Your ability to focus and in fact , your ability of neurons to encode specific information in your environment . That is to represent what's out there in the world is actually related to your blood glucose level . Now , here , I'm setting aside the discussion of ketosis and and ketogenic diets for the moment .
So there are two ends of the spectrum . On one end of the spectrum , blood glucose is relatively low and you're fasted and you can think and behave in a very concentrated way and on the other end of the spectrum , you have a lot of blood glucose or I should say sufficient blood glucose , you never want your blood glucose to be too high . And that allows your neurons to encode and perceive and basically allow you to think really clearly .
But then if you ingest some food and your belly is full , your focus and concentration is reduced . But having enough blood glucose and maybe even elevated blood glucose will increase cognitive function . So there are two ends of the spectrum .
But there's a beautiful study that was published in neuron not long ago that showed that the tuning , that is the precision with which neurons in the brain will represent things in our environment is actually much greater when there is sufficient glucose in the brain translated into English . This means that when we are fasted or when our blood glucose is very low , we aren't able to perceive and think about things as clearly . Now , there's a twist to this .
They love glucose . And as I mentioned before , your ability to think and perceive things is actually enhanced by having sufficient glucose in your bloodstream . So why would it be that some people experience a heightened state of mental clarity when they are fasted ?
