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Phospholipids

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
How many of you are taking a purified phospholipid complex made up of things like phosphatidylcholine (PC)? I started taking one about a week ago and within a day I started to feel a bit better. It may be that the PC is energizing even without incorporating into cell membranes.

I have read that it is important to not take just a lecithin product that contains PC. You want a PC that has been stripped from its fatty acids, to allow it to incorporate more easily into your cell membranes:
 

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
Tried it, but gives me depression and muscle tension, with no real benefits. Also impairs sleep. Anything that increase acetylcholine seems to have these effects for me.

How about trying it first thing on waking, to put the stimulative effects into the right part of the day?

Regarding the depression, I would be surprised if you did not have a mineral imbalance. How do you balance out your mineral supplements given the complex interactions many of them have with each other? I like the BodyBio test kit for minerals, as it costs almost nothing and allows constant biofeedback on dosing:
http://www.bodybio.com/BodyBio/docs/BodyBioBulletin-LiquidMinerals.pdf
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
How about trying it first thing on waking, to put the stimulative effects into the right part of the day?
I figured that out for myself. It doesn't change the negative effects.

Regarding the depression, I would be surprised if you did not have a mineral imbalance.
Would you? Perhaps, but it is well known that choline causes depression.

Honestly I don't understand the fascination with phosphatidylcholine. I have never heard of a single person who got any serious improvement from it. And the science is extremely poor that it can help anything except perhaps liver disease.
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
Another negative I found about PC is that it is a precursor to platelet-activating factor:

Platelet-activating factor, also known as PAF, PAF-acether or AGEPC (acetyl-glyceryl-ether-phosphorylcholine), is a potent phospholipid activator and mediator of many leukocyte functions, including platelet aggregation and degranulation,inflammation, and anaphylaxis. It is also involved in changes to vascular permeability, the oxidative burst, chemotaxis of leukocytes, as well as augmentation of arachidonic acid metabolism in phagocytes.

The most common pathway taken to produce PAF is remodeling. The precursor to the remodeling pathway is a phospholipid, which is typically phosphatidylcholine (PC).


PAF can also lead to hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain):

Hyperalgesia is induced by platelet-activating factor (PAF) which comes about in an inflammatory or an allergic response. This seems to occur via immune cells interacting with the peripheral nervous system and releasing pain-producing chemicals (cytokines and chemokines).
 
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maryb

iherb code TAK122
Messages
3,602
Location
UK
How would I know which one would be the best for me to supplement. Would it depend on dopamine levels or am I up the wrong path as usual. It caught my eye as a well known Lyme clinic is doing PC IV.
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
@adreno hmmm that explains my increased need for vitamin E. I had the same happen from Pycnogenol. This leaves me with really limited choice :( At least PC helps with cognition :rolleyes:
 

Sherlock

Boswellia for lungs and MC stabllizing
Messages
1,287
Location
k8518704 USA
Some of the usual complexity:
"Common dietary fat [phosphatidyl choline] and intestinal microbes linked to heart disease"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406131814.htm

=============

http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2...oduct-predicts-heart-attack-and-stroke-video/
"New research shows that choline, a nutrient found in foods like egg yolks and fatty meats, produces the byproduct TMAO when digested. TMAO is known to promote plaque accumulation in the arteries causing heart disease."
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
Some of the usual complexity:
"Common dietary fat [phosphatidyl choline] and intestinal microbes linked to heart disease"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406131814.htm

=============

http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2...oduct-predicts-heart-attack-and-stroke-video/
"New research shows that choline, a nutrient found in foods like egg yolks and fatty meats, produces the byproduct TMAO when digested. TMAO is known to promote plaque accumulation in the arteries causing heart disease."
I thought eggs had been absolved from heart disease :confused:
 

jepps

Senior Member
Messages
519
Location
Austria
I hope that reading this won't ruin it for me :D
:lol::) I also hope so:
I and my children always had strong mineral deficiences in lab mineral testing. Taking PC changed this: the children only take PC, nothing else (I take minerals, PC and other supplements), and the lab mineral testing shows much fewer mineral deficiences.
PC opens the cell membrane, so maybe the minerals get better to the cells.
Adreno, maybe negative effects mean, that the opened cell membrane releases certain toxins?
 

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
I figured that out for myself. It doesn't change the negative effects.


Would you? Perhaps, but it is well known that choline causes depression.

Right, which is proof that you took the wrong form of phospholipid. Taking soy lecithin breaks down the phospholipid into component forms including choline. Taking a pure phospholipid with the fats removed does not raise choline at all. The phosphatidylcholine incorporates into cell membranes directly.

Had you taken the form I was asking about you would not have seen a choline effect.


Honestly I don't understand the fascination with phosphatidylcholine. I have never heard of a single person who got any serious improvement from it. And the science is extremely poor that it can help anything except perhaps liver disease.

I guess you are excluding richvank, whose protocol here was pretty well admired and who swore by phospholipids. Unfortunately, he took the wrong form of them as well.

The science just hasn't been studied. If you go to Pubmed and research the topic, the first thing that strikes you is no one has researched the topic of using phospholipids as a therapy. There are literally a handful of studies, but of note is that the ones that do use phospholipids tend to show success in treating disease:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24796768

That's quite different than saying it has been studied extensively and failed to meet end points.
 

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
Another negative I found about PC is that it is a precursor to platelet-activating factor:

The resource you quote says PAF initiates phospholipids, not vice versa. Then you attempt to reverse the causality on your own and make the claim that phospholipids increase PAF. That's completely circular.

In any case that isn't establishing any real cause and effect for a measurable negative outcome. You can spend your whole life looking at metabolic pathways and imagining ways that bad things can happen.
 
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pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
How would I know which one would be the best for me to supplement. Would it depend on dopamine levels or am I up the wrong path as usual. It caught my eye as a well known Lyme clinic is doing PC IV.

I would stay away from PC IV. It's expensive and given the lack of good clinical studies showing positive outcomes, I think it is reasonable to experiment just taking it orally. But don't make the mistake that 90% of the people taking it do and buy a supplement that CLAIMS to be phosphatidylcholine that is actually just soy lecithin. If the supplement documents that it contains fat, then it is the wrong form.

Listen to the video I posted in my first post to this thread. It explains that issue.
 

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
Some of the usual complexity:
"Common dietary fat [phosphatidyl choline] and intestinal microbes linked to heart disease"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406131814.htm

=============

http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2...oduct-predicts-heart-attack-and-stroke-video/
"New research shows that choline, a nutrient found in foods like egg yolks and fatty meats, produces the byproduct TMAO when digested. TMAO is known to promote plaque accumulation in the arteries causing heart disease."

No, this is research about choline, which you get in metabolic breakdown of soy lecithin.

I was talking about a specially prepared version of lecithin that contains *just* the phospholipids WITHOUT the fat. The claim that is made about this form is the body will absorb it WITHOUT BREAKING IT DOWN TO CHOLINE. Then it can be absorbed to cell membranes directly.
 

pemone

Senior Member
Messages
448
I switched to this BioPure PC after seeing this vid posted earlier by radio in his Mitochondria thread. My body loves it.

I'm using the SeekingHealth Optimal PC product, and like you I get an immediate general sense of well being that seems to grow over time.

Can you link us to the Mitochondria thread?
 

adreno

PR activist
Messages
4,841
Right, which is proof that you took the wrong form of phospholipid. Taking soy lecithin breaks down the phospholipid into component forms including choline. Taking a pure phospholipid with the fats removed does not raise choline at all. The phosphatidylcholine incorporates into cell membranes directly.
Or perhaps it is proof that you have no idea what you are talking about, but like to make assumptions about other persons based on your personal bias. FYI, I have used PPC, not lecithin. And your claim that PPC doesn't function as a source of choline is wrong.

The resource you quote says PAF initiates phospholipids, not vice versa. Then you attempt to reverse the causality on your own and make the claim that phospholipids increase PAF. That's completely circular.
I can see that you are not able to understand this, here is another source where the same is explained (perhaps more clearly for you):

Phosphatidylcholine is the biosynthetic precursor of sphingomyelin and as such must have some influence on the many metabolic pathways that constitute the sphingomyelin cycle. It is also a precursor for phosphatidic acid, lysophosphatidylcholine and platelet-activating factor, each with important signalling functions, and of phosphatidylserine.
http://lipidlibrary.aocs.org/Lipids/pc/index.htm

I guess you are excluding richvank, whose protocol here was pretty well admired and who swore by phospholipids. Unfortunately, he took the wrong form of them as well.
Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. Just because Rich Vank included some PC in his protocol (and actually he recommended phosphatidylserine) it means what exactly?

The science just hasn't been studied. If you go to Pubmed and research the topic, the first thing that strikes you is no one has researched the topic of using phospholipids as a therapy.
In that case I'll wait for the studies. In the meantime, I have tried it, and it didn't help. I'm sorry that is so hard for you to accept. But of course, with all the marketing that Bodybio is doing, that is understandable.