to confirm this and see the whole picture.

BUT - I think this is a good example of what can possibly happen using interventions that are not well studied - and why we should be conservative in taking supplements that are poorly studied.

Jane said...

@Karl
It's interesting, isn't it. It could be that people who take carnitine do so because they have copper deficiency. Carnitine synthesis requires methylation, which is dependent on copper as well as on B vitamins. Of course copper deficiency also causes heart disease, so people who take carnitine to prevent CAD are barking up 2 wrong trees. Well actually, 3.

karl said...

@ Jane
I think it is way to early to think that this is conclusive. At best, it is a good reminder that some of the supplements might do harm -

Actually I would bet that many supplements do both good and harm at the same time. I've seen both pro and con papers about copper.. http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Interventions_for_Preventative_Heart_Health#Copper

Almost all systems that need to maintain homeostasis have multiple overlapping control loops - taking something that pushes the set-point of one loop may help one person and hurt the next - or help that loop at the cost of another loop.

Take blood sugar and weight - both need to be regulated - there isn't a single loop - we have insulin, insulin sensitivity, leptin, autonomic nerves all effecting homeostasis at the same time.

Or you can look at thyroid control - http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/File:Thyroid_schematic.svg and this is not a complete picture - what regulates the amount of binding globulins? etc etc. But most MDs rarely venture further than TSH in their testing and treatment.

There are way too many ''simplified' models in medicine - and the picture is even worse in the medical supplement papers.

Back to the gut flora papers - do our intestinal bacteria exist to digest our food and thus feed us - or do we exist to feed our bacteria?

karl said...

I would love to see the above papers - ( I want to see what was in the mouse diets! )but from reading the following I'm less convinced that they are on to something:


http://www.westonaprice.org/blogs/cmasterjohn/2013/04/10/does-carnitine-from-red-meat-contribute-to-heart-disease-through-intestinal-bacterial-metabolism-to-tmao/

The problem is each time a bit of correlative evidence used to build grand theories it becomes more prone to collapse as about half of the correlative bits end up being proved non causative in the end. Here they used ApoE knock-out mice and apparently fed them "a thousand steaks a day worth of carnitine".

But it did fit the anti-red-meat narrative that helps insure the next research grant.

Jane said...

I read what Chris Masterjohn said about it too. Very interesting that the biggest source of TMAO is not red meat but seafood! OMG not just mercury but TMAO as well. Soon there will be nothing left to eat except bread. I will snigger, of course.

Have you seen what Ron Krauss says about red meat? He has found that lots of red meat is OK and lots of saturated fat is OK but the two together are very much not OK. He thinks the problem is that saturated fat promotes iron absorption.
http://www.meandmydiabetes.com/2012/04/17/ron-krauss-saturated-fat-red-meat-it-depends

You wanted to know what was in the mouse diets. The first paper says this:

'Some studies with mice were performed using a custom diet with low but sufficient choline content (0.07% total; Teklad TD.09040) versus high-choline diet (1.0% total; Teklad TD.09041) in the presence or absence of antibiotics.'

The second paper says this:
'Apolipoprotein E–knockout mice on a C57BL/6J background (Apoe−/−) were weaned at 28 d of age and placed on a standard chow control diet (Teklad 2018).'

karl said...

Taubes has a new bit out:

http://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f1050

Nothing new here - I've never heard him mention leptin or PUFA's effect on insulin sensitivity.