New Stanford Study: Carbs Stimulate New Muscle Growth (Differentiation)

 

New Stanford Study: Does Glucose (Sugar) Build Muscle?

If you asked me 10 years ago how regular old sugar could build muscle I would have said, "Sure, sugar could help build muscle by stimulating insulin release. More insulin, more nutrients stored, more IGF-1 etc." But, this latest study on Glucose out of Stanford shows glucose itself causing differentiation, a key stage in myogenesis, the development of new muscle tissue.

When I stumbled across this article I about spit out my coffee. For the last year, behind the scenes, I've been telling guys who are experimenting with slow release oxytocin to up their carb intake while doing a growth blast. I didn't really understand why at the time, but the first big growth spurt I experienced on oxytocin was when I really went nuts with the junk carbs. A friend was giving it a go a short time later and mentioned they hadn't gained a pound yet. I advised them to go hard on the junk food- more than you'd expect. Over the next two weeks, they put on 10 good pounds. They kept 5 after losing the excess water weight after coming off. It was clear to me that something other than extra glycogen storage was going on.

As I dug a bit to prepare for this video, I came across many studies related to this same general phenomenon. Though most involve stem cells other than muscle. And there was one showing excess glucose levels inhibited proliferation in stem cells. But, there is a difference between having high blood glucose and taking in a lot of glucose. IF you have healthy insulin sensitivity in the muscle and normal pancreas function, then you will not have high blood sugar even taking in excess carbs as long as:

1) you are training hard enough and with "enough" volume to get the body to drive the glucose into the muscle. It stands to reason that this would be our goal- we want the glucose in the muscle stem cells to wake them up! That's a bit over simplified, but within the cell is where the "signalling" takes place- and this is the goal at hand- to use carbs/glucose to "signal" to grow- not to rely on the sugar as caloric building blocks, that's for protein/aminos.

2) You are keeping fat intake low while taking in excess carbs. You get primary energy from carbs and fats. When you eat very little carbs, the body switches into primarily using fat, ketosis. When you eat little fat, but more carbs, the body adapts to burn carbs for energy. This is exactly what we want in this case. Keep in enough fat to lubricate your tendons and to be healthy- say 15% of macros. But, keep carbs at 55%. This will "spare" protein, AND require the body to burn off excess carbs for energy. That way there's always "turnover" in the muscle- with new carbs coming in, there's more signalling for new growth.

Keto is a great way to lose fat imo. Even my extended "dirty" fasts are just an extreme keto. But, most of us know that keto is a terrible way to put on new muscle. It's not impossible, it's just difficult. For maintaining shape? Great. Contest diet? Again, for a lot of guys it's great. But, to gain real mass, new muscle? Hasn't been my experience.

Jay Cutler is a good example of a guy that grew/grows well off of lower fat, high high carb diet. And, most of the elite bodybuilding coaches have their guys grow on carbs. It stands to reason when you think about the whole carb/glucose journey in the body- Signalling in the muscle stem cells from the glucose itself, nutrient storage/anti-catabolism from increased insulin output, raised IGF-1 levels downstream from insulin output. All of that together adds up to a lot of anabolic factors.

So, as this vid goes live, I've started my Unnaturally Natural growth blast with the injectable ecdysterone, epicatechin, lemon myrtle etc. The basic diet theory outlined above will be my plan for this growth phase- very high carbs, low fat, moderate-high protein. To support the growth and training, I'll be taking in extra creatine, TMG and NAD+. But, the key here is high carb, low fat- calories can stay "reasonable" while getting the signalling from the glucose and the building blocks from the protein.

As usual, I hope this video made some sense and peaked your curiousity a bit. To see the actual making of my injectable ecdy hydrogel, head over to our free patreon, link in the description. If you have a friend that might be interested in this topic, please share this video with them.