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Activin B is a novel biomarker for chronic CFS/ME diagnosis

eljefe19

Senior Member
Messages
483
From a quick look around the internet, there doesn't seem to be many. Its something bodybuilders have been looking for because it inhibits Myostatin which caps muscle growth. That is mentioned in the study. The product linked first in the thread, Myo-X and Epicatechin look the most promising. Myo-X does have 2250 iu's of Vitamin A, though, so I don't know if that's a problem.
I found a Follistatin inducer and made a thread about it here
 

EtherSpin

Senior Member
Messages
257
Location
Melbourne , Australia
Has anyone tried Follistatin supplements?
I have been wondering and hoping about trialling Folistatin for *years* now and perplexed as to why it hadn't warranted threads here but I left it at curiosity (on the forums) because I lack cognition to understand much debate about it. I've thought that Folistatin and Thymosin Beta 4 would be very interesting to supplement with a protocol to maintain and restore as much muscle as possible for the general benefit of us folks.
here in Australia it seems doctors can prescribe but generally don't as it requires a special interest in the substances/topic e.g. a friend of mine busted both shoulders in gym accident and after a couple of surgeries his doctor prescribed folistatin through a special compounding chemist.

the friend is in education and has a relatively sedentary job but whilst on the peptide injections his shoulders became very defined and muscular (thicker as well as toned) and due to proximity his back muscles in general toned up dramatically with no overt exercise from him, just normal helping his kids get dressed,opening and closing the fridge etc!

If someone like Dr Lewis here in Melbourne (where the friend on the folistatin lives and got his) would trial me on peptides with a gentle exercise program (muscular) I would be so damn keen - who knows what this semi couch bound dad would be able to do with 3 young ones. it wouldnt just be LEGO !
 

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
I have been wondering and hoping about trialling Folistatin for *years* now and perplexed as to why it hadn't warranted threads here but I left it at curiosity (on the forums) because I lack cognition to understand much debate about it. I've thought that Folistatin and Thymosin Beta 4 would be very interesting to supplement with a protocol to maintain and restore as much muscle as possible for the general benefit of us folks.
here in Australia it seems doctors can prescribe but generally don't as it requires a special interest in the substances/topic e.g. a friend of mine busted both shoulders in gym accident and after a couple of surgeries his doctor prescribed folistatin through a special compounding chemist.

the friend is in education and has a relatively sedentary job but whilst on the peptide injections his shoulders became very defined and muscular (thicker as well as toned) and due to proximity his back muscles in general toned up dramatically with no overt exercise from him, just normal helping his kids get dressed,opening and closing the fridge etc!

If someone like Dr Lewis here in Melbourne (where the friend on the folistatin lives and got his) would trial me on peptides with a gentle exercise program (muscular) I would be so damn keen - who knows what this semi couch bound dad would be able to do with 3 young ones. it wouldnt just be LEGO !

Have you asked Lewis? (And is he an essendon bombers fan because that might be an impediment to the TB4!?)
 

EtherSpin

Senior Member
Messages
257
Location
Melbourne , Australia
Have you asked Lewis? (And is he an essendon bombers fan because that might be an impediment to the TB4!?)
I wish! I have been with Dr C since 2013 (when i started there) and saw Dr Lewis once in a medical emergency when Dr C was on holiday - I was blown away by how solemnly he treated my account of the issue and then very impressed that he gave me an A4 sheet with nice clearly written explanation for the prescription he was putting me on and how it would assist - great considering he is not someone with cognitive fog himself and other doctors rattle off lists of things I should try with no written recommendations.

just my luck that Dr C's departure has slotted me in with the newbie doc (who I heard is a nice guy)

and yeah! bloody Essendon, that stuff is meant for us, not footy! :)
if you are a Dr L patient tell him there are people at the clinic who would die to try peptide therapy :)
he seems like the type of guy to run a trial but the problem would be getting a chemist to do it at discount - the small vials are 150 to 300 dollars though they have quite a few doses in there.
 

Murph

:)
Messages
1,799
I've also been with Dr Cabena but saw Lewis when the new guy, Dr Mcdonald, wanted to ask a question of him and got him to wander into the consult room. (trying a tough question on McDonald might be a good way to get Lewis to poke his head in!)

Incidentally, the 2 minutes I spent with Lewis was when I got the recommendation for whey treatment, which I've been posting about all over this forum. It has done more for me than all the treatments RC suggested over the last 3 years!

I get the sense McDonald knows little and is far more just rolling out Lewis protocols, whereas RC had her own way of doing things (which, increasingly, I saw as unhelpful).
 
Messages
11
I'm confused why taking follistatin is recommended if it was deemed to be the same levels as in healthy controls. I know it acts to lower Activin B, so we need an abnormally high level of follistatin?
 

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,824
Activin B is part of the TGF beta superfamily, and in mold illness, as well as in ME/CFS, TGF beta-1 is elevated.

For treating mold illness, Dr Ritchie Shoemake uses low dose losartan and/or VIP (vasoactive intestinal peptide) nasal spray to lower TGF beta-1.
 

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,931
Thank you for all these interesting findings!

I don't understand why Research does not systematically separate Males and Females numbers...Wasn't it clear for long ago that metabolism differs between genders?!
Keeping them altogether may mask important pathogeny differencies...
 

FMMM1

Senior Member
Messages
513
Metabolism has its own regulating system, though it does interlock with immune, neurological and hormonal factors, and of course it all ties into both inherited and epigenetics. This could be very interesting in the short term rather than the long, as Ron Davis and colleagues might do some of their own testing and he is pushing to operate in time frames of days rather than years.

I don't really understand this but here are some thoughts ---

It shouldn't take that much to pull some samples and test both the method used in this paper (elisa/immune assay?) and the method proposed by Ron Davis and others i.e. Mass Spectrometry (sphingolipids etc). Do they give the same results/which is cheaper etc. Previous investigations have looked at ME/CFS and other diseases e.g. Lymes which have similar symptoms; however, until you understand these diseases then presumably they could turn out to be the same/related.

Potentially, i.e. if this test were validated, as well as a diagnostic test this could provide a means of assessing treatment options e.g. altering gut bugs (Ian Lipkin's recent publication).

Presumably the obvious candidates to fund such a study include NIH (Vicky Whittemore) and the European Union (Horizon 2020).

I think the fact that Jonathan Edwards has commented that "The paper is not that well written but the differences reported look substantial. I think I need to see it replicated by a lab with no commercial interest in the findings." suggests that this is worth further investigation.

Does anyone know it this possible test came up at the Invest in ME conference in London (June 2017)?

Anyone fancy raising it with European Union (Horizon 2020) - I've tried them before and didn't appear to do very well.

Anyone fancy raising it with NIH?