Acetyl L- Glutathione, ATP, Baking Soda, Sam-e & Catalase = No PEM after exercise

[Hip]

Again, ionic potassium is alkalizing.

The potassium ion is not intrinsically alkaline (nor intrinsically acidic for that matter). The pH depends what potassium is attached to; it depends on the whole molecule. For example, potassium bitartrate in a saturated solution has an acidic pH of around 3.5 (see here).

 

[pemone]

The potassium ion is not intrinsically alkaline (nor intrinsically acidic for that matter). The pH depends what potassium is attached to; it depends on the whole molecule. For example, potassium bitartrate in a saturated solution has an acidic pH of around 3.5 (see here).

That was helpful, thank you!

So hopefully with this information the following chart answers the question:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/bases-ph-d_402.html

At 0.1N:
Potassium bicarbonate 8.2
Potassium carbonate 11.5

So Potassium bicarbonate is alkaline. Potassium carbonate is extremely alkaline.

 

[pemone]

The potassium ion is not intrinsically alkaline (nor intrinsically acidic for that matter). The pH depends what potassium is attached to; it depends on the whole molecule. For example, potassium bitartrate in a saturated solution has an acidic pH of around 3.5 (see here).

This page talks about potassium citrate at 0.1N having pH of 6.4, but I think I don't understand the context:

https://books.google.com/books?id=r...ge&q=potassium citrate ph -urine 0.1N&f=false

Do you show other values for pH of potassium citrate?

 

[pemone]

The potassium ion is not intrinsically alkaline (nor intrinsically acidic for that matter). The pH depends what potassium is attached to; it depends on the whole molecule. For example, potassium bitartrate in a saturated solution has an acidic pH of around 3.5 (see here).

I asked a chemist to come into this thread and answer the issue about the potassium ion, because I got kickback from him that the potassium ion is alkaline in the cellular context, and I don't want to paraphrase the explanation, which I did not understand.

You have a great question and I am not the person to answer it. It's clear that potassium with a mineral has pH, but in digestion these separate and you are left with the potassium going into the cell, and how does that alkalize intracellular cytoplasm. I don't know the mechanism.

 

[MeSci]

One interesting thing about taking sodium bicarbonate to treat systemic acidosis is that while this alkalizes the body, bicarbonate can have an acidifying effect in the brain tissues, according to this study.

However the study authors found that when they used Carbicarb, which is just a mixture of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and sodium carbonate (washing soda), this achieved alkalization of both the body and the brain tissues.

I actually bough some food grade sodium carbonate a while ago, in order to make my own Carbicarb, as I thought that ensuring both the brain and body get alkalized might have greater benefit. But I did not do that much experimentation with Carbicarb. In the light of this thread, I may start using Carbicarb again, and comparing it to bicarbonate.

The main problem I get with alkalization is that it makes me feel unpleasantly lightheaded. I understand that becoming lightheaded from alkalizing diets or alkalizing supplements is not uncommon. A while ago I speculated why alkalizing may cause lightheadedness, and my conclusions I quote below:

The study you cite at the beginning relates to rats subjected to ammonium chloride-induced metabolic acidosis or respiratory acidosis caused by hypercapnia. I doubt its relevance to humans with ME, and certainly doubt its ability to predict effects in us. As usual with animal 'models', I expect it to be as predictive as tossing a coin.

I don't get at all lightheaded from an alkalising diet and sodium bicarb (and I take 2 teaspoonfuls a day). I was already long-term vegan, so I don't think I increased my fruit and veg intake.

I'm as emotionally 'alive' as ever, just less anxious and able to relax better. But then we are all different!

There is a lot of very technical but interesting stuff on acid/base physiology on this site.

 

[pemone]

The study you cite at the beginning relates to rats subjected to ammonium chloride-induced metabolic acidosis or respiratory acidosis caused by hypercapnia. I doubt its relevance to humans with ME, and certainly doubt its ability to predict effects in us. As usual with animal 'models', I expect it to be as predictive as tossing a coin.

I am more excited than you about Hip's experiment with sodium carbonate. The reason is that several naturopaths who are heavily into alkalizing treatments make the claim that sodium carbonate (NOT bicarb) and potassium carbonate (NOT bicarb) are alkalizing to the brain. Frankly I thought that was silly. I questioned one of them about this and could not get an answer that made sense. But he was insistent that it was his repeated experience that this was so.

Hip's mouse study suggests the possibility that there is a similar effect in mice, and I find the coincidence too strong to ignore. What's even more interesting is that the abstract of the mouse study has the line at end "These data demonstrate that bicarbonate therapy of systemic acidosis may be associated with 'paradoxical' intracellular brain acidosis, whereas Carbicarb causes both systemic and intracellular alkalinization...." So the researchers are telling you that this is a mystery to them too, but they measure it. If the researchers cannot explain it, I have to give a pass to the naturopaths who observe something similar in practice, but in humans not mice.

I don't get at all lightheaded from an alkalising diet and sodium bicarb (and I take 2 teaspoonfuls a day). I was already long-term vegan, so I don't think I increased my fruit and veg intake.

I'm as emotionally 'alive' as ever, just less anxious and able to relax better. But then we are all different!

Hip, have you considered that you might just have some narrowing of the vascular system, so that the alkalizing diet combined with already-impaired blood flow, might be causing you some crisis?

Have you ever had an EBT Scan on your heart, which is a very low radiation version of a CAT scan? They can do calcium scoring to show the number of calcifications in your arterial system, all completely non invasive. You can usually get these done for about $300. Aside from giving you huge information about inflammatory processes in your vascular system, if you had enough calcifications it might suggest some parallel process in the brain. Just something to discuss with your osteopath.... One of my osteopaths now swears by the EBT Scan and claims he has lost one patient to heart attack out of 2000 over the last six years because of this scanning.

Another thought for you: if you are over 40 it might be that your nitric oxide levels have fallen to near zero. You can buy nitric oxide test strips from berkeleytest.com and verify that. It turns out that nitric oxide in low doses fights vascular edema and is responsible for relaxing smooth muscle and keeping the vascular in good condition. I posted elsewhere here I think but I recently learned how to eat high nitrate foods to restore my nitric oxide to target levels, and it makes a remarkable difference in how you feel. I can feel bloodflow to extremities, particularly after walking, that I did not feel before. You get a sense of well being almost immediately. For me the typical "dose" is about three full cups of chopped celery, and that will restore me for about two to three hours. If you have high nitrate foods just twice in the day it seems to be enough to keep your vessels in good tone. It will not in any way remove calcifications if you have them however, which is why I mention the EBT Scan.

I am very interested to hear your results with sodium carbonate. Please publish that here once you have something to report. Can I ask for the URL of the product you bought?

 

[MeSci]

I recently learned how to eat high nitrate foods to restore my nitric oxide to target levels, and it makes a remarkable difference in how you feel. I can feel bloodflow to extremities, particularly after walking, that I did not feel before. You get a sense of well being almost immediately. For me the typical "dose" is about three full cups of chopped celery, and that will restore me for about two to three hours. If you have high nitrate foods just twice in the day it seems to be enough to keep your vessels in good tone.

Do you have evidence for nitrate intake increasing physiological nitric oxide levels?

Have you read the threads on nitric oxide, e.g. here and here?

 

[Gondwanaland]

@pone I am very intrigued by what you said about nitric oxide test strips and high nitrate foods. When I had salicylate intolerance / hich uric acid / acidosis I could not tolerate high nitrate foods either - celery, beets, herbal teas were poison to me.

@MeSci my poor brain could never understand if I should pursue high or low NO, but pone just summarized it in a comprehensible way for me to grasp what it is about. I know @ahmo has been struggling to understand it as well.

 

[Gondwanaland]

There is a lot of very technical but interesting stuff on acid/base physiology on this site.

The site is down, but I will come back later to read it.

 

[MeSci]

@pone I am very intrigued by what you said about nitric oxide test strips and high nitrate foods. When I had salicylate intolerance / hich uric acid / acidosis I could not tolerate high nitrate foods either - celery, beets, herbal teas were poison to me.

@MeSci my poor brain could never understand if I should pursue high or low NO, but pone just summarized it in a comprehensible way for me to grasp what it is about. I know @ahmo has been struggling to understand it as well.

The threads I linked to have a lot of info about nitric oxide and ME. It took a while for me to get my head round some of it too - and I'm still not entirely clear! But it seems to say that there are subgroups within ME (as ever) in relation to NO levels. There are also different types of NO, and some may be too high and others too low.

Biochemistry does have an inconsiderate tendency to be very complicated!

 

[Gondwanaland]

there are subgroups within ME (as ever) in relation to NO levels.

To complicate matters further I suspect that my relationship to NO varies in time

 

[Sherlock]

But I believe if you put sodium chloride (ordinary salt), or potassium chloride, into water, this will be neutral at pH 7. There is a discussion on the pH of sodium chloride on this page.

Whether a substance is alkalizing in the body depends not on its pH but instead on whether its residue after metabolism (the so-called ash) is alkalizing. (Lemon juice is acidic, but is said to be alkalizing.)

From experience:
potatoes are alkalizing.

NaCl is not possibly alkalizing

if Mg citrate is alkalizing, it's not anywhere near as powerful as K citrate

 

[MeSci]

Whether a substance is alkalizing in the body depends not on its pH but instead on whether its residue after metabolism (the so-called ash) is alkalizing. (Lemon juice is acidic, but is said to be alkalizing.)

From experience:
potatoes are alkalizing.

NaCl is not possibly alkalizing

if Mg citrate is alkalizing, it's not anywhere near as powerful as K citrate

I used to be prescribed potassium citrate when I had cystitis. It wasn't much use for that in my experience!

There are some warnings about taking it here.

 

[MeSci]

To complicate matters further I suspect that my relationship to NO varies in time

That seems to be the case with a lot of biochemistry. It's why clinical tests can give misleading and inconsistent results - they need to be taken repeatedly over time.

 

[Gondwanaland]

That seems to be the case with a lot of biochemistry. It's why clinical tests can give misleading and inconsistent results - they need to be taken repeatedly over time.

I just find it maddening to draw blood frequently. In this past year I've learned to navigate thru my symptoms and make safe decisions on my own. When I really needed help I have been turned down from ER with "normal" blood results
I was having acidosis and not "just anxiety"...

Mind you that when I had 3 blood clots in 2011 and went to ER the dr who saw me said "bursitis", prescribed anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxant and told me to come back in 2 weeks. 2 days later I got so much worse that I went again to ER and luckily a smarter dr saw me and then I got hospitalized for 4 days.

 

[Hip]

This page talks about potassium citrate at 0.1N having pH of 6.4, but I think I don't understand the context:

Do you show other values for pH of potassium citrate?

I think potassium citrate (which is the potassium salt of citric acid) is an odd one, because although slightly acidic, it it supposed to have an alkalizing effect in the body. I have never been able to find a good explanation for this. But you can see that potassium citrate is listed as an alkalizing agent in this article: Alkalinizing agent - Wikipedia, and in this article.

Sodium citrate is also alkalizing.

I asked a chemist to come into this thread and answer the issue about the potassium ion, because I got kickback from him that the potassium ion is alkaline in the cellular context, and I don't want to paraphrase the explanation, which I did not understand.

Excellent.

Hip, have you considered that you might just have some narrowing of the vascular system, so that the alkalizing diet combined with already-impaired blood flow, might be causing you some crisis?

Certainly I feel a bit better when taking the supplement vinpocetine, which is a cerebral vasodilator. ME/CFS patients in general have reduced blood flow to the brain.

Have you ever had an EBT Scan on your heart, which is a very low radiation version of a CAT scan? They can do calcium scoring to show the number of calcifications in your arterial system, all completely non invasive. You can usually get these done for about $300.

Aside from giving you huge information about inflammatory processes in your vascular system, if you had enough calcifications it might suggest some parallel process in the brain. Just something to discuss with your osteopath.... One of my osteopaths now swears by the EBT Scan and claims he has lost one patient to heart attack out of 2000 over the last six years because of this scanning.

Sounds interesting. Although I don't have the general symptoms of arteriosclerosis, and can run a mile without problem (I don't get much physical PEM from my ME/CFS).

Another thought for you: if you are over 40 it might be that your nitric oxide levels have fallen to near zero. You can buy nitric oxide test strips from berkeleytest.com and verify that. It turns out that nitric oxide in low doses fights vascular edema and is responsible for relaxing smooth muscle and keeping the vascular in good condition.

I posted elsewhere here I think but I recently learned how to eat high nitrate foods to restore my nitric oxide to target levels, and it makes a remarkable difference in how you feel. I can feel bloodflow to extremities, particularly after walking, that I did not feel before. You get a sense of well being almost immediately. For me the typical "dose" is about three full cups of chopped celery, and that will restore me for about two to three hours. If you have high nitrate foods just twice in the day it seems to be enough to keep your vessels in good tone. It will not in any way remove calcifications if you have them however, which is why I mention the EBT Scan.

Very interesting. And those nitric oxide test strips from berkeleytest.com are quite inexpensive: you can buy 10 strips for $13.

When you used these test strips, did you see changes in your saliva NO level after eating high nitrate foods?

A couple of years back I tried potassium nitrate (KNO3) supplementation, 1 to 2 grams daily, and I did feel a little better on it. My only concern is a possible connection to bowel cancer (it is suspected that potassium nitrate may be metabolized into the known carcinogen potassium nitrite, KNO2).

This study found that potassium nitrate or beetroot juice (which contains nitrates) lowered blood pressure (possibly through NO-induced vasodilation?).

Though I read here that the lethal oral dose of potassium nitrate for an adult has been estimated to be between 4 and 30 grams. This 4 grams seems a bit low, considering the doses of potassium nitrate used in the study.


Have you seen Dave Whitlock's low NO theory of ME/CFS and autism? I found his ideas intriguing.


There are three enzymes which make nitric oxide in the body: eNOS (which makes NO for vasodilation), nNOS (which makes NO as a neurotransmitter), and iNOS (which is used by the immune system to make very high levels of NO to fight pathogens, since NO is a potent antiviral and antimicrobial).

NO in the blood has an incredibly short half life of just 1 second, so generally it needs to me manufactured on the spot by these enzymes when it is needed.

Though in spite of this short half life, there is a stable basal level of NO in the blood, because NO attaches to the albumin in the blood, to form S-nitroso-albumin, which acts as a carrier for NO.

However, I understand that nitrate can also generate NO in the body, independently of these three NOS enzymes.

I constantly have cold hands and feet, which I think could be lack of eNOS-derived nitric oxide.

I am very interested to hear your results with sodium carbonate. Please publish that here once you have something to report. Can I ask for the URL of the product you bought?

It was quite a few years ago that I bought it, and I cannot remember where, but I notice that if you search eBay for sodium carbonate food grade you gets several hits.

 

[Hip]

Whether a substance is alkalizing in the body depends not on its pH but instead on whether its residue after metabolism (the so-called ash) is alkalizing. (Lemon juice is acidic, but is said to be alkalizing.)

I have read that "ash" concept in various places too, but it is not really a scientific explanation.

 

[Sherlock]

I used to be prescribed potassium citrate when I had cystitis. It wasn't much use for that in my experience!

There are some warnings about taking it here.

Hey, thanks. I was going to post today asking about possible bad effects of doubling my daily intake. Without any onset of bradycardia, it seems like clear sailing for me. It might also act against uric acid crystals, and I have an Fx (but not Hx) of that.

 

[Sherlock]

I have read that "ash" concept in various places too, but it is not really a scientific explanation.

It explains potatoes quite well.

[edit

It also explains the observations that those who consume large amounts of potassium/calcium containing greens have lower urine acidity.

Relying on the pH of anything ingested is a non-sequitur, since stomach contents get acidified and then everything gets alkalinyzed in the duodenum.

Saying it is not scientific? On what basis do you make such a dismissive statement? Btw, there are apparently such things as potassium buffers.

I will try to find the exact rationale on a day when my eyes are not burning.

]

 

[Sherlock]

I used to be prescribed potassium citrate when I had cystitis.

Just curious if you've tried Thedoharides' MC stabilizer approach?