Bad reaction to LCF: is it detox or what?

[stardust]

I have been taking the MeB12, Folate, and adenosylb12 for a few months. I noticed a big improvement in mood and energy. I just started adding the Doctor's Best LCF. I started small and worked up to half a capsule. It seems to cause loose stools, depression, and anxiety. Is this a detox reaction? I skipped it today and have some anxiety, but the depression has lifted a bit. I was wondering if I should try ALCAR. I am interested in anyone else's experiences. Thanks.

 

[sregan]

Freddd mentions if you have a reaction to the LCF then back off to a really small dose.


"When that fades a fair amount it’s time to start titrating the LCF. If one has anxiety as a reaction, then the micro titration of LCF would be suggested. If it was no anxiety but maybe euphoria or just ”energized“ then a regular titration would appear suitable."

 

[whodathunkit]

Yes, second @sregan. LCF can be very potent. You can open the capsules and take even a quarter of the powder to start, then work up. It was months before I could take more than a half a capsule at a time.

ALCAR doesn't do much for me. Everyone's different, but that seems to be a majority opinion around here.

 

[Freddd]

I have been taking the MeB12, Folate, and adenosylb12 for a few months. I noticed a big improvement in mood and energy. I just started adding the Doctor's Best LCF. I started small and worked up to half a capsule. It seems to cause loose stools, depression, and anxiety. Is this a detox reaction? I skipped it today and have some anxiety, but the depression has lifted a bit. I was wondering if I should try ALCAR. I am interested in anyone else's experiences. Thanks.

HI stardust,

In my experience that indicates that the LCF is working. It also appears to indicate that you already have some kind damage in the limbic system of the brain from lack of AdoCbl-LCF (ATP made in the neurons). Those who have been able to titrate from low levels, dividing the dose into 3 smaller doses, provides a steadiness instead of instead of the anxiety and/or depression. The loose stools MAY be caused by increased need for l-methylfolate since the LCF can increase tissue healing (muscles including heart, and neurology). Since the LCF is clearing working ALCAR might not. The idea is to have it work well. Carnitine is the only one of these substances with a nice clean dose proportionate effect. A smaller dose will do less but keep functioning. If you try a half cap divided into 3 doses you may find it keeps the peak effect lower decreasing the anxiety but doesn't drop as low as a single dose and avid the depression end of it. Or maybe drop back to 1/4 a cap in 3 parts to get comfortable and work up slowly from there. It adopts faster if taken to the edge of comfort and held there. It took me 6 months to be able to move to a larger dose than 125mg (1/4 cap)

 

[stardust]

HI stardust,

In my experience that indicates that the LCF is working. It also appears to indicate that you already have some kind damage in the limbic system of the brain from lack of AdoCbl-LCF (ATP made in the neurons). Those who have been able to titrate from low levels, dividing the dose into 3 smaller doses, provides a steadiness instead of instead of the anxiety and/or depression. The loose stools MAY be caused by increased need for l-methylfolate since the LCF can increase tissue healing (muscles including heart, and neurology). Since the LCF is clearing working ALCAR might not. The idea is to have it work well. Carnitine is the only one of these substances with a nice clean dose proportionate effect. A smaller dose will do less but keep functioning. If you try a half cap divided into 3 doses you may find it keeps the peak effect lower decreasing the anxiety but doesn't drop as low as a single dose and avid the depression end of it. Or maybe drop back to 1/4 a cap in 3 parts to get comfortable and work up slowly from there. It adopts faster if taken to the edge of comfort and held there. It took me 6 months to be able to move to a larger dose than 125mg (1/4 cap)

Thank you so much for responding. I guess you are the one who's protocol I am trying to follow. I am so grateful for it. Just the B12's and Folate made a big difference, and now adding LCF, I think I will see even more improvement. I feel it is giving me more energy, but I will try the 3 smaller doses per day to avoid the anxiety/depression as you suggest.

I think you are right about me needing more Folate, because I have started having acne. I started small and am now up to 1200mcgs twice per day of Metafolin and 400mcgs at night of Quatrafolic in a B complex. I was just diagnosed with breast cancer and have stopped increasing everything because I don't know the effect of of these supplements on cancer. I don't want to fuel its growth. I know that excess Folic Acid has been linked to cancer, but I can't find anything about high dose Folate. I was taking a lot of folic acid for a long time in multivitamins and now have a lot of it floating around. Do you know of anyway to get rid of it? Does the liver eventually break it down?

 

[Freddd]

Thank you so much for responding. I guess you are the one who's protocol I am trying to follow. I am so grateful for it. Just the B12's and Folate made a big difference, and now adding LCF, I think I will see even more improvement. I feel it is giving me more energy, but I will try the 3 smaller doses per day to avoid the anxiety/depression as you suggest.

I think you are right about me needing more Folate, because I have started having acne. I started small and am now up to 1200mcgs twice per day of Metafolin and 400mcgs at night of Quatrafolic in a B complex. I was just diagnosed with breast cancer and have stopped increasing everything because I don't know the effect of of these supplements on cancer. I don't want to fuel its growth. I know that excess Folic Acid has been linked to cancer, but I can't find anything about high dose Folate. I was taking a lot of folic acid for a long time in multivitamins and now have a lot of it floating around. Do you know of anyway to get rid of it? Does the liver eventually break it down?

Hi Stardust,

The folic acid in higher dose can cause partial methylation block and if continued methyltrap. Both of these can cause abnormal cells. Some cancer puts out it's own TC II to try to bind more B12 for the cancer. Many drugs used for cancer are folate antagonists and block folate. I have no idea how these things affect cancer. Some studies appear to indicate MeCbl has some anti cancer properties and some might indicate that it makes cancer grow faster. I'm afraid there are no reasonably clear cut answers that I am aware of. Best of luck.

 

[caledonia]

I was just diagnosed with breast cancer and have stopped increasing everything because I don't know the effect of of these supplements on cancer. I don't want to fuel its growth. I know that excess Folic Acid has been linked to cancer, but I can't find anything about high dose Folate. I was taking a lot of folic acid for a long time in multivitamins and now have a lot of it floating around. Do you know of anyway to get rid of it? Does the liver eventually break it down?

The problem with folic acid and cancer is that for people with MTHFR, it doesn't process well, so there is Unmetabolized Folic Acid (UMFA) floating around in the bloodstream causing problems.

Ben Lynch has a new video on methylation and cancer that should be helpful. http://seekinghealth.org/product/me...-cancer-in-prevention-treatment-and-recovery/
http://seekinghealth.org/product/me...-cancer-in-prevention-treatment-and-recovery/
Breast cancer is one of the cancers caused by high estrogen, so measuring estrogen to verify that it's high, then if so, working on lowering estrogen might be helpful too. I don't know if that's considered to be more of a preventive measure or if it would also help for treatment.

If you've done 23andme testing, if you run it through the Detox Report on geneticgenie.org you can see if you have CYP1B1, which are SNPs which cause estrogen dominance. To lower estrogen, you can eat cruciferous veggies, or take supps with DIM or IC3, which are components of cruciferous veggies, or take calcium d glucarate.

There was also a lady interviewed by MTHFRsupport.com on their podcast who cured her breast cancer with Rick Simpson oil (cannabis oil). http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mthfrsupport/2013/03/28/methylation-mthfr-and-cancer
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mthfrsupport/2013/03/28/methylation-mthfr-and-cancer
There is supposed to be some kind of link between cannabinoids and methylation, but I haven't been able to get an answer out of MTHFRsupport yet.

 

[Freddd]

The problem with folic acid and cancer is that for people with MTHFR, it doesn't process well, so there is Unmetabolized Folic Acid (UMFA) floating around in the bloodstream causing problems.

Ben Lynch has a new video on methylation and cancer that should be helpful. http://seekinghealth.org/product/me...-cancer-in-prevention-treatment-and-recovery/
Breast cancer is one of the cancers caused by high estrogen, so measuring estrogen to verify that it's high, then if so, working on lowering estrogen might be helpful too. I don't know if that's considered to be more of a preventive measure or if it would also help for treatment.

If you've done 23andme testing, if you run it through the Detox Report on geneticgenie.org you can see if you have CYP1B1, which are SNPs which cause estrogen dominance. To lower estrogen, you can eat cruciferous veggies, or take supps with DIM or IC3, which are components of cruciferous veggies, or take calcium d glucarate.

There was also a lady interviewed by MTHFRsupport.com on their podcast who cured her breast cancer with Rick Simpson oil (cannabis oil). http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mthfrsupport/2013/03/28/methylation-mthfr-and-cancer
There is supposed to be some kind of link between cannabinoids and methylation, but I haven't been able to get an answer out of MTHFRsupport yet.

Hi Caledonia,

The whole thing with folic acid is that it isn't as simple as a specific polymorphism. By effect there are clearly at least 3 groups. There is group "1", the "normal" responders to folic acid. They can convert about 800 to 1000mcg per day to mfolate prior accumulating unconverted folic acid which then causes blocking. Then there is the 30% with some conversion, > 0 < 800mcg so the accumulation of unconverted folic acid starts with a smaller dose. Then there is the 20% that can't convert folic acid at all. They start accumulating unconverted folic acid at any dose. So as far as I can tell anybody can accumulate unconverted folic acid dependent upon both dose and polymorphisms. However, lack of certain polymorphisms merely means that a larger dose is required to cause problems. So the polymorphisms are a nearly worthless predictor for whether this can happen. As there are at least 3 conditions of dose required to block mfolate with no "safe" polymorphisms the tests have little validity for this purpose. As far as I know everybody requires more than the 800-1000mcg of converted folic acid that is the maximum of the biological channel. The recent research on folic acid has less effect than 20 years ago, likely because a larger percentage of population are already topped out for maximum effectiveness by other sources of folic acid.

As the needed A-B testing (folic acid vs mfolate with active b12s) has never been done by the official research industry, and most all researchers and practitioner forget that folic acid is AT BEST partially effective, everybody can get too much folic acid at some dose or another. The reason it isn't easier to see is that more people are limited by the even less effective CyCbl/HyCbl and so don't hit the folic acid limits because of being more limited by the pseudo b12s, CyCbl and HyCbl. Partial methylation block is the NORM now. It is reflected as being "normal range" in many tests which now serve to keep people sick.

 

[caledonia]

Hi Caledonia,

The whole thing with folic acid is that it isn't as simple as a specific polymorphism. By effect there are clearly at least 3 groups. There is group "1", the "normal" responders to folic acid. They can convert about 800 to 1000mcg per day to mfolate prior accumulating unconverted folic acid which then causes blocking. Then there is the 30% with some conversion, > 0 < 800mcg so the accumulation of unconverted folic acid starts with a smaller dose. Then there is the 20% that can't convert folic acid at all. They start accumulating unconverted folic acid at any dose. So as far as I can tell anybody can accumulate unconverted folic acid dependent upon both dose and polymorphisms. However, lack of certain polymorphisms merely means that a larger dose is required to cause problems. So the polymorphisms are a nearly worthless predictor for whether this can happen. As there are at least 3 conditions of dose required to block mfolate with no "safe" polymorphisms the tests have little validity for this purpose. As far as I know everybody requires more than the 800-1000mcg of converted folic acid that is the maximum of the biological channel. The recent research on folic acid has less effect than 20 years ago, likely because a larger percentage of population are already topped out for maximum effectiveness by other sources of folic acid.

As the needed A-B testing (folic acid vs mfolate with active b12s) has never been done by the official research industry, and most all researchers and practitioner forget that folic acid is AT BEST partially effective, everybody can get too much folic acid at some dose or another. The reason it isn't easier to see is that more people are limited by the even less effective CyCbl/HyCbl and so don't hit the folic acid limits because of being more limited by the pseudo b12s, CyCbl and HyCbl. Partial methylation block is the NORM now. It is reflected as being "normal range" in many tests which now serve to keep people sick.

Hi Freddd,

So basically what you're saying is that NOBODY should be taking folic acid. I agree. Ben Lynch agrees. It needs to be taken out of our food supply.

"Partial methylation block is the norm" - that is scary!

There are other MTHFR SNPs other than the Big Two, as well as an FUT SNP. They all impact folate. Perhaps these are also players.

 

[Freddd]

Hi Freddd,

So basically what you're saying is that NOBODY should be taking folic acid. I agree. Ben Lynch agrees. It needs to be taken out of our food supply.

"Partial methylation block is the norm" - that is scary!

There are other MTHFR SNPs other than the Big Two, as well as an FUT SNP. They all impact folate. Perhaps these are also players.

Hi Caladonia,

What makes it even scarier to me is that in the blood tests, for instance MCV, I actually called the test lab (a large one, I spent 20 years asking questions of health service providers of all kinds) and asked why the lab moved up MCV again. I was kicked out of medical practices for refusing to admit that I was an alcoholic because it was obvious in my blood profile. I couldn't tolerate alcohol. Fifty years ago, > 93 got a warning for borderline, hematological standards are still that. The labs moved up to > 96 perhaps 20 years ago and > 100 or even 102, maybe 5 years ago. No "warning" zone any more. Now it is sudden death frank macrocytosis or nothing. The change was a statistical and practical change. Statistical because the mean was over 96 and the lab rep told me "the docs ignore us if we alert most of the tests for MCV". Now there are all sorts of things that change with partial methylation block in blood. If the majority have these changed markers they become the "norm" by definition. Doesn't this strike anybody else as being wrong in so many ways? Mystery Disease is the sum total of all these mysterious symptoms that have been re-defined away from their causes.

 

[ahmo]

@Freddd, WOW!!