Substantial improvement with (strange) dietary adjustments
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Dysfunkion
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That's what I'm noticing myself is a general trend, individual foods tend to be their own worlds but when you mix them, things get weird and for some reason with dairy products it gets very weird. I should actually make myself a mixing scale of most volatile foods mixed and least. I also notice that what is consumed after matters a lot more than before unless maybe what was consumed before was consumed hours ago and is really fermented in there and producing a lot of byproducts. Reactions can go strong for over 2 days before they majorly start tapering off if said reaction was strong enough.
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So it's official, vitamin C greatly cuts down gut reactions when another 2 gram dose is taken at about 3 PM no matter what time I eat dinner which is usually around 7 PM (I take a couple grams in the morning too but that wasn't enough to do this and dosage timing with vitamic C appears to matter a lot). Doesn't appear to matter what common reaction is going on based on what I normally consume for better or for worse. I can still feel it but it's greatly lessened. There is also other strange things about it in general I can't make sense of but they seem to be tied to the circadian rhythm.
If I take the fifth gram later around 9 PM this will kill a lot of what little was left of the reaction from the food but instead of being relaxing when the gram is taken later if the other doses have been taken the dose will be extremely stimulating and carry over heavily into the next day. This will happen if dinner was consumed or just a snack if I didn't make any. I'm not sure what is going on there as vitamin C doesn't appear to have any stimulating properties and only does when the late dose is taken at one gram IF the others have been taken. It's repeatable too in all common conditions, one of the most baffling reactions I've had to something yet. The fifth dose is a fatigue miracle but it comes at a great cost it seems as my anxiety levels will be prone to shooting through the roof the next day and it will affect my deep sleep in the early morning but not the initial falling asleep phase. How strange.
Too bad that Vitamin C seems to be a double-edged sword for you. If effects were strictly beneficial, you could try intravenous administration by which one can achieve >10x higher blood levels. Vitamin C absorption from food/supplements is basically capped at a few hundred mg, no matter how much you take. With infusions, you can take over 20 grams relatively safely and it goes directly into the system. I tried it, had several infusions with very high doses. I felt no real effect, neither good nor bad.
But this is definitely not recommended for you, because you also have negative effects from vitamin C...who knows what a megadose would do.
There is one big hole in my calcium-oxalate-mixing theory: Only tiny amounts of insoluble (pre-formed) calcium oxalate are absorbed and absorption of dietary oxalate gets lower with higher calcium intake over the day (because it forms insoluble calcium oxalate):
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15153567/
Can a tiny amount of calcium oxalate (a few mg maybe) that according to studies is absorbed if calcium and oxalate are co-administered explain the very profound symptoms these meals are causing?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15153567/
Can a tiny amount of calcium oxalate (a few mg maybe) that according to studies is absorbed if calcium and oxalate are co-administered explain the very profound symptoms these meals are causing?
Or could it be part of the condition that higher amounts of calcium oxalate are somehow absorbed and these are forming micro crystals in the tissues and capillaries? Some special kind of leaky gut?
Dysfunkion
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I just need to play around with it more in my safe limits to see if I can find any other patterns in there. Maybe play with different dosing divisions on size and timing 4 grams or under. The effects are near immediate though so I suspect its some gut thing and infusions which I have no access to right now may give me a different reaction.
I didn't take the last 5th gram last night and today I'm feeling more fatigued and I added green peas to the mix again without anything else but cauliflower and rice which I had on its own when I added the 2nd 2 gram dose of vitamin C a day and experienced much less of a reaction. Green peas specifically make me a lot more groggy and it will always translate to the next morning. Ill try replacing them with some spinach a couple days a week and see how I deal with that. Really sucks when you have no choice to work in such limitation like this or get much sicker. Some people at least have chicken breast, I have no land or bird meat period I can consume.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523274626 - I wonder if this has anything to do with it. I believe 9 pm is when melatonin secretion starts and dosing C when it has an adrenal component at that specific time hits a certain mechanism that does something weird causing a total reversal which destroys fatigue but also has very bad consequences since in the morning cortisol just ramps up more.
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Dysfunkion
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I've considered that too, I dont think high plant oxalate food does anything much to me from what I've experienced, it could be most of it isn't even getting absorbed and only a certain handful of types of things are getting through. Not sure if such a discriminating leaky gut is possible but considering it.
Regarding my coffee/chocolate intolerance, caffeine and theobromine convert into paraxanthine, which has various metabolic effects. While both clear from the bloodstream within hours from a single dose, repeated dosing of caffeine causes an accumulation of paraxanthine. So, that seems to fit my experience. I'm not sure how long it's supposed to take for paraxanthine to clear out after several days of caffeine/theobromine.
Dysfunkion
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Well either way I'm not giving up my black gold cause it's one of the few things that keeps me going. I have noticed something very interesting about coffee though. Some brands and products within them are much worse for me than others. I found a consistent thing where the more fine ground and dark it is, the worse I will react to it. The reaction will always be a hotter feeling head, worsened brain fog, and some of the mild flu like symptoms. I'll feel a bit feverish but with like usual no fever.
I noticed this with a cheaper brand I was drinking at first over the summer that was much darker in roast and created a more muddy mug no matter what I did. When I opened a new bag the other day of some Starbucks House Blend I noticed it was a bit darker in roast and was about the same grind. I just finished a bag of their light roast blend that wasn't as finely ground with no reaction of the sort and I drink a lot of it every day. The bag before that was from a brand that also produces a thinner brew with just as much caffeine punch and a less fine grind which I was completely fine with. This one in just one mug doesn't make me feel too good and another interesting note is the further into the work week I am the worse this reaction gets especially in the 2 PM range when I make my next brew of it.I'm probably gonna finish it just because I don't wanna waste coffee as it's super expensive and it's a bag I got on clearance that's been sitting there for long enough but I wonder what is causing that since of the previous bags I was drinking I could freely drink as much as I wanted without any issues. Since it increases as the work week (monday through friday, it's brutal) goes on it has to have a heavy immune component too.
I noticed this with a cheaper brand I was drinking at first over the summer that was much darker in roast and created a more muddy mug no matter what I did. When I opened a new bag the other day of some Starbucks House Blend I noticed it was a bit darker in roast and was about the same grind. I just finished a bag of their light roast blend that wasn't as finely ground with no reaction of the sort and I drink a lot of it every day. The bag before that was from a brand that also produces a thinner brew with just as much caffeine punch and a less fine grind which I was completely fine with. This one in just one mug doesn't make me feel too good and another interesting note is the further into the work week I am the worse this reaction gets especially in the 2 PM range when I make my next brew of it.I'm probably gonna finish it just because I don't wanna waste coffee as it's super expensive and it's a bag I got on clearance that's been sitting there for long enough but I wonder what is causing that since of the previous bags I was drinking I could freely drink as much as I wanted without any issues. Since it increases as the work week (monday through friday, it's brutal) goes on it has to have a heavy immune component too.
My sister has been complaining about dizzy spells for a few months. Yesterday she mentioned that certain coffee beverages (cappuccino was one) seem to be followed by dizzy spells. I doubt that her new intolerance is related to mine, but caffeine is a serious drug, and the other chemicals probably depend on the type of bean, roasting, brewing, etc.
It's not as simple as <food type> causes symptoms; it's specific instance of food, and maybe specific combination with another food within a certain period of time, and time of day, etc. My contaminated BBQ chicken certainly wasn't the same as previous chickens.
As for taste, I remember one batch of cheap, common (MJB I think), coffee tasted absolutely amazing! Other batches of the same brand, just ho-hum. I had a similar experience maybe 30 years ago. If they could replicate that reliably, they could sell it as an expensive brand.
It's not as simple as <food type> causes symptoms; it's specific instance of food, and maybe specific combination with another food within a certain period of time, and time of day, etc. My contaminated BBQ chicken certainly wasn't the same as previous chickens.
As for taste, I remember one batch of cheap, common (MJB I think), coffee tasted absolutely amazing! Other batches of the same brand, just ho-hum. I had a similar experience maybe 30 years ago. If they could replicate that reliably, they could sell it as an expensive brand.
100% true. That's what makes it so incredibly complicated to figure out.
There is definitely a circadian element to it. When I get worse, much of it usually happens overnight. I wake up with very strong symptoms, much stronger than before going to sleep.
I am also reconsidering that hypothesis at the moment. Oxalates or especially calcium oxalate may not do anything, and especially for calcium oxalate, this is expected because as you state, it's being absorbed only in trace amount.
I have a way to test this conclusively with fresh spinach. I have noticed that I sometimes didn't react much to spinach which is super-high in both soluble and insoluble (mainly calcium) oxalate. I think it was the fat and protein in the meal (e.g., spinach lasagna vs. no-fat spinach pasta), fermentation accelerators (e.g., non-pasteurized cheeses), slow vs. fast heating times, and meal sequence (subsequent and previous meals' fat and protein content) that caused the symptoms, not the calcium or the oxalate.
I will probably test this soon. If plain cooked fresh spinach (no fat added!) with a previous and subsequent low-fat, low protein meal (e.g., plain bananas, pasta with tomato) does not cause symptoms, I can probably rule out oxalate (both soluble and insoluble/bound to calcium) as a sole cause of symptoms.
I am of course not sure if fermentation is the problem here, but coffee is also a fermented product. Not as much as cocoa, but still. Different brands may have different fermentation times and that could conceivably have a strong effect on symptoms (if fermentation is the problem). They also differ in how finely the beans are ground, so maybe more or fewer solids may pass the filter. Also the roasting differs, some brands roast it more thoroughly than others which results in different flavor profiles.
Since it's such a variable product, I wouldn't be surprised that different brands cause different reactions. Same might be true for type of product (filtered vs. instant) and preparation methods (temperature, strength, filtering, preparation time).
Dysfunkion
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Im also going to try the spinach experiments next and see what happens. May do it tonight actually as I haven't had dinner a couple days and was gonna make food tonight anyways.
Also an interesting note on my reactions to meat. I went out over the weekend to somewhere where they had frog legs and I had a bunch. I am not reactive to amphibian meat either so currently its only bird and mammal meat that causes issues. I just can't get to the bottom of this one. I'm the only person I know of with this allergy combination on the meat front.
If I remember correctly, for you, it's quite well-established that you don't react to insoluble oxalate, because you could tolerate larger amounts of cinnamon with no issues. Spinach could be used to check soluble oxalates. It contains a lot of both soluble and insoluble oxalates, though soluble oxalate is higher. That said, there is more one could think of that might be a trigger in spinach, e.g., chlorophyll, carotenoids, etc. So that experiment is probably worth trying.
And salmon, if I remember correctly. It's interesting that this is so different for different meats. This is certainly worth exploring further, especially if other factors play a role (minced vs. steak, age of animal, age of ripening of meat, organ vs. non-organ meat of same animal, with vs. without skin, interactions with other foods in the same meal). I myself have noticed that I can tolerate steak (up to 3 oz) quite well, but minced meat seems to cause symptoms, possible because tissues are destroyed which invites bacteria to invade the meat and cause fermentation.
That is indeed strange. I have heard of allergies against seafood in general or shellfish, but not against only salmon. Tick bites can trigger meat allergies, but as far as I know only for mammal meat, not for birds:
https://www.cdc.gov/alpha-gal-syndrome/about/index.html
But in general, allergies against various forms of meat are common, just the combination is strange.
I think the effect of fat in the diet is really key to managing the symptoms. It feels like when protein-rich foods are consumed, the next two meals should not contain fat, even if a whole night is between the meals (meal mixing in the digestive tract). I have noticed on several occasions that eating something like hummus sometimes causes symptoms and sometimes doesn't or does much less. I think it depends on the fat content of the subsequent meals.
I now think it's less likely this is because of a fat soluble compound because the symptoms last 3-4 days or about as long as the subsequent (fatty) meal (not the one that presumably caused the symptoms) takes to leave the digestive tract. There is generally not much nutrient absorption in the large intestine and only a small proportion of dietary fat reaches the large intestine:
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-72473-7_30-1?fromPaywallRec=true
I would suspect that most fat and whatever may be fat soluble should be largely absorbed within 24 hours.
My 2nd hypothesis, toward which I am leaning right now, is that the bacteria somehow need or use fat to make the harmful compound. it has been shown that the presence of fat can alter bacterial fermentation products. Example: Nitrosamine.
Maybe the fat added does a similar thing for whatever the bacteria did with a previous meal.
I now think it's less likely this is because of a fat soluble compound because the symptoms last 3-4 days or about as long as the subsequent (fatty) meal (not the one that presumably caused the symptoms) takes to leave the digestive tract. There is generally not much nutrient absorption in the large intestine and only a small proportion of dietary fat reaches the large intestine:
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-72473-7_30-1?fromPaywallRec=true
I would suspect that most fat and whatever may be fat soluble should be largely absorbed within 24 hours.
My 2nd hypothesis, toward which I am leaning right now, is that the bacteria somehow need or use fat to make the harmful compound. it has been shown that the presence of fat can alter bacterial fermentation products. Example: Nitrosamine.
Maybe the fat added does a similar thing for whatever the bacteria did with a previous meal.
Dysfunkion
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I'm like your fat hypothesis now wondering if that has something to do with it. In various meats the fats are probably coupled with many different compounds depending on the meat. Salmon is an extremely fatty fish and has a very unique compound profile. The frog legs didn't appear to be all that fatty and didn't taste like much so I suspect there wasn't too much to them when it came down to compounds in the meat. Ill try to brainstorm some things to try regarding this.
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Update 3/19 - so last night I added a block of spinach to the usual rice and cauliflower all cooked together like usual too because I'm never in a situation where I'm just having plain spinach on its own and it's just more useful to try things mainly in the normal contexts of how I currently consume things.
Interestingly the reaction to it up front wasn't like the other veggies. Up front I felt more tired physically and mentally a bit more heavy. There wasn't a reaction to it like for example the broccoli and cauliflower mixed with the rice where up front my face would feel more burny and I'd feel more stimulated but in a bad way that also drastically increases my brain fatigue all the same. Today I just feel like crap in a different way. Very groggy and a bit melancholic today and my digestive system is a bit more bloated than with other veggie and rice combinations. Just feel generally off and kind of irritated. Anxiety is also a bit higher but the groggy feeling is kind of muting it up front a bit. Definitely not having spinach again and I think if it was the oxalate load my reaction would have been similar to other things in some way. Spinach appears to not be great for me but im not sure why as the reaction doesn't match anything else I consume.
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I would be very interested to hear your thoughts and observation. I personally think it's not just the fat in the meat itself, but any added fat and the effects can occur when the subsequent meal contains any fat and probably even the meal after the subsequent meal. I have noticed symptoms after a low fat protein/choline-rich non-dairy dinner (minestrone - beans, tomatos, celery, carrots, potatos, garlic, onions, minor amount of oil) even with no-fat breakfast (bananas only) and the whole night in between (about 17 hours in total).
The lunch the next day (banana milk - 1 liter of milk and 4 bananas - containing 38 grams of milk fat) still caused symptoms. I think there have to be two no fat or very low fat meals after a protein/choline rich meal. The symptoms did not appear to start until the fatty lunch was consumed. They started about 1 hour after lunch though they were less than expected (mainly mild headaches and some palpitations and fatigue), so the 17 hour waiting period did help, but it wasn't enough. I think it has to be 24 hours and there have to be low/no-fat meals in between to push the protein/choline-rich meal further down the digestive tract so that it can't mix with the fatty meal.
My refined hypothesis is now the following:
*Bacterial fermentation from unavoidable, ubiquitous strains of lactic acid bacteria occurs inside the body after a meal that is rich in protein and choline resulting in one or more compounds that are harmful to me for some reason, but unproblematic for other people (similar to e.g., gluten/celiac disease).
*It also occurs in fermented foods outside the body (e.g., in fermented dough) with the notable exception of dairy products.
*These compounds only cause symptoms (or at least cause much stronger symptoms), when the meal itself is high-fat or when a subsequent meal within the next 24 hours contains fat.
*Other foods (nightshades, rice, zucchini/courgettes, dietary nitrates, blueberries, certain spices, high amounts of calcium or lysine, raw mushrooms, caffeine etc.) may or may not cause symptoms on their own, but in any case seem to exacerbate existing symptoms.
While this seems to explain a lot of my reactions to foods, I am still not sure, why I deteriorated so strongly with the potato-rice diet a few years ago. Actually, I am not sure, if I added some oil here to get essential fatty acids. At the time, I did the potato-rice diet to check for food allergies, so I might in fact have added a refined plant oil because it is usually not a concern for food allergies.
*Bacterial fermentation from unavoidable, ubiquitous strains of lactic acid bacteria occurs inside the body after a meal that is rich in protein and choline resulting in one or more compounds that are harmful to me for some reason, but unproblematic for other people (similar to e.g., gluten/celiac disease).
*It also occurs in fermented foods outside the body (e.g., in fermented dough) with the notable exception of dairy products.
*These compounds only cause symptoms (or at least cause much stronger symptoms), when the meal itself is high-fat or when a subsequent meal within the next 24 hours contains fat.
*Other foods (nightshades, rice, zucchini/courgettes, dietary nitrates, blueberries, certain spices, high amounts of calcium or lysine, raw mushrooms, caffeine etc.) may or may not cause symptoms on their own, but in any case seem to exacerbate existing symptoms.
While this seems to explain a lot of my reactions to foods, I am still not sure, why I deteriorated so strongly with the potato-rice diet a few years ago. Actually, I am not sure, if I added some oil here to get essential fatty acids. At the time, I did the potato-rice diet to check for food allergies, so I might in fact have added a refined plant oil because it is usually not a concern for food allergies.
One addition:
Fat in meals subsequent to a high-protein/choline meal seems to have a larger negative effect compared to fat in that same meal. I think this is because the fermentation product is one that takes time to produce and until it has appeared in higher quantities, the fat from the same meal is largely absorbed already (fat absorption is nearly complete within hours for many foods).
On the other hand, fat in a subsequent meal hits the small intestine (where I suspect much of the fermentation to occur) at a point when the harmful compound has already been produced.
The mechanism by which the addition of fat ultimately triggers (most of) the symptoms may be fat solubility of the compound or the compound is a precursor to another compound and that transformation is enabled or catalysed by the presence of fat (like in the nitrosamine study I posted earlier)
Fat in meals subsequent to a high-protein/choline meal seems to have a larger negative effect compared to fat in that same meal. I think this is because the fermentation product is one that takes time to produce and until it has appeared in higher quantities, the fat from the same meal is largely absorbed already (fat absorption is nearly complete within hours for many foods).
On the other hand, fat in a subsequent meal hits the small intestine (where I suspect much of the fermentation to occur) at a point when the harmful compound has already been produced.
The mechanism by which the addition of fat ultimately triggers (most of) the symptoms may be fat solubility of the compound or the compound is a precursor to another compound and that transformation is enabled or catalysed by the presence of fat (like in the nitrosamine study I posted earlier)
I think you mentioned a very important point here and this is what I think I also notice and, importantly, it would fit the theory:
Bad foods cause something (probably bacterial fermentation in the small intestine) that only (or mainly) manifests if another nutrient (for me: fat presumably) is present. Fat from a previous good meal is largely absorbed when a bad meal enters the small intestine and can do no/less harm, therefore previous meals are less problematic. Fat in a subsequent meals enters the small intestine where fat absorption takes place and can thus mix with the bad meal.