did anyone get sick from BCAAs?

[Rufous McKinney]

This may reduce the uptake of tryptophan by the brain and also 5-HT synthesis and thereby delay fatigue."

Question: I'm getting confused here.....I thought our problem is we potentially have too much tryptophan....(the Phair's metabolic trap theory) and by taking some BCAAs, less tryptophan enters the brain.

So why is the discussion talking about eating turkey to increase tryptophan?

 

[Wishful]

My theory for why more TRP in my brain makes my symptoms worse is that it gets converted into the neurotoxic kynurenines. I'd like to have a scan to measure kynurenine levels in various portions of my brain, but that lab equipment hasn't been invented yet.

 

[Learner1]

Question: I'm getting confused here.....I thought our problem is we potentially have too much tryptophan....(the Phair's metabolic trap theory) and by taking some BCAAs, less tryptophan enters the brain.

So why is the discussion talking about eating turkey to increase tryptophan?

I agree. This sounds like a very bad idea. (Spoken by someone whose labs showed falling into Phair's trap by taking a little 5-HTP, and out of it by 2 years of hyperbaric oxygen.)

Leucine can block pyruvate, in addition to the several things mentioned above:

https://selfhacked.com/blog/leucine-health-benefits-side-effects/

BCAAs can cause fatigue, loss of coordination, and stomach problems, including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach bloating. Rarely, they can cause high blood pressure, headache, or skin whitening.

I've found them helpful, but my recent testing looked like I was replete and I discontinued them.

 

[Rrrr]

Hi @Learner1

Can I ask a question about this line you wrote: "Spoken by someone whose labs showed falling into Phair's trap by taking a little 5-HTP, and out of it by 2 years of hyperbaric oxygen."

Are you saying the hyperbaric oxygen hurt you, or helped get you out of Phair's trap?

Best,
Rrrr

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

So why is the discussion talking about eating turkey to increase tryptophan?

Someone raised a question about it several posts back, and as not infrequently happens on these wide-ranging and highly informative threads (tho not always informative about what they started out informing about), the thread got side-tracked for a bit down another interesting path.

It happens .... derailing.

And it usually gets back to the matter at hand and continues from where it left off, or a vigilant mod will open another thread on that secondary topic so that both conversations can continue as needed ....

Sometimes I learn something really interesting and pertinent fro the derailing that I wouldn;t have known otherwise. Other times, it's just frustrating and irritating. It's a grab bag .....

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Someone raised a question about it several posts back,

Yes, I read all that. Guess I'll try to find some other thread to ask my question in.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Guess I'll try to find some other thread to ask my question in.

This thread includes various comments on consuming tryptophan and IBS issues.

https://forums.phoenixrising.me/threads/tryptophan-as-an-ibs-gut-treatment.79363/#post-2261594

It looks like some of us think eating more tryptophan would make us feel worse, or at least in those who have been helped by BCAA's.

But others seem to want more tryptophan, so I don't really understand this, unless its just that our bodies vary.

I know its still just a theory- Phair's metabolic trap.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

Yes, I read all that. Guess I'll try to find some other thread to ask my question in.

Why not just restate your question here and see what happens?

 

[Wishful]

But others seem to want more tryptophan, so I don't really understand this, unless its just that our bodies vary.

That's the problem: our bodies vary so much that there's really no way to know what to take. If we put all our treatments and responses in a database, I think most treatments would show about as many negative reactions as positive ones. Okay, there would probably be a bias towards positive ones from the placebo effect. I'm not sure that it would identify many things that 'everyone should at least try'.

I think the problem is that the core dysfunction causing ME is fairly hard for chemicals to reach, and most of the symptoms are quite far downstream of the core, depending on an individual's genetic, epigenetic, and other factors. Our individual sensitivities to various inputs also depends on those individual factors. Those factors are also interwoven in complex ways, so it's not as simple as 'genetic marker 53024-j means that BCAAs will make you feel worse. An expressed gene might affect selenium levels in your blood, which affects microtubule population in spleen cells, which affects immune response to fungal spores, (fill in many more levels of interactions), which determines how you react to BCAAs.

So, whether BCAAs (or anything else) will be good or bad (or do nothing) for an individual depends on a whole lot of factors we aren't aware of. At this point, answering the question requires individual experimentation. Even if 50 people responded that BCAAs made them feel better, and only 2 responded that it made them feel much worse, how do you know which group you fit in unless you actually try it your self? Likewise, if 50 people said something made them feel much worse, and 2 people said that it's an amazing treatment for them, how do you know that you're not in the minority, and that trying it might make an amazing improvement in your quality of life?

It really is hard to know what is worth trying.

 

[ebethc]

I thought our problem is we potentially have too much tryptophan....

"We" doesn't necessarily mean "me"

the last time I took BCAAs, I had no reaction at all... this time, I had a negative reaction

the Phair's metabolic trap theory) and by taking some BCAAs, less tryptophan enters the brain.

has this been reviewed and published? Tested and replicated?

there's a lot of tinkering, resulting in a lot of opinions pinging around echo chambers... I believe that's it, though.

 

[dannybex]

"We" doesn't necessarily mean "me"

the last time I took BCAAs, I had no reaction at all... this time, I had a negative reaction

I've had horrible reactions both times I've tried them. It's all individual, but I think in my case it was possibly because they can raise ammonia levels -- which if elevated can cause all sorts of negative reactions.

From this study:

"BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) such as valine, leucine, and isoleucine interact with α-ketoglutarate through branched-chain aminotransferases and form glutamate and branched-chain α-keto acid. Glutamate converts to glutamine by incorporating an ammonia molecule through glutamine-synthetase [49]. However, BCAA administration led to increased blood ammonia in both healthy and cirrhosis patients because of the activation of muscle ammonia metabolism."

 

[Rufous McKinney]

led to increased blood ammonia

What type of symptoms arose from this raised ammonia?

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

I know its still just a theory- Phair's metabolic trap.

Many of us confuse 'theory' with 'hypothesis'.

A theory has gone thru rigorous testing and has been proven valid, or at least close enough to be regarded as scientifically valid.

An hypothesis is what comes before a theory, it's a construct of assumptions, usually with minimal testing, that now needs to be proven into a threory.

And once again, my Tedious Pedant license is safe for another month ....

 

[Rufous McKinney]

An hypothesis is what comes before a theory, it's a construct of assumptions, usually with minimal testing, that now needs to be proven into a threory.

I exist to be corrected. I may cease utterances. A continuous reminder of Cognitive Deficiencies.

 

[JES]

Yeah it's most definitely scientifically still at hypothesis stage, but people use the term "theory" colloquially in various different contexts, so it's not a shame to have these confused. Phair's model has been published by the way (link), exactly as the headline states, as a medical hypothesis paper with computer modelling supporting the hypothesis. It desperately needs to be validated though in real cells, which seems to be the hardest part. Oh and supplementing BCAA won't do much to get you out of the trap, I'm pretty sure taking BCAA orally will have a minimal effect on intracellular tryptophan concentrations.

 

[dannybex]

What type of symptoms arose from this raised ammonia?

Well, there are a lot, and most of them sound like symptoms of ME/CFS, but the main ones for me are increased irritability, anxiety, brain fog (big time), muscle cramps, twitching, and sometimes restless legs.

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

A continuous reminder of Cognitive Deficiencies.

No, more like an accumulated assault down many years of people using 'theory' incorrectly, which is hardly your fault.

And I wasn;t correcting you as much as clarifying the difference between a 'theory' and an 'hypothesis', in case someone reading this thread was accidentally mislead into believing that Phair's metabolic trap was a proven theory, doncha' know .....

 

[ebethc]

Many of us confuse 'theory' with 'hypothesis'.

A theory has gone thru rigorous testing and has been proven valid, or at least close enough to be regarded as scientifically valid.

An hypothesis is what comes before a theory, it's a construct of assumptions, usually with minimal testing, that now needs to be proven into a threory.

And once again, my Tedious Pedant license is safe for another month ....

so, you're saying the metabolic trap work has bee proven scientifically valid, and accepted outside the CFS bubble?

I'm not completely up to speed, as the Ron Davis/Jen Brea work is for ppl w Ehlers Danlos which (likely) doesn't benefit me... Hard to say, though

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

so, you're saying the metabolic trap work has bee proven scientifically valid, and accepted outside the CFS bubble?

No, just the opposite, which is why I posted the thingy about the diff between a 'theory' and an 'hypothesis', with the metabolic trap being the latter .... in an earlier post, it had been quoted as a theory, which it ain't. Isn't. Whatever ....

 

[Wishful]

I may cease utterances.

No, no! This forum would be boring without such utterances. Besides, some utterances--precise or imprecise--sometimes lead to interesting lines of discussion. I find that composing a comment about ME helps me think deeper. The rest of you just have to put up with it.

The 'theory' vs 'hypothesis' meaning is one of those areas in the English language that is changing. Yes, it's losing the precision of the words, but we're not going to get the masses to remember which to use when, so those who do care will just have to suffer...or start a mass education campaign.