What Causes Low Energy and Fatigue?

Vitamins and minerals are important to humans because they play important roles across many basic metabolism that are needed for basic cellular functions. In particular, they are important for brain and muscle function because they are involved in energy-making metabolism, DNA synthesis, nutrient transport, and neuronal functions. These, in turn, have effects on cognitive and psychological processes, like making the mind and body tired. 

This article will give you a summary of signs of fatigue that can happen when intakes of vitamins and minerals are not enough, and the reason why taking your recommended vitamin supplementation is imperative in long term health after weight loss surgery.

Dietary Recommendations:

Dietary recommendations are meant to make sure that most people get enough food to meet their bodies' needs. Some vitamins and minerals have been shown to have a link between biochemical and physiological functions and clinical outcomes have also been shown. 

Inadequate intakes, which are sometimes called "insufficiencies," are common around the world, although they vary by age group and country. Vitamins and minerals can be gotten from a diet that is balanced and full of foods that are high in nutrients, like fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. There is, however, a lot of evidence that a diet like this is often not possible because of food choices or availability. In both developing and developed countries, this can make it hard for a lot of people to get the nutrition they need. For example, 68 percent of Mexican women don't get enough folate (vitamin B9), and 55 percent of both men and women in Turkey don't get enough thiamine (vitamin B1) from their diet. Even though most Americans get enough of most nutrients to avoid clinical symptoms, many people don't get enough to meet their adequate intake levels. In this case, taking vitamin and mineral supplements may be a way to get enough of them and especially a must after bariatric surgery. People often say that they take supplements to feel better about themselves, to feel less tired mentally and physically, and to improve their mental and cognitive functions.

Feelings of energy and tiredness are backed up by physiological facts

From a nutrition science point of view, food is the only source of energy that animals and people can use to keep their bodies' structure and chemistry in good shape. The average person thinks of energy as a feeling of well-being, stamina, and vitality that lets them do their daily physical or mental activities and interact with others. On the other hand, fatigue is usually thought of as a lack of energy or a feeling of low vitality.

Energy, vitality, and fatigue are all related and each of them are both mental and physical. An example is how well you feel emotionally and mentally, how tired you feel, how strong your mind is, and how long you can keep going. Sometimes you might feel "strong and fit" or "like you can't do anything." 

In the same way, describing fatigue often involves both mental and physical parts, with the mental parts involving both emotional and mental functions. In a study of 24 healthy men and women between the ages of 24 and 72 who felt tired, the most common cause was not getting enough or good quality sleep. Other common causes included family and work worries, stress, and noise, heat, and transportation. Two-thirds of the subjects said they didn't have enough energy, and half of the group said they didn't have enough strength or stamina.

Tiredness, lack of energy, and effects on low physical and mental performance

It is hard to describe and measure exactly how fatigue affects human performance. Still, many studies have shown that physical training makes people tired, which leads to worse performance in sports. For example, cross-country skiers did worse at double poling after a 25-minute sequence of trunk-fatiguing exercises than after a 25-minute break, and tired ballet dancers had trouble controlling their movements, which could make them more likely to get hurt. It was interesting to see that not only physical and muscular fatigue but also mental fatigue seemed to be linked to poor performance. For example, table tennis players hit the ball slower and less accurately after doing a 90-minute mental task.

In the same way, working conditions that are tiring (such as long hours, shift work, and a stressful work environment) lead to lower cognitive performance. Radiologists who worked overnight hospital shifts were less accurate at making diagnoses, and it took them 34 percent longer to figure out where a fracture was the first time. There is a clear link between being tired and the risk of getting into a car accident or a train accident. This is true for both car drivers and rail freight regulators.

What are the physical and mental causes of fatigue?

A "sense of energy depletion" is a common sign of fatigue, which can be objectively linked to not having enough energy (calories). Mental and physical fatigue happen when the brain and muscles don't get what they need to keep working. Under resting conditions, the heart and kidney use the most energy (about 440 kcal/kg), followed by the brain (about 240 kcal/kg) and the liver (about 200 kcal/kg). Skeletal muscle, on the other hand, uses the least energy (about 13 kcal/kg) at rest. But when the average weight of these organs in an adult is taken into account, the brain (1.33 kg) and muscle (26.3 kg) stand out as the most metabolically active structures, even when the body is at rest.

When you think about physical activity, the contribution of muscle mass to energy needs goes up as the intensity and length of the activity go up. Muscles can get used to these changes. Even though the amount of energy needed can change a lot, the amount of energy available in the muscle stays the same on a global scale. This shows that the rate of the processes that make energy adjusts very precisely to the amount of energy needed. One of the most common theories about why muscles get tired is that they can't get enough energy. It seems likely that limitations in the processes that make energy do limit the rates of energy use and, therefore, performance. Recent research suggests that muscle fatigue may be caused by a metabolic challenge to a small group of fast fatigue-sensitive muscle fibers, in which the levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) can drop to less than 30% of their resting levels.Since these muscle fibers contract so fast, they help a lot with burning energy, especially when the body is moving quickly. When there isn't enough energy, people can't do as well and their muscles get tired.

Only 2% of an adult's body weight is made up of the brain, but the brain uses about 20% of the energy that comes from glucose, which is the basis for neurotransmission. The process that lets neurons talk to each is called a neurotransmitter and it also uses a lot of energy. A lot of ATP, or energy,  is used to keep the energy while at rest to manage the processing of neurotransmitters. Unlike skeletal muscles, which store a lot of energy as glycogen, the brain doesn't have a lot of energy reserves. Because of this, the brain needs a steady supply of energy fuel from the flow of blood. Under normal health and eating habits, glucose is the brain's main source of energy. While in active weight loss and in a ketogenic stage, the brain will use ketones as the source of energy. 

In other words, when glucose isn't as easy to get as in a very low calorie diet, the brain can use lactate, medium-chain triglycerides, and ketone bodies for energy instead.

The brain is also important because, unlike muscle, it always has a high metabolic rate. Electrochemical activity is always going on, even when you're sleeping, and mental work only adds a small amount (less than 5 percent) to this basal neural activity. In other words, the brain always uses up a lot of energy, even when it's not doing anything in particular. Even though this is true for the whole brain, local neuronal activity can change a lot in response to sensory or motor stimulation, as well as during the time between sleeping and waking. Memory formation and synaptic plasticity are also accompanied by changes in the way neurons talk to each other and fire. 

Muscles and the brain may not be getting enough oxygen, which can also cause fatigue

Brain tissue and muscle tissue both need high amounts of oxygen on an ongoing basis. The brain uses about 3.5 mL of oxygen per minute and 100 g of tissue. This is about 20% of the oxygen that the whole body needs. If the brain doesn't get enough oxygen, it can cause medical issues. Long-term hypoxia, for example, can make it hard to think clearly.Muscles at rest only use 1ml O2/minute, however, it uses up to 50 times as much oxygen during activity.

When someone has anemia, which is when their levels of hemoglobin are low, (function of hemoglobin is to carry oxygen to all parts of the body), oxygen delivery is slowed down. This affects not only cognitive and physical performance, but also how tired you feel. It is interesting that sustained, intense mental processing causes glucose and oxygen levels to drop in the blood. No matter what is causing the low hemoglobin level, fatigue is one of the most common symptoms of anemia.