Research

Hormonal

The direct pathway (glucose -> UDP-glucose -> glycogen) accounts for 46-68% of hepatic glycogen synthesis postprandially, with the proportion increasing in the later stages (4-6 hours) after a meal.

After eating, your liver primarily makes glycogen directly from the glucose in your food (46-68% of the process), rather than from other precursors. This direct route becomes even more dominant in the hours following the meal.

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The calculated contribution of the direct pathway to overall glycogen synthesis was 46±5 and 68±8% for each time period, respectively.
Roy Taylor et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1996

Why this rating

Relies on acetaminophen as a noninvasive probe, which is a validated but indirect method compared to direct biopsy.

Source

Direct assessment of liver glycogen storage by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and regulation of glucose homeostasis after a mixed meal in normal subjects.

Roy Taylor et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1996

DOI 10.1172/jci118379

mechanism_only · n=21Cited 261×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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