Dear IslandGirl,

I appreciate the fact that you are the moderator for this forum. The only reason I have for answering anyone's posts here is to try to guard against misinformation and to try to give those who want it a better education on the food they are eating. The posts seemed to be very negative toward glycerin and I wanted to present information that might give a more balanced view.

But as a personal comment about what you said about the Atkins Corporation, I hardly think that Dr. Atkin's would sell a product that would sabotage his own diet. If people stopped losing weight due to eating his products with glycerin then they would also stop using his diet, buying his books, and buying his products.

The following is to help everyone get a clearer understanding of their digestive system and what happens with glycerin (glycerol) in the body.



I'm not trying to nitpick here but to explain the inaccuracy of this quote so that others may understand digestion better.

EXPLANATION OF DIGESTION (For those who don't want the explanation, skip to CONCLUSION)
The digestion of a normal carbohydrate:
1. Fiber, starch, monosaccharides and disaccharides enter the stomach and pass into the small intestine. Some of the starch is partially broken down by amylase, an enzyme, from the salivary glands before it reaches the small intestine.
2. An enzyme from the pancreas digests most of the starch to disaccharides.
3. Enzymes on the surface of intestinal wall cells split disaccharides to monosaccharides.
4. Monosaccharides enter capillary, then are delivered to liver via the portal vein.
5. Liver converts galactose and fructose to glucose.

In other words, carbohydrates do not pass from the small intestine into the bloodstream as glucose. They must pass through the liver first. However, the point is that carbohydrates all initially become glucose in the blood and the liver processes them quite quickly.

Now let's examine fat digestion, since glycerol is a component of fat.

In the stomach, the fat and watery digestive juices tend to separate. Enzymes are inthe water and can't get at the fat. When fat enters the small intestine, the gallbladder secretes bile. Bile has an affinity for both fat and water, so it can bring the fat into the water. After emulsification, the enzymes have easy access to the fat droplets.

The enzymes cleave triglycerides into free fatty acids, glycerol, and monoglycerides. The parts are absorbed by intestinal villi. Large lipid fragments, such as monoglycerides and long-chain fatty acids, are converted back into triglycerides and combined with protein, forming chylomicrons that travel in the lymph vessels. Small lipid particles such as glycerol and short-chain fatty acids are small enough to enter directly into the bloodstream without further processing. The blood carries glycerol and short-chain fatty acids to the cells which break them down further into small fragments. Finally, each fat fragment is comined with a gragment derived from glucose, and the energy-releasing reaction contiinues and feeds the cells of the body.

CONCLUSION
Glycerin (glycerol) doesn't become glucose as Island Girl has said here. It goes directly into the bloodstream in its natural form. That is why it doesn't raise blood sugar. It has to combine with glucose in order to feed the cells. In ketosis, there is no extra glucose in the blood so the body is highly unlikely to be able to use the glycerol in the blood until there is extra glucose floating around. (I say "extra" glucose because while in ketosis, your body still must maintain a minimum blood glucose level.) It is true that eventually the body will be able to utilize the 4.32 calories in the glycerol for fuel once it can get extra glucose to use it. This will be a slower process in ketosis than when eating carbohydrates.

It should be noted that not only carbohydrate but protein can also raise glucose levels if eaten in amounts over the amount needed to feed your lean body mass. Eating too much protein can take you out of ketosis because your body will turn the extra protein into actual glucose. However, most of even this extra glucose will probably be used to maintain your minimum glucose level. But if you are eating a very high protein diet and a very low percentage of fat (fat has no effect whatsoever on glucose), you could be eating over the amount needed to fuel your muscle and the excess will be turned into glucose thereby taking you out of ketosis. That is why Atkin's specifies getting the majority of calories from fat which can never take you out of ketosis.

Therefore, glycerin, although a carbohydrate, and although unlike fiber is digested, can be subtracted from the Atkin's net carb count because it doesn't take you out of ketosis.