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Cheney: "There’s a reason to be methylation blocked..."

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Not sure if I agree with this at all -- but still found it pretty suprising...

"“The problem we observed was that a lot of people with that SNP who we gave folapro to, which should help them, looked worse in the end. And the idea there is that there’s a reason to be methylation blocked. And so if you successfully unblock the methylation cycle, which you can do easier with folapro, if you have that SNP, is force you to make less glutathione, ergo the mindless attempt to unblock the methylation cycle, without realizing that the methylation block is essential to make glutathione is a mistake, and all that the SNP did was magnify your mistake."

http://nopostergirl.com/2013/06/16/the-post-appointment-post-part-ii/

???
 

Dreambirdie

work in progress
Messages
5,569
Location
N. California
And why dannybex did you not include this conclusion of Cheney's in the aforementioned posted paragraph:

"Now if we were dealing with some other diseases, other than chronic fatigue syndrome, I would say absolutely, knowledge of the SNP might inform one’s approach to methylation, but not in the special case of CFIDS, where you actually want to block the methylation cycle.”

So there's the actual point he was making, which IMHO, is insane. And par for the course.
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
I couldn't really make sense of the account of Cheney's response. It could be debatable whether methylation is helpful to pursue or not, but surely it is not debatable about what happens to glutathione (ie increased or decreased) if methylation is enhanced. He seemed to be saying the opposite of what we've heard
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
And why dannybex did you not include this conclusion of Cheney's in the aforementioned posted paragraph:

"Now if we were dealing with some other diseases, other than chronic fatigue syndrome, I would say absolutely, knowledge of the SNP might inform one’s approach to methylation, but not in the special case of CFIDS, where you actually want to block the methylation cycle.”

So there's the actual point he was making, which IMHO, is insane. And par for the course.

:)

I actually meant to include that quote...but I'm blaming it for now on the methylfolate I took 2 hours ago. I don't get it either, like most of Cheney's comments.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Up until this, I thought Cheney was a respected CFS/ME doctor. Am I missing something? The information from him about a shift to Th2 dominance seemed accurate for example...
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Up until this, I thought Cheney was a respected CFS/ME doctor. Am I missing something? The information from him about a shift to Th2 dominance seemed accurate for example...

He's respected in some circles, and overrated in others. I know a couple of people who have found him helpful, at least somewhat, but have never heard of anyone improving substantially under his care. Maybe someone will step forward?
 

Jarod

Senior Member
Messages
784
Location
planet earth
Regarding the quote. Maybe he is thinking about infections or something else?

Probably getting only part of the picture or something. It's complicated. :confused:
 

Patrick*

Formerly PWCalvin
Messages
245
Location
California
I couldn't really make sense of the account of Cheney's response. It could be debatable whether methylation is helpful to pursue or not, but surely it is not debatable about what happens to glutathione (ie increased or decreased) if methylation is enhanced. He seemed to be saying the opposite of what we've heard


I agree. What he's saying here doesn't make sense under any understanding of how the methylation cycle works...unless I'm misinterpreting his remarks somehow.

It is interesting to note this Cheney quote from later in NoPosterGirl's post:

My urinary sulfite tested very high last fall (5.70 on a 0.15-1.50 scale). I asked Dr. Cheney what that indicated, and whether we needed to do something about it. He explained that the high sulfite indicated glutathione depletion, low reduced glutathione.“And that’s high, I think that’s one of the highest in the practice. 5.7, I don’t remember anyone higher than that. So you get the gold star for having the highest sulfite, which means you have the lowest reduced glutathione. Which, by the way, in my view, is at the core of this illness, I just don’t know what causes it.”

So Cheney seems to recognize the significance of Glutathione depletion, he just, for some unexplained reason, believes that removing the block decreases glutathione. I've never heard of anyone reporting that result. I wonder if something got lost in transcription here?
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
It's not new news that Cheney recognises Glutathione depletion. My CFS was working with him in 1999 and they spoke about it then. Cheney was the first doctor that I knew in CFS circles who spoke about Glutathione.

He was also the only doctor way back then who spoke about the MTHFR mutation.

He had had a lot of time to consider the "mythelisation block theory" and to work with his own patients to try and increase Glutathione.

It was well know that he didn't agree with Rich VKB and some of their correspondence was in the public domain.

So Cheney has had years to consider this, work on this, see how treatments work with his patients and doesn't agree with other doctors. That's not new.

How many other longstanding CFS doctors are using the Methylation program and claim it is curing their patients? How long have they been doing it and have any of them published a paper on it?

The point that I am trying to make is that CFS doctors don't agree with one another on all treatments.
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
You mean besides Dr. Neil Nathan?

That's exactly what I mean. When did Neil Nathan become an expert in CFS and ME? What has he published and why would he be considered an expert not only over Dr Cheney but all the other CFS doctors treating patients who are either not using the Methylation protocol or who have just started using it and not making claims that it is curative.

There is no intent here to belittle Dr Nathan or the program.
 

Sea

Senior Member
Messages
1,286
Location
NSW Australia
The point that I am trying to make is that CFS doctors don't agree with one another on all treatments.

While that is true and no one has the whole puzzle worked out, at the moment we're just trying to clarify what it is that Dr Cheney said and understand his view and reasoning on methylation and glutathione
 

ukxmrv

Senior Member
Messages
4,413
Location
London
While that is true and no one has the whole puzzle worked out, at the moment we're just trying to clarify what it is that Dr Cheney said and understand his view and reasoning on methylation and glutathione

That's my desire as well. Sea. I don't need to be told that.

Having been found with a mutation involved MTHFR and low glutathione I've been looking at this for 10 years now. Been a member of the first CFS yahoo group set up to explore Yasko. I have an interest here as well.

I don't think that a blog from one of his patients will tell us all his reasoning sadly. Slagging off Dr Cheney because he may have opposing views to some here is unfair I think. This isn't a quote from a talk he gave on the topic it's from a patient who reported her experience of seeing him. We weren't there.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
That's exactly what I mean. When did Neil Nathan become an expert in CFS and ME? What has he published and why would he be considered an expert not only over Dr Cheney but all the other CFS doctors treating patients who are either not using the Methylation protocol or who have just started using it and not making claims that it is curative.

There is no intent here to belittle Dr Nathan or the program.

I don't understand what you're saying. Do you mean that the study Dr. Neil Nathan and Rich wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal? I think the results are pretty remarkable considering everyone was on a fixed dose (whereas some people need much higher doses than what was used in the study). They also were weren't on many other supplements besides B12 and folate. One treatment doesn't work for everyone. No one's denying that, but this is one of the more effective treatments out there. Aside from the study which posted in post #3 of this thread, Dr. Nathan did write an article on prohealth.com and people can read it and decide for themselves:
http://www.prohealth.com/fibromyalgia/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=16138
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
We are missing something from the Cheney discussion, too much information was not reported. Reading between the lines, and coming up with at best a speculative explanation, I think the problem he is refering to is NOT about how much glutathione we have, but how much of it is reduced or oxidized. If you have more glutathione, then the reduced GSH to oxidized GSH ratio will get worse. Personally I don't think that matters, but, again speculatively, I think Cheney does think it matters. Now in terms of biological processes there could be issues if oxidized glutathione is at too high a level.

Now to me this shouldn't be an argument against methylation protocols even if you believe it. it should instead be an argument for combining an antioxidant support protocol with a methylation protocol. For a start this would include lipoic, C, E and CoQ10, plus extra NAC to make sure glutathione levels stay high. It would also probably emphasize a wide range of food sourced organic antioxidants (organic as in chemistry, not growing practices).

The only way to get to the bottom of this is not to rely on an imcomplete reporting source, but to go get some information proactively. I do not have contact with Cheney, but some do.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
So Cheney seems to recognize the significance of Glutathione depletion, he just, for some unexplained reason, believes that removing the block decreases glutathione. I've never heard of anyone reporting that result. I wonder if something got lost in transcription here?

It's my recollection that RIch said on several occasions that glutathione may (or will?) drop temporarily when the methylation block is removed, but I can't remember the reason why.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
I agree Alex, what you say makes a lot of sense.

Although when it comes to antioxidants, from what I understand from the Cutler protocol I would caution against ALA (and possibly NAC) if one has amalgam fillings. Sometimes cysteine is actually high, and glycine or even glutamine are the missing aminos.