Substantial improvement with (strange) dietary adjustments

[Wonkmonk]

I always thought peanut butter makes me worse, but that's maybe not the case. Instead, what probably made me worse is the 1-2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil that I used to make the peanut butter in my food processor. That's up to 10 grams of omega-3 fatty acids, which I am very certain are to blame (I recently checked it again with walnuts).

I might re-check all low-omega-3-low-oxalate nut butters. Maybe I can eat a lot more nuts than I thought. Sadly, tahin/sesame is out because of the high oxalate content.

 

[Wishful]

@Wonkmonk , keep in mind that it could be worse. What if ME made us have these unexpected responses to foods, but they changed daily or even hourly?

 

[Dysfunkion]

I always thought peanut butter makes me worse, but that's maybe not the case. Instead, what probably made me worse is the 1-2 tablespoons of flaxseed oil that I used to make the peanut butter in my food processor. That's up to 10 grams of omega-3 fatty acids, which I am very certain are to blame (I recently checked it again with walnuts).

I might re-check all low-omega-3-low-oxalate nut butters. Maybe I can eat a lot more nuts than I thought. Sadly, tahin/sesame is out because of the high oxalate content.

I react horribly to flaxseed, I always I get instantly fatigued and brain fogged though it doesn't come with the lead legs thing. Not sure what I'm reacting to in them, it's specifically flax seeds. Peanuts and chia seeds are fine. I have a mild immune reaction to cashews but it's not the same thing as the flaxseed fatigue thing. Not sure what it could be.

So I found a really weird one tonight that is a repeatable. Red tuna specifically makes me a million times better, I wasn't really sure if it was just me the last time I had it but it happened again tonight when I had it cooked into some veggies. I had swordfish the other night and it was just some meat, didn't do anything special. Now I'm going to try all fish I can from the store cooked in the same way to see if I can find any fish that do the same thing. I've eat large amounts of other fish and seafood together before but this doesn't happen, I just get more full and groggy. Probably one of the weirder food things I stumbled upon.

edit 9/16 - trying salmon tonight to see what happens. I have a bunch of other fish on the list to try too so this may take a while but I'll report on if the salmon did anything later.

edit - 9/17 - Nope salmon does not do this either, actually makes me more mellow feeling. I have other fish to try to but so far it's only tuna that does this.

 

[Wonkmonk]

@Wonkmonk , keep in mind that it could be worse. What if ME made us have these unexpected responses to foods, but they changed daily or even hourly?

I have thought about this, but it appears to me that - so far - at least for me, the effects seem to be remarkably stable. I think the variability in symptoms from foods is because of time lagging effects, meal and nutrient mixing and repeat consumption effects. I think that's why it sometimes looks like it's unpredictable, but it looks to me like when I have fully understood the effects, it will be stable.

 

[Wonkmonk]

I have been thinking about the repeat consumption effect and it seems there are a variety of compounds (I mentioned TMAO before) that are only produced in the microbiome and only after repeat consumption of certain foods. Today, I found another one: Equol.

Source:

The woman in this study did not produce any equol, but after repeat consumtion of soy (from which equol is made), she produced it. It may even be equol or something like that, because I get pronounced symptoms from soy yoghurt and tofu, and also from other legumes.

That said, I don't think it's just one compound, because complete elimination of legumes did not lead to remission. For some reason, it's highly complicated with may foods causing the reactions under many different circumstances.

I have seen pronounced repeat consumption effects in:
*Legumes
*Kale
*Avocados

That means I can usually eat these once without any worsening, but severe worsening if I consume them 3-4 times over a couple of days. That would be consistent with the microbiome starting to produce a harmful compound after a few meals of a certain food and then stops again once it's discontinued.

 

[Wonkmonk]

I also have more on glycoalkaloids in nightshades, mainly potatos. I tried to eat a larger amount of store-bought, oven baked french fries several times (1-2 pounds) as a provocation test and see what happens. The result was always the same: No symptoms whatsoever for several hours, then 4-6 days of strong symptoms, espcially headaches, brain fog and fatigue were much worse each time.

I think it has to be the glycoalkaloids. Now I found a study that says glycoalkaloids in higher doses take up to half a day to reach maximum serum concentration (so probably a day or more for complete uptake) and then, half life is about two days. That would fit with a symptom worsening of 4-6 days.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...-chaconine-in-human-volunteers_tbl3_343587180

I also made the observation that I can eat a lot more potatos in the fall (starting in late September) than in the spring and summer. Early harvest-potatos in the spring and summer are known to have much higher glycoalkaloid levels, like several fold higher.

I also seem to tolerate home-cooked potatos better than store-bought fries. I suspect that the fries are produced from older potatos who may have germinated already, which also increases the glycoalkaloid content.

I think I still can eat potatos, but only from October to February, non-germinated and home-prepared ones. Sadly there is no way to remove or destroy glycoalkaloids through cooking or frying.

 

[Wishful]

I think I still can eat potatos, but only from October to February,

Interesting. My tolerance for potatoes comes and goes, but I hadn't thought about a link to time of year. I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Dysfunkion]

I haven't touched sweet potato in months so I dont know how I'd react to them now but I wanna check that again soon (they always gave me more brain fog and a slight increase in that brain burn thing that was better or worse depending on how my head felt before). I dont have any immediate weird reaction to potato but now I want to eat a bunch of fries and see if in 4-6 days I solidly get hit with a wave of symptoms.

 

[Wonkmonk]

Interesting. My tolerance for potatoes comes and goes, but I hadn't thought about a link to time of year. I'll keep that in mind.

Maybe it comes and goes because of the harvest season. If glycoalkaloids are a problem for you, you should have much more trouble with potatos in the spring and summer compared to the fall and winter. Country of origin also seems to play a role, e.g., potatos from warmer countries with sandy soils like Egypt are said to contain more glycoalkaloids.

I don't know where potatoes come from in North America in summer and spring, but maybe if they are from Mexico or from the Southern states, it may be the same thing than with potatos that come from Egypt in Europe.

 

[Wonkmonk]

I haven't touched sweet potato in months

In sweet potatos, the only hypothesis that I have is that it's the oxalates. In normal potatos, it could be the oxalates, glycoalkaloids or both. I suspect it's both because sweet potatos have more oxalate than potatos, but cause less symptoms, so unless I am wrong alltogether, it should be both oxalates and glycoalkaloids that should be avoided.

 

[Wonkmonk]

I am increasingly going back to the view that all nightshades should be avoided, not only those containing solanine (which is all except tomatos).

Ordinary large round tomatos (here in Germany, we call them Rispentomaten or Strauchtomaten) do not contain any solanine and only little or no tomatine, but being nightshades, they surely contain other glycoalkaloids.

Cherry tomatos, for example, can be very high in a glycoalkaloid called tomatine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomatine#Toxicity

So it probably makes sense to also limit tomato consumption in general. I did that in the past, but thought it's only about solanine and I don't need to do it. I think I'll reintroduce that limitation.

 

[Wishful]

So it probably makes sense to also limit tomato consumption in general.

When I'm intolerant of potatoes, I'm usually also intolerant of tomato products, so I assumed it was the solanine or tomatine. I recall not being intolerant of potatoes that were showing a greenish tinge. So I assumed it was my tolerance that was varying. So confusing!

 

[Wonkmonk]

I recall not being intolerant of potatoes that were showing a greenish tinge. So I assumed it was my tolerance that was varying. So confusing!

That's so interesting...those greenish potatos should have higher solanine. I once tried to eat a few of the sprouts of sprouted potatos (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS), which are said to contain a lot of solanine and as I remember they did cause symptoms. However, that was in a time when I had very strong symptoms constantly, so I'm not 100% sure it was the sprouts. I won't repeat that test though because the sprouts are actually toxic.

@Wishful Have you ever noticed differences with respect to harvest season? That's where I reliably feel a difference every year. October to February not so bad, March to September very bad.

 

[Wonkmonk]

At this point, I really want to thank you @Wishful and @Dysfunkion for engaging so lively in this thread. Without you I would have to write all of this alone. I appreciate your comments and replies so much !!

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[Dysfunkion]

At this point, I really want to thank you @Wishful and @Dysfunkion for engaging so lively in this thread. Without you I would have to write all of this alone. I appreciate your comments and replies so much !!

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No problem! I like doing this anyways because I'm always finding out something new about what is going on through it, the whole thread has been a great help to me. It also gives me an excuse to get out more to the grocery store and have more little dopamine adventures that don't involve coffee and scratch off's.

In fact I'm about to take a trip right now to pick up some fluke and see what effect that has on me. After this though I'm taking a break from fish and consuming the pound of tuna again cooked soon and see if I have a solid repeatable thus far. Then I'm going to wait a couple days and try the pound again if this works raw to see if it does the same thing. If not either way after some time I'm gonna try it cooked again and if the reaction repeats, then if I have something solid even if I have no idea what is going on yet.

 

[Wishful]

@Wishful Have you ever noticed differences with respect to harvest season?

I haven't noticed any correlation. Sometimes I wish I had all my records in a database so I could look for correlations, but that's way too much work. I also wish I'd kept better, more detailed records, but I recorded what seemed the best effort/result at the time.

I also wish I had better handwriting (lettering), since I can't make sense of much of my old records now. I did buy some lined schoolpaper, and plan to do some lettering exercises, so maybe I can get one of my wishes.

Without you I would have to write all of this alone

I appreciate this thread too. It's much easier to think some things through when you compose in a forum, and other people's comments may trigger insights. I think hearing that other people have similar--or even worse--problems makes it easier to bear our own.

 

[Wishful]

In fact I'm about to take a trip right now to pick up some fluke and see what effect that has on me.

Here's a thought: what if some of our mysterious food responses are due to parasites in that food? For example, tuna works for you one time, but not reliably after that. Maybe the samples that do work are due to some chemical in worms in the flesh. Then again, it could be hormones in those fish (pre-spawn, post-spawn, fighting a net or line for hours vs quick kill, etc) or other environmental factors. Common no-name cumin worked well for me, but I expect some of the more expensive products might come from regions where the cuminaldehyde content is very low, so it wouldn't have worked. Our detective work is not as simple as "food x does this", because food x is not simple.

 

[Dysfunkion]

Here's a thought: what if some of our mysterious food responses are due to parasites in that food? For example, tuna works for you one time, but not reliably after that. Maybe the samples that do work are due to some chemical in worms in the flesh. Then again, it could be hormones in those fish (pre-spawn, post-spawn, fighting a net or line for hours vs quick kill, etc) or other environmental factors. Common no-name cumin worked well for me, but I expect some of the more expensive products might come from regions where the cuminaldehyde content is very low, so it wouldn't have worked. Our detective work is not as simple as "food x does this", because food x is not simple.

Yeah that's why if I get something that repeats here I want to try different sources of the fish to see if it sticks. The fish every time I eat is super well done so I think that would kill all parasites or at least most of them anyways. I always inspect the piece before I eat it too and I've never noticed anything off about the pieces just looking/smelling them. I am thinking though like you that it may be some sort of hormone in the fish specifically that does it, it certainly feels "steroidy". In fact I wonder if that is behind my weird reactions to land meat which make me feel horrible too.

 

[Dysfunkion]

So the tuna works again (not sure what species but it's either blue or yellow fin), I found the benefit starts with the consumption of the juice it gets cooked in so it must be something in large amounts in the fish that isn't present (in much smaller quantities) in what I tried so far (salmon, fluke, and swordfish). I think this also rules out parasites in it as would literally every piece really be infected? I checked everyone and cooked each piece thoroughly and even if there was one in it then I don't think it would produce this much of a compound to where simply drinking what would equate to a shot of liquid would be bioactive. maybe whatever compound it is kills something bad in my guts on contact actively making me ill.

My guts were already inflamed from all this fish trials this week as they clearly have an issue breaking it all down and moving it out fast enough, there was a familiar resulting brain fog, depression, and scatterbrain like effect of this gut backup and gas though whatever compound this is has an effect strong enough to even cut through that which I find wild.

A lot of the compounds in tuna are also in swordfish which is most similar to tuna but whatever this is as I ate like a whole pound of it when I had it clearly isn't present in it or barely so. This was a generic cut from the grocery store, I'll have to try another from another store to see if this still happens when my guts settle down and if that still works try that one raw to see if it still does. This also clearly works even under severe bodily stress, it has a high symptom cut through factor and to gut through gut inflammation brain fog that is really saying something.

 

[Wishful]

Time to research tuna metabolism, feeding habits, hormones, etc? Maybe search for "tuna highest, superior, or whatever ... while filtering out all the marketing hits". Maybe there's a website explaining how to search for obscure knowledge while avoiding all the marketing hits.

I assume you've ruled out "abnormally large meal" as a factor. How quickly does the reduction in symptoms start? The comment about a small amount of liquid makes it sound quick.

Here's a suggestion: try just sniffing the liquid, to see whether that triggers a response. If not that, try swishing the fluid around your mouth before spitting it out, to see whether the effect doesn't require travel further down the digestive tract. I did that with cumin, and found that it didn't require swallowing.

Ah, the excitement of science!