Microbiome - Butyrate - Inflammation

[Rufous McKinney]

So I sort of forgot about aloe vera

I didn't actually, but my husband would buy a whole gallon of aloe vera juice at Trader Joes and I can't drink that kind of quantity so I'd not open the gallon. I just want a small bottle of juice.

 

[Garz]

BTW: my doctor made a comment about an inflammatory cycle. He said something to me about going to bed earlier to get in on an inflammatory repair thing, around 11 pm. I have not investigated that topic. But I am going to bed earlier.

probably a reference to the benefits associated with better alignment between our body's circadian rhythms and the light dark cycles of the world we live in. for example - night shift workers have much higher all cause mortality due to their bodies being at odds with this naturally adapted cycle.

this principle is often translated into a kind of shorthand that says - the best sleep is the sleep you get before 12midnight

 

[hapl808]

this principle is often translated into a kind of shorthand that says - the best sleep is the sleep you get before 12midnight

Which used to be true for me. Now I find my sleep quality is variable, at least according to Garmin. During crashes, sometimes my Battery won't increase all night long, but then will start climbing at 8am if I can remain relaxed in bed. Very weird.

 

[Garz]

i think sleep trackers typically use some kind of weighted algorithm to calculate sleep quality
typically REM sleep Hrs are given a high weighting - as are Deep sleep Hrs - whereas light sleep is given a v low weighting

unfortunately wrist based light sensor type devices like fitbit etc are not very good at differentiating between light sleep REM and awake by lying fairly still -
mine mixes these up all the time

i don't know how the Garmin works- but if similar it could be that it has interpreted relaxed but awake in the morning after waking as REM sleep and hence bumped up is rating for how well it thinks "your battery" has charged

 

[LINE]

I am posting an update on my experience with butyrate.

1. I have noticed some improvement, but I think may be too early to tell. For those new, the idea is that butyrate is important for a number of factors in the intestinal barrier.

2. I took regular butyrate some time ago and switched to the newer formulation and I chose ProButyrate from Tesseract. I am currently halfway through the bottle which is abt 60 caps. Important: I have read that butyrate supplementation may take some time for effect, so I will continue.

3. I use other barrier supports such as collagen peptides with rich polyphenol spices (turmeric, paprika etc.) and I use AvoVida from Swanson. This is a product that is used for arthritis and has worked well for that purpose and notice it helps with the GI tract. AvoVida (aka AvoSoy) has stood the test of time for myself and others.

4. I have used a wheatgrass combination from Amazing Grass that also contains spirulina, kale and moringa. Studies have shown that wheatgrass and spirulina can help support barrier function. I bought a small pack for less than $10 that should last for 30 days or more. Cheap enough for experimentation.

5. My diet has not been optimal, and I still see some improvement, so I think something is working.

I have recently ceased eating heavy foods 6 hours before bedtime and have practiced intermittent fasting for several years (not eating for abt 12 hours from going to bed.

6. I work on the liver/gallbladder stagnation which seems to help. This axis plays a key role in digestion.
The process could be a lengthy conversation, so I will answer any questions if anyone is interested. I have done this approach multiple times in the past and always reap great rewards with it.

 

[Garz]

I work on the liver/gallbladder stagnation which seems to help. This axis plays a key role in digestion.

my infection caused gall bladder disease and gall stones - due to all the junk my liver was having to deal with

i ended up in the ER with excruciating 10/10 nauseating pain - they thought initially it was a heart attack - but it was a gall bladder attack

the doctors wanted to operate and remove it - i tried to get a second opinion from a non surgical gastroenterologist - but these seems to be a very rare beast - so i just got another plumbing specialist who knew nothing about the cause and was just in his routine of whipping them out and on to the next one.
( when all you have is a hammer - everything looks like a nail!)

i was convinced nature didn't give us organs that didn't have a purpose - and sceptical about "that you can live normally without" and i wanted to hang on to mine and avoid surgery of possible

after a lot of reading - i did a series of liver flushes according to the olive oil, epsom salts and grapefruit juice approach - it sounded hokey -rooted in eastern European folk medicine apparently - and i was super sceptical - but also highly motivated - and to my surprise - after a few rounds i produced a hard whitish stone that fizzed in vinegar ( calcified ) and was 100% not anything i had eaten.
i did a few more to be sure - but my symptoms resolved and whereas before easting even a single egg would cause a gall bladder attach ( anything over 5-7g of fat causes the gall bladder to contract - if its blocked you know about it - its like someone has attached a foot pump to your internal organs and is pumping away mercilessly!! ) - i now eat a ketogenic diet - eggs every day and lots of fat in every meal

you may have come across it already - but in case not it -= its not pleasant - but its pain free and it absolutely works

in terms of the mechanism - one of the longest serving LLMD's did a study in partnership with a surgeon - a case report series of 10 or 20 case of people with chronic bacterial infections who all had gall bladder disease as a result - he believed the root cause is toxins and free radicals caused by the infection and it associated inflammation, overwhelm the liver and end up in the bile where they damage the gall bladder and cause gall stones.

 

[LINE]

n terms of the mechanism - one of the longest serving LLMD's did a study in partnership with a surgeon - a case report series of 10 or 20 case of people with chronic bacterial infections who all had gall bladder disease as a result - he believed the root cause is toxins and free radicals caused by the infection and it associated inflammation, overwhelm the liver and end up in the bile where they damage the gall bladder and cause gall stones.

I strongly believe in this and have seen it firsthand. Thanks for sharing that information, it is golden.

The Chinese believe that the liver is the "heart" of the body and stipulate that Western society suffers with Liver Stagnation (there are a number of other liver patterns (diagnoses) that the Chinese use, but stagnation is what hit the mark for me).

I think one of the primary considerations is glutathione (GSH). Gsh has dual purposes, the first being a key molecule in immune function and the second in liver support via serving as an intracellular antioxidant. As you suggest, infection is the primary driver of lots of issues including the consumption of glutathione. Nature has set it up that infection control is the primary action.

With infection control then glutathione reserves are used up which leaves low levels. The liver then becomes congested due to low glutathione levels. Of course, there are other pathways that the liver uses to detoxify including sulfation and methylation pathways.

I tried the method you described and for me, it was not optimal, but I know others who have benefited from it. I went another direction which included sulfur amino acids, milk thistle blends, choline and acupressure points using a red laser pen.

 

[Garz]

Lol - no i wouldn't call it optimal from the point of view of the experience - straining ones own excrement through a colander etc
but when the alternative was life altering surgery - i was over the moon!

however, even after the gall bladder issue was resolved i tried supplementing with MSM, NAC and Glycine - milk thistle etc - and did an OAT test that measures glutathione and other anti-oxidant markers ( quite useful) - all the anti-oxidant markers were still near undetectable levels - as was Vitamin C ( used to recycle glutathione ) - despite taking 2g a day!

chronic infections definitely severely deplete glutathione and all the other antioxidants in the antioxidant pyramid/cascade - they likely also cause damage to the mitochondria which in turn impairs their ability to run properly and causes them to "burn fuel inefficiently" creating more free radicals - which helps re-enforce the cycle of more oxidative stress, more damage, more glutathione deficit etc. -

its why chronic infections are fatiguing - energy production gets hammered.

 

[almost]

I've been investigating this pathway myself for a while, due to data from my NutrEval that I was low on just about everything, especially glutathione, suggesting malabsorption of some kind, especially fats, which is evident with steatorrhea. I even recently had a couple episodes of sharp, sudden biliary colic. Nothing really resolved the fat issue, despite trying many things.

I had all sorts of tests done; all that was discovered was a hyperkinetic gallbladder. This is an uncommon finding, such that medicine doesn't really know if it is problem.

In any case, I've been experimenting with high dose Vitamin C to treat some possible latent infections. I'm titrating up to my bowel tolerance dose. I hit 15g the day before yesterday, and the steatorrhea just disappeared. I had read tangentally that it can help with fat utilization, but wasn't looking for it or expecting that. Whether it was clearing something out of the small intestine (it does treat SIBO) or affecting something else, who knows, but something changed for the better.

I found last fall that larger does, 2g-3g a day, fixed my ferritin/iron issue. I'm going to recheck glutathione in a few months to see if that improves. Can't hurt I believe, as my doc at the time said my level was one of the lowest he'd ever seen.