• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Bitter melon for fatique?

Messages
11
Hello.
I want to ask if someone is taking bitter melon in the moment and is it helping with your energy levels?

From what i understood bitter melon have a lot of mechanism that bring health benefits. It is most famous with his anti-diabetic properties.

I recently read that Bitter melon also upregulates the pentose pathway that produces DNA, RNA and ribose.
A lot of people who tried ribose here noticed that it made them tired but wired.It kind of makes sense if the pentose pathway is not active in the brain and muscles. I felt the same way. Felt very jittery but the muscle fatigue and brain fog were not improved. Maybe it is because this metabolic pathway is underactive and we do not produce ribose 5-pentose from the ribose we were taking.

" It has been shown that the hypoglycemic effect is mediated through (1) suppression of the key hepatic gluconeogenic enzymes glucose-6-phosphatase and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase, and (2) an accelerated rate of glucose metabolism through the pentose phosphate pathway"


https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/bitter-gourd

Also the majority of NADPH is produced from this pathway ( this topic is still very blurry to me but i will do some more reading because it looks important for the energy metabolism)

Here is an old thread about what i am talking about:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...fs-nadph-measurement-at-riordan-clinic.15641/

Somebody tried it? What are you thoughts about my logic?

I will get my bitter melon at the beggining of March and will update the thread.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
My observation is that logical hypotheses about what should work on ME/CFS aren't all that useful. I haven't tallied up treatments I've tried based on logical hypotheses, but it's not a great success rate. Working from observations of actual effects (ie. something in dinner reduced or increased my symptoms, so I'll try to figure out which component is responsible) has been much more successful. If you enjoy experimenting and have the resources for it, go for it.

Asking for other people's experimental results is a good idea; not everyone posts their results, especially if they're negative. Maybe we need a poll or updated list of 'what people have tried, and whether they had positive, negative, or no effects'.
 
Messages
11
I agree with you. I will get some bitter melon. It is like 5-10 buck so i can afford it and give it a shot
 
Messages
11
So i am taking bitter melon for 2 days and i am noticing better mental performance, slight boost in energy and reduced cravings for sweets.
 

pamojja

Senior Member
Messages
2,384
Location
Austria
Last edited: