Does anyone have any articles about glucose synthesis by humans?

[kurite]

Hi
Im currently in an argument with a vegan friend of mine. He is convinced that your body could not survive without 45g of sugar a day. Does anyone know of some articles that explains that your body converts protein and fat into glucose?

[KD]

I don't, but if this is coming from a hygienist/fruitarian, this makes little sense as some of these people recommend water fasting up to 30 days or more. so its clear there is some way (whether its the healthiest or not) to synthesize the little your brain and so forth needs without carbs/sugar. Paleo Donk seems to reference this in some of his recent posts, esp in regards to starvation studies and glucose requirement/converting proteins to glucose etc...

[cliff]

Carbohydrates are not essential nutrients in humans: the body can obtain all its energy from protein and fats[10][11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate#Nutrition

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46187

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/75/5/951-a

[NEUROSPORT]

the brain uses 25% of the total energy used by your body.  if the body couldn't produce its own glucose it would certainly be storing it.  instead your body is almost entirely protein and fat, with carb stores sufficient only for a few hours.  Certainly people don't go into coma after not eating for a single day therefore the body has means of producing the carbs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

my father also keeps telling me how my brain needs sugar.  in reality he simply has a sweet tooth and eats candy, cakes, chocolate and ice cream 24/7.  that's how most people reason though - they reverse engineer the logic from the conclusions which they pick purely on personal preference.