Mar 5, 2024

Train your Muscles with Sugar: Galactose’s Metabolic Capabilities

Imagine eating a chocolate bar to help train your muscles to burn energy more efficiently.

A recent study proves galactose’s ability to make our muscles more efficient. Researchers investigated how changing the type of sugar (from glucose to galactose) drastically affects the energy metabolism of our muscle cells.

Galactose is derived from milk sugar (lactose). It is naturally found in fermented dairy products such as yoghurt and kefir and in very small quantities in artichokes, mushrooms, papayas, and tomatoes.  It tastes sweet, but it doesn’t spike your blood sugar levels. It is metabolised by the body very differently compared to classic sugar.

How does galactose compare to classic sugar (sucrose)?

Even though galactose has the same number of calories, 4kcal, as classic sugar (sucrose), it effects our body differently. Our classic method of ‘calorie counting’ doesn’t showcase galactose’s advantages.

Our body extracts energy from food using two different pathways:

  1. Oxidising (using oxygen to release energy to burn off)
  2. Fermenting (using fermentation to release energy to build new cells)

Counting Calories

Classic CaloriesFermenting CaloriesOxidising Calories
Galactose4 kcal/ g0 kcal/ g4 kcal/ g
Sucrose4 kcal/ g4 kcal/ g4 kcal/ g

Usually, when we count calories, we don’t take into consideration which method the body uses to metabolise the food we eat.

The body can easily process sucrose:

  • It uses the oxidising pathway to burn it into a quick release of energy.
  • It uses the fermenting pathway to build new cells, such as fat cells.

Whereas with galactose, the body requires more energy to process it:

  • It uses the oxidising pathway to burn fat into a slow release of energy.
  • It cannot use the fermenting pathway.

 Galactose forces the cell powerhouses (mitochondria) to use fat and oxygen to make fuel. This is known as oxidative metabolism, which is the optimal metabolic pathway for our body. Galactose forces your cells to follow this pathway and energy is released slowly and steadily.

Researchers wanted to understand how galactose could influence the cells’ ability to utilize different energy sources and potentially enhance their overall metabolism.

They used biopsies of muscle cells (myotubes) from healthy adults with normal blood pressure and no family history of diabetes.

The first group of cells was only given glucose. The second group of cells was given galactose, then glucose. By pre-treating, or ‘training’ the cells with galactose, researchers realized that the cells became much more efficient when burning energy.

For example: running is able to train your lungs and stamina levels, it improves your breathing and your body’s use of oxygen. Similarly, galactose is able to train your muscle’s use of oxygen.

The results clearly show that the cells exposed to galactose released much higher amounts of CO2 compared to the cells exposed to glucose.

This confirms that the galactose-exposed cells were running on oxygen, following the oxidative metabolism pathway. Galactose helps trains the muscle cells to create more mitochondria, the ‘engines’ inside our cells. The more engines we have inside our muscle cells, the more energy and ATP production (an essential building block to fuel our cells) we can create.

When we consume glucose again, after the muscle cells have been exposed to galactose, our muscles uptake more of the glucose and burn it more efficiently.

Researchers said:

“The present study confirmed that galactose induced an increase in oxidative metabolism in the myotubes.”

By using galactose to remodel the energy metabolism in our muscle cells, it’s possible to benefit from increased ATP production, larger energy stores, and higher glucose uptake. If your muscle cells are up taking more glucose from the blood, this will help stabilise your blood sugar levels.

Galactose offers a wide range of benefits and uniquely impacts our metabolism. To learn more about galactose, explore our website.

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Resources:

Kase ET, Nikolić N, Bakke SS, Bogen KK, Aas V, Thoresen GH, Rustan AC. Remodeling of oxidative energy metabolism by galactose improves glucose handling and metabolic switching in human skeletal muscle cells. PLoS One. 2013;8(4):e59972. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059972. Epub 2013 Apr 1.