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Interpreting NutrEval test?

jjxx

Senior Member
Messages
137
This is my 16 years old son's recent NutrEval test result, and the very first one of the family.
I have been suffering CFS since I was 12 years old, and naturally I am very concerned about my child. So far, he is a reasonably healthy and normal teenager except suffering persistent acne, and has a personality similar to me, which tends to be oversensitive and overreacting.
I can't rely on his ND after realized how she handled the results, especially presenting no plan for treating bacterial/yeast issue when obviously these dysbiosis markers are elevated.
I did some diggings on my own:
One of his amino acids, Serine is elevated, and his glumatic acid/gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) ratio is high, which may implicate his oversensitivity and overacting.If so, what causes the elevation and what can be done to lower it?
He also have a handful of food sensitivity based on IgG test by US BioTek.
I know many of you like @Learner1 have had tremendous experiences with the test, and would love to have your opinions.
 

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A lot of the b vitamins were borderline so need more of them. We make everything we need from the essential nutrients. Coq10 was low, and that is made from b5 but they cant measure b5 on the tests; they say because coezyme a (b5) is so ubiquitous in enzymes it is hard. B vitamin rich foods are bakers/brewers yeast, rice bran cereal, wheat germ,. wheat bran, whole cereal grains. For b12 organ tissue like liver, kidneys, heart, and also oysters.
 

jjxx

Senior Member
Messages
137
@robinhood12345 thanks for your input.
You are right that we make everything from the essential nutrients; and during the many processes, each individual demonstrates his own deficiency or insufficiency depending on genetics and epigenetics.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
It's good that you have the physicians copy, as there are additional interpretations and explanations in it.

Besides the gut dysbiosis, there is something funky going on in the citric acid cycle, where energy is made. Where the drop-offs are, you can use the citric acid cycle diagram to figure out why there are drop-offs. It is either due to the presence of inhibitors or lack of co-factors, or both (look at the red and green circles with the abbreviations).

If you look in my signature link, there is a document called The NutrEval Interpretation Guide, which contains additional interpretation and information and explains what I mean by drop-offs.

The gut can be worked on with the 4R Gut Rebuilding Program in my signature link.

The skewed GABA/glutamate ratio can cause anxiety. Supplementation with GABA and/or reduction of glutamate in the diet may be helpful. This basically amounts to avoiding all processed food, as 50% of it contains glutamate, hidden under dozens of different confusing names. Then also naturally occurring glutamate in tomatoes, mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, and one more I can never remember.

My ratio improved a lot after getting my last mercury filling removed, and I no longer needed GABA supplementation, although I still need to watch glutamates in food.

While his current environment looks clean, he has symptoms of exposure to mercury, such as the gut dysbiosis, and the citric acid cycle drop-offs. It could be he received exposures in utero from his mother's body burden. Vaccine preservatives are another common route of exposure. If he had mercury amalgam fillings, it should show a current exposure, which it doesn't.

Since he has symptoms of mercury exposure, I would suggest NOT supplementing with recommended alpha lipoic acid (ALA) at this time, until you know how to dose it properly. The reason is that ALA is a mercury chelator, and if it's not dosed on its half life, it can cause mercury redistribution, which can make the situation worse.

See my signature link for information on the Cutler chelation protocol for info on testing for mercury and how to get it out safely. Since you have ME/CFS, which has many symptoms in common with mercury toxicity, and he may have gotten the mercury from you, I suggest also testing yourself.
 

jjxx

Senior Member
Messages
137
@caledonia
First of all, my son and I really appreciate your taking time of writing us such an informative post.
I will certainly study your signature links.
He doesn't have any mercury fillings but I agree with you on many other potential exposures.
I have been templating on the root cause of my illness, therefore most likely his root cause too, in the last year and half vigorously through self-testing numerous supplement as well as studying various theories from other patients and a few pioneering doctors. No doubt about the merit of Cutler's Mercury theory; I wonder if his theory actually applies to many trace minerals that are critical to life? Is ALA specific to Mercury or affinity to other trace minerals too?
 

jjxx

Senior Member
Messages
137
@caledonia
Another question to ask is that is ALA deficiency an indicator of body's burden with metals? and in your case, were you ever shown deficient on your NutreVal test?
 
Messages
151
Cutlers theory has no basis in scientific literature. ALA is a non essential nutrient made in the body from octanoic acid so could include more foods with that in it in the diet. There is genetic defects in ALA metabolism http://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/s10545-014-9705-8 which would be best diagnosed with WGS/WES. Vitamin c plays a bigger role in chelation than ALA so looking at levels of that in blood would be better than looking at ALA. And things like succinic, fumaric, malic, citric acid all chelate heavy metals, and are safe.
 

jjxx

Senior Member
Messages
137
You added one more interesting paper for me to read, and a lot of thanks too.
If our body makes those compounds, they are all equally important. It's a matter of which is more important to each individual due to our varied genetics and epigenetics.
Keep in mind that, no theory is perfect at start and it evolves over the time. I won't discredit one theory completely only because of its limitation or even some fault. I have been able to learn from his way of thinking and add to my own theory of my own very complexed illness.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
@caledonia
First of all, my son and I really appreciate your taking time of writing us such an informative post.
I will certainly study your signature links.
He doesn't have any mercury fillings but I agree with you on many other potential exposures.
I have been templating on the root cause of my illness, therefore most likely his root cause too, in the last year and half vigorously through self-testing numerous supplement as well as studying various theories from other patients and a few pioneering doctors. No doubt about the merit of Cutler's Mercury theory; I wonder if his theory actually applies to many trace minerals that are critical to life? Is ALA specific to Mercury or affinity to other trace minerals too?

It's not supposed to deplete minerals, however, many minerals will be depleted due to the presence of mercury. Replacing them can help you feel better. Magnesium is a biggie.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
@caledonia
Another question to ask is that is ALA deficiency an indicator of body's burden with metals? and in your case, were you ever shown deficient on your NutreVal test?

I haven't heard that ALA deficiency indicates toxic metals are present, at least not directly.

I would guess that it's more about having issues with energy production as ALA is a co-factor in the citric acid energy cycle.

My NutrEval shows that I have a high need for ALA, and that there are drop-off issues in my energy cycle.
 

caledonia

Senior Member
Cutlers theory has no basis in scientific literature. ALA is a non essential nutrient made in the body from octanoic acid so could include more foods with that in it in the diet. There is genetic defects in ALA metabolism http://sci-hub.tw/10.1007/s10545-014-9705-8 which would be best diagnosed with WGS/WES. Vitamin c plays a bigger role in chelation than ALA so looking at levels of that in blood would be better than looking at ALA. And things like succinic, fumaric, malic, citric acid all chelate heavy metals, and are safe.

I disagree with just about everything you said. If you read Cutler's book, he gives citations from the scientific literature that helped him develop his protocol. The rest of it is based in pragmatic experience of helping himself and thousands of people chelate. Not to mention that he has education and work experience in chemical engineering.

ALA is an essential nutrient in the production of energy in the citric acid cycle and mitochondria. Without it, you would be dead.

The body produces ALA from food, but it's not enough to chelate out mercury, which is an unnatural toxin. Plus the presence of mercury itself can inhibit how well the body derives nutrients from food, so that can be a catch 22. You can't get enough ALA from food to chelate out mercury if you're mercury toxic.

I can't see the study you linked, and haven't done whole genome sequencing, so can't comment there, except to say that genetic mutations are potentials, and you also need the influence of epigenetics (like toxic metals) to make them express. I would agree (if you do) that a person who had SNPs which inhibited ALA metabolism would be more likely to get poisoned with metals quicker than someone without them, all other things being equal.

In my experience vitamin C doesn't chelate. It is an antioxidant though. I've taken huge amounts of vitamin C for years (without chelation) and never made the progress that I've made in a relatively short period of time with ALA. Vitamin C does help with MCS in that it helps recycle oxidized glutathione back to reduced glutathione and helps regulate both phase 1 and 2 detox which are screwed up with MCS.

The acids you mentioned are co-factors in the citric acid cycle and are not chelators. Supplementation with them may or may not be safe, depending on the individual. For example, I did ok with vitamin E succinate, but don't tolerate citric acid. Of course, the naturally produced acids your body makes would have to be safe or you would be dead.

In general, a substance needs to have one or more sulfhydryl groups to be a chelator.
 
Messages
151
In my experience vitamin C doesn't chelate.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3875841/

Through animal experiment, it was found out that administrating high dose of vitamin C accelerated the excretion of lead in body compared to low dose of vitamin C.

The acids you mentioned are co-factors in the citric acid cycle and are not chelators.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3385849

Treatment with DFOA, citric, malic or succinic acids significantly increased the fecal and urinary excretion of aluminum and reduced the concentration of aluminum found in various organs and tissues, with citric acid being the most effective. In sight of these results, citric, malic or succinic acids may be considered as alternatives to deferoxamine in aluminum toxicity.

Supplementation with them may or may not be safe, depending on the individual

We make hundreds of grams of each in krebs cycle every single day. They are present in food naturally.

Andy Cutlers theory was not based on scientific literature. I didn't say it is not true. Many things may be true but are not in the scientific literature. Good luck all.
 
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