How might
microbial free fatty acids affect the endocrine system which regulates blood sugar? Do they run the show?
If you eat salt,
aldosterone is inhibited which raises
cortisol.
Anti-inflammatory cortisol stimulates the liver to make glucose using free fatty acids in
gluconeogenesis, the byproduct of which is
ketones.
Who's making your free fatty acids? Not just you. Microbial production of free fatty acids is underappreciated. They drive ketone production. In the case of microbial overgrowth, this may lead to diabetic ketoacidosis. There are ways to dampen free fatty acid production so that sugar is not turned to fat . . . as well as for the avoidance of hypoglycemic seizure.
So, does consuming salt actually raise blood sugar? How ironic!
Aldosterone is associated with salt. This study found "epilepsy cases with positive treatment effects, deviations from normal were seen only for aldosterone." Once when my dog was in the middle of a seizure cluster, I gave her a small amount of broth with a lot of sea salt. She all of a sudden became completely normal and played ball like a puppy in the backyard. It was absolutely like night and day. The effect was temporary, but from then on I began salting her food.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11055-013-9750-z
The question becomes, what regulates aldosterone? There are several scientific papers about free fatty acids (FFAs) regulating aldosterone. What's not generally recognized is that FFAs are products of microbes.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/095232789390008K
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4757-2582-7_6
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0952327895900136
So, is this how salt raises blood sugar, by raising cortisol via lowering aldosterone? Maybe salt before bed would be a good idea to avoid late night/early morning seizure due to hypoglycemia. This is just a patch in light of microbial free fatty acids (FFAs) regulating both aldosterone and cortisol.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3020116
These metabolic issues are serious business, matters of life and death.
1972,
Serum Cortisol, Plasma Free Fatty Acids, and Urinary Catecholamines as Indicators of Complications in Acute Myocardial Infarction
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/45/4/736.full.pdf
"The results of the present study suggest that the generalized metabolic stress of acute myocardial infarction results in elevations of cortisol, FFA (free fatty acid)"
Heart problems long known associated with epilepsy, but the gut-heart connection is only beginning to be discovered:
http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=773900