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Chapter 6 — Further Reading
If you want the real biochemistry
Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry (Nelson and Cox; W. H. Freeman) or Berg, Tymoczko and Stryer, Biochemistry.
These are the standards, they are excellent, and they are genuinely hard. If you're doing a course that requires biochemistry, you'll be issued one of them. If you're a general reader who found this chapter interesting, do not start here — you'll be reading enzyme kinetics within twenty pages. For: students on a biochemistry course.
OpenStax Biology and Anatomy and Physiology — openstax.org. Free, peer-reviewed,
properly illustrated. The cellular respiration chapters cover §6.3–§6.5 with the diagrams I could only
describe, at a level pitched for people meeting it for the first time.
For: everyone. Start here instead of Lehninger.
Marks' Basic Medical Biochemistry: A Clinical Approach (Wolters Kluwer).
The version written for medical students, organized around clinical cases rather than around molecules. If you want biochemistry that connects to patients — why refeeding syndrome happens, why ketoacidosis differs from ketosis — this is the one that does it. For: clinicians-in-training. The most useful biochemistry text for this book's purposes.
On substrate use and the "fat-burning zone"
The crossover concept — search for the work of George Brooks and Jacques Mercier on the crossover point, and for the literature on Fatmax. This is the real physiology behind the treadmill chart, stated properly. Reading the primary description is instructive precisely because the researchers are careful about what it does and doesn't imply for body composition. For: coaches, trainers, and anyone who has trusted a zone chart.
George Brooks on lactate. Brooks has spent a career on lactate shuttling and the reframing of lactate from waste product to fuel. Search for his reviews on the lactate shuttle. The story of how long the corrected understanding took to reach gyms is itself a lesson in scientific communication. For: everyone who was taught that lactic acid causes soreness — which is everyone.
On delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS): search for reviews on its mechanisms. The consistent finding — mechanical damage and the inflammatory repair response, not lactate — has been established for decades and is still not what most people believe.
On ketosis and ketogenic diets
The published work of Kevin Hall's group at NIDDK, particularly the controlled feeding studies comparing ketogenic and higher-carbohydrate diets with calories and protein matched. These are the studies that directly test the "metabolic advantage" claim, and they are the reason §6.8's verdict is 🟠 rather than 🟡. For: anyone evaluating keto. Read the primary studies, not the summaries.
Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek's research on ketoadaptation in endurance athletes. This is the serious scientific case for ketogenic approaches in sport, made by researchers who have done the work — and it should be read alongside the critical literature, because the performance findings are genuinely contested. Note that both authors have commercial interests in this space, which is a reason to read carefully rather than a reason to dismiss (Chapter 1 §1.5). For: athletes and coaches considering low-carbohydrate approaches.
On DKA and euglycemic DKA: the American Diabetes Association Standards of Care
(diabetes.org) and its guidance on SGLT2 inhibitors. The euglycemic DKA risk — ketoacidosis with
normal blood glucose — is a genuine safety issue that almost no nutrition content mentions and that
anyone advising on carbohydrate restriction needs to know about.
For: clinicians, and anyone taking or advising someone on an SGLT2 inhibitor. Not optional.
On mTOR, AMPK, and autophagy
The Nobel Prize website (nobelprize.org) has an accessible summary of the 2016 Physiology or
Medicine prize awarded for the discovery of autophagy mechanisms. Free, authoritative, and a good
antidote to both the hype and the dismissal — it shows what was actually established, which is
important cell biology and not a fasting protocol.
For: everyone who has heard autophagy invoked in a fasting video.
Reviews on mTOR signalling in muscle protein synthesis. Search "leucine mTOR muscle protein synthesis review." This is the mechanistic basis for Chapter 8's protein recommendations, and understanding it makes the dose and distribution advice there make sense rather than seem arbitrary. For: anyone interested in training nutrition.
On the translation problem: search for critical reviews of caloric restriction and lifespan across species. The pattern — striking effects in short-lived organisms, much weaker and more equivocal effects as you move to longer-lived mammals — is the single most important context for every longevity claim you will encounter, and it is almost never mentioned in the content that makes those claims. For: anyone tempted by longevity protocols.
On energy availability and RED-S
The International Olympic Committee consensus statements on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S), and the earlier female athlete triad literature. Freely available and written for practitioners. This is Devi's case study, formalized — including the energy availability calculation, the thresholds, and the clinical consequences. For: coaches, athletes, parents of athletes, and anyone in sports medicine. If you work with athletes, this is required reading and Case Study 1 is why.
A note on what to be careful with
The metabolic-pathway corner of the internet has an unusual property: the underlying science is genuinely fascinating, which makes the distortions unusually persuasive. Content that opens with accurate mitochondrial biology has already earned your trust by the time it starts selling you a ketone meter.
The tell is the one from Case Study 2: watch for a dial being described as a switch. Mode, switch, flip, stuck, forgets, shuts down, activated, unlocked, reset. Count them. Any piece that depends on binary language about a continuous variable is describing a machine you don't have — and the count takes thirty seconds and works regardless of how much biochemistry you know.