ICU patients with depleted glycogen stores increase glutaminolysis, using glutamine as a mitochondrial fuel source.

“um um and this is a study that we published looking indirectly a methodology to look at glycogen and we did it with a with a it's it's a pilot study we did with the ICU patients they don't have glycogen and it makes all the sense in the world because if you enter ICU first of all normally sorry when you say they don't have glycogen you mean liver glycogen muscle glycogen are depleted by how much and and depleted to what level yeah so let's say that let's say that you have 500 grams you know of of of glycogen um if you have a full High carbohy diet so that might not be the case of someone entering the ICU first because they might not be elite athletes or they might have maybe 300 grams or they might not have that adaptation to home more glycogen so let's say they have 300 grams or so uh and then uh by the time they get into that condition the body uses about three times the glucose at rest now an athlete uh use that same glucose but a higher intensities but only for a reduced amount of time 2 hours 3 hours for hours whereas the ICU patient is 24/7 right So eventually the body is going to run out of glycogen in the muscle or it's going to be under huge stress so the body has evolutionary mechanisms this is a wonderful machine and it needs to continue so it increases um another route which is uh glutaminolysis so glutamine is an excellent source of fuel it enters directly the mitochondria”