Amino Z Dextrose Monohydrate

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AMINO Z DEXTROSE MONOHYDRATE

Dextrose is just one of those things that is so simple that it is severely underrated and overlooked, even though its utility in your life cannot be emphasised enough.

Dextrose, fancy name aside, is simply glucose that is of the D enantiomer, which is the primary natural orientation of glucose. This means that this is technically glucose, the simple carbohydrate your body converts all other complex carbs into prior to absorption. You can say that dextrose differs from glucose based on the fact that dextrose is synthetically made from corn, while glucose is the form found in the body. Other than that, dextrose is chemically identical to glucose.

Being the prototypical monosaccharide, dextrose possesses unique properties that you can take advantage of to reach your fitness goals or support other objectives.

If you’ve never considered what dextrose can do for you, here are some noteworthy benefits.

May Enhance Energy Production

It may sound cliché when you hear that glucose can boost your energy levels, but a truer statement has never been said, at least where the body is concerned.

Adenosine triphosphate, the body’s “energy currency”, needs to be made from something- and that molecule is usually glucose[i].

Each molecule of glucose broken down theoretically yields 38 molecules of ATP, although some is lost in the process. This is why endurance athletes consume high glycaemic carbs during a marathon as a means to help replenish ATP stores and maintain performance.

Of course, this energy boost is useful to many other categories of people as well, including the frail, during convalescence, and during bouts of hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar).

May Assist With Nutrient Uptake

Dextrose, while a very useful tool in your nutritional and supplement arsenal, can still have adverse effects on the body if not used judiciously. Drinking a beverage loaded with dextrose several times daily is not the way to gain muscle, and will only lead to you getting fat, and possibly diabetic.

Much of its ability to support nutrient uptake is related to timing of administration. This is due to its ability to stimulate the hormone insulin, a storage oriented and muscle friendly peptide under the right circumstances.

After your workout (primarily) an insulin spike initiated by dextrose is useful for shuttling amino acids and glucose into muscle cells via GLUT4 transporters[ii] to support the process of recovery and repair. This is because at that time, insulin preferentially sends nutrients to the starving muscle cells.

At other times of the day, such as in the absence of muscle tissue damage, there is no onus on it to do so, and much of the glucose ends up being stored in adipose cells as a surplus source of energy (fat!).

May Help Support Muscle Accrual

There is a lot of confusion surrounding exactly how dextrose helps with gaining muscle mass, and it’s not exactly from stimulating an increase in protein synthesis (although insulin IS very anabolic). Rather, it’s based on the fact that it can decrease the rate of muscle protein breakdown[iii], which occurs at a higher rate after your workout.

Then, there’s the fact that dextrose can be an easy way to add more calories to your diet.

Each gram of dextrose consumed yields approximately 17kJ (or 4 calories), which means that consuming an average of 40-60g dextrose combined with your post-workout shake can help a bit. You can further increase this number by having some pre-workout, and immediately upon waking, but do not take too much at any one sitting because of the risk of experiencing adverse gastric effects.

In Summary

Dextrose is a simple sugar that can enhance the way many complicated body processes are handled. Much of its beauty lies in the speed of absorption it possesses, and we know that it can do your body justice by adding some at well-timed intervals.

[i] Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell. 4th edition. New York: Garland Science; 2002. How Cells Obtain Energy from Food. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26882/
[ii] Vargas E, Podder V, Carrillo Sepulveda MA. Physiology, Glucose Transporter Type 4 (GLUT4). In: StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing, Treasure Island (FL); 2019.
[iii] Glynn EL, Fry CS, Drummond MJ, et al. Muscle protein breakdown has a minor role in the protein anabolic response to essential amino acid and carbohydrate intake following resistance exercise. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2010;299(2):R533-R540. doi:10.1152/ajpregu.00077.2010