Australian metabolomics study of young women

[Ben H]

Not at all, I'm afraid! The opposite actually. I gained weight and then lost most of it excruciatingly slowly because of course my activity is so limited. I know some people with ME/CFS do lose weight or can't keep it on, but I don't have any such problem .....

Thanks Mary. Interesting. It is assumed i believe in many cases of pwme that amino acids work due to potentially ofsetting the patient using their own muscles for fuel i.e catabolism. These patients are usually underweight, severely.

I have put on a ton of weight if it makes you feel any better, and look nothing like my profile picture now. In fact, I look like a blob. But hey ho.

The BCAA's only helped with PEM though, not baseline energy so to speak?


B

 

[Deltrus]

Spoiler: Relevant Energy Metabolism Diagram

According to this diagram, it would be possible that this is a issue with lack of TPP? TPP is made up of magnesium and thiamine. But then again I guess the branch chain amino acid pathway needs TPP too.

 

[Mary]

Thanks Mary. Interesting. It is assumed i believe in many cases of pwme that amino acids work due to potentially ofsetting the patient using their own muscles for fuel i.e catabolism. These patients are usually underweight, severely.

I have put on a ton of weight if it makes you feel any better, and look nothing like my profile picture now. In fact, I look like a blob. But hey ho.

The BCAA's only helped with PEM though, not baseline energy so to speak?


B

You're funny!

In my case, I don't think the BCAAs help with PEM due offsetting catabolism. I think it's a different mechanism altogether and the articles explain more.

The BCAAs do help me with PEM, which is great, but unfortunately do not increase my baseline energy.

A few things that have helped me with baseline energy are: B1, B6, folate, methylcobalamin (I recently switched to Blue Bonnet liquid 5000 mcg. and take it 3 x day, and that is helping my baseline energy to my surprise - I had thought I was up on my B12); also potassium, and phosphorus as needed. The phosphorus is a little tricky, I think it has to do with refeeding syndrome. - e.g., the B1 initially boosted my energy a lot, and then it dropped - boom! and somehow I discovered it was depleting phosphorus (was already up on potassium). The same thing happened when I increased the B12. I did another post on phosphorus. I know we have to be careful with it but I think hypophosphatemia is overlooked most of the time.

One more thing - speaking of phosphorus - I am going to retry arginine. Someone posted awhile ago about arginine helping a lot with energy and to prevent PEM and I tried it and it helped a little and then boom! I went down again. I did not think of hypophosphatemia at that time but am thinking of it now and am going to retry the arginine and add in phosphorus if needed (mainly in the form of kefir or yogurt and sunflower seeds, and maybe a little monosodium phosphate) and see what happens.

 

[Ben H]

You're funny!

In my case, I don't think the BCAAs help with PEM due offsetting catabolism. I think it's a different mechanism altogether and the articles explain more.

The BCAAs do help me with PEM, which is great, but unfortunately do not increase my baseline energy.

A few things that have helped me with baseline energy are: B1, B6, folate, methylcobalamin (I recently switched to Blue Bonnet liquid 5000 mcg. and take it 3 x day, and that is helping my baseline energy to my surprise - I had thought I was up on my B12); also potassium, and phosphorus as needed. The phosphorus is a little tricky, I think it has to do with refeeding syndrome. - e.g., the B1 initially boosted my energy a lot, and then it dropped - boom! and somehow I discovered it was depleting phosphorus (was already up on potassium). The same thing happened when I increased the B12. I did another post on phosphorus. I know we have to be careful with it but I think hypophosphatemia is overlooked most of the time.

One more thing - speaking of phosphorus - I am going to retry arginine. Someone posted awhile ago about arginine helping a lot with energy and to prevent PEM and I tried it and it helped a little and then boom! I went down again. I did not think of hypophosphatemia at that time but am thinking of it now and am going to retry the arginine and add in phosphorus if needed (mainly in the form of kefir or yogurt and sunflower seeds, and maybe a little monosodium phosphate) and see what happens.

Are you attributing it to decreased synthesis of 5-HT as per the article?

Agree on the phosphorus. Its an area Id like to experiment with. Im glad al the supps have helped, thats great!

B

 

[alex3619]

There is one thing puzzling to me about the study - it says that blood lactate was reduced. Isn't blood lactate what tends to be elevated in ME/CFS?

Yes, and no. Lactate spikes in us post-activity. Its thought that at rest it gets very low. This study may be referring to early morning lactate. This would not apply after any activity if this is so.

 

[Mary]

Are you attributing it to decreased synthesis of 5-HT as per the article?

Yes. What got me started on this track was Nutreval testing done in 2010 which showed low leucine (among other things). My doctor told me to take BCAAs but he didn't explain anything about it, he didn't say take them on an empty stomach or stress how important they were, I didn't even know what they were, so I tried them as he said, WITH MEALS - a big no-no - I now know differently of course. Anyways I stopped them after a bottle didn't do anything for me.

And some 5 years later I went over my 5-year-old Nutreval results with a fine-tooth comb, re-discovered the low leucine, started researching low leucine and CFS, and found those articles. And finally started taking BCAAs in the proper way and within a week had results.

 

[CFS_for_19_years]

Jaime wrote an excellent analysis in her blog of the Armstrong paper last year, including dumbing down the biochemistry a bit to make it more understandable:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...espiration-in-myalgic-encephalomyelitis.1781/

 

[Ben H]

Yes. What got me started on this track was Nutreval testing done in 2010 which showed low leucine (among other things). My doctor told me to take BCAAs but he didn't explain anything about it, he didn't say take them on an empty stomach or stress how important they were, I didn't even know what they were, so I tried them as he said, WITH MEALS - a big no-no - I now know differently of course. Anyways I stopped them after a bottle didn't do anything for me.

And some 5 years later I went over my 5-year-old Nutreval results with a fine-tooth comb, re-discovered the low leucine, started researching low leucine and CFS, and found those articles. And finally started taking BCAAs in the proper way and within a week had results.

Good work!


B

 

[Bob]

FYI, the research paper highlighted in this article is more than a year old...
There's a long thread about it here...
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...tabolism-and-oxidative-stress-pathways.37861/

Metabolic profiling reveals anomalous energy metabolism and oxidative stress pathways in chronic fatigue syndrome patients.
Armstrong CW, McGregor NR, Lewis DP, Butt HL, Gooley PR.
Metabolomics. 2015;11:1626-39.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11306-015-0816-5