The 3 Ps A Closer Look at the Middle One

[dannybex]

Why MSM (methyl sulphonyl methane)? Because 1/it mops up virtually anything toxic and eliminates it from the body, 2/it's done absolute wonders for me since last year. It also took about six months to notice the improvement in IBS/intolerance symptoms.

Why ALA? Because it is the only thing I've read about so far that eliminates mercury from the brain. I'm not adding this until well into the detox regime, and then but gingerly...

Hi Stressman,

With the greatest of respect, I have to mention that some people, perhaps many people with mercury toxicity, cannot handle sulfur foods and/or MSM, primarily those with sulfation problems (noted by high cysteine levels and problems with the PST enzyme), but mainly because it is not a chelator. It does not "mops up virtually anything toxic and eliminates it from the body". I wish it did!

It does not remove mercury or other heavy metals...it just kind of stirs them up because it has only one thiol group (compared to ALA's 2 thiols)...and this weak "grabbing" will certainly pick up mercury/lead/arsenic, etc., but it could deposit it elsewhere causing even more problems. The website you linked claimed that removes heavy metals but provided no research -- just patent claims -- to back that up.

But if YOU'VE done well with it, then perhaps you don't have these stored toxins in your body, and more power to you!

Just wanted to warn others that what works for some may indeed be very dangerous for others.

 

[richvank]

Hi Rich,

Thanks a million for this, a huge million!

Yes, the first thing we'll do if and when the detox is successful is the methylation turn-on.

The regression therapy was Dianetics, originated by the same chap, Ron Hubbard, who designed the Scientology drug detox you mention. This was the detox I did. Rather than psycholigical, spiritual is used to describe Dianetics.

On Dr Atkins' IV ClO2 therapy, we might wonder why, all of a sudden, there is such controversy about Jim Humble's Miracle Mineral Solution, which is basically ClO2.

On MSM, here's a good start:

http://www.msm-info.com/

We envisage probably six months on the detox without sauna, starting with Se 200 micro-g with A,C&E (how do I get a Greek mu?). We'll watch points, and if all is well, probably much later, next comes the MSM, a flat mustard spoon to start with. I started with a heaped teaspoon, and Herxed all over the place until I re-read the instructions, but that's me... ;-) And so ditto until we are ready to start the ALA. The caps come in 500mg size, so we'll have to break them open and start with the tiniest amount. Then finally, towards the end, we'll do the same with the NAC, by which time any Hg should have been eliminated except perhaps from the brain (though it's possible the MSM will have done this).

Any glitches and we'll stop immediately. I've still got my drawing board to go back to. Slayadragon's post is frightening enough to keep me well on my toes on this one.

I'll keep posted on progress here, of course.

Oh yes, when analysing your next Wagner beam shear web, don't forget to take the tangent modulus into account!

With many thanks again,

stressman.

Hi, Stressman.

O.K., I'm somewhat familiar with L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. It has been quite controversial in the U.S. I'm glad to hear that it helped you.

One thing I forgot to mention about sauna treatment, of which you are no doubt aware, having done it, is that it's important to make sure the person remains well hydrated, and also that the essential minerals are supplemented, since some of them can be lost during this treatment. Starting with short sessions in the sauna has been recommended by some.

Yes, the chemistry of chlorine dioxide has been known for a long time. The FDA generally takes a dim view of substances sold over-the-counter that are claimed to be effective against dieseases, and, predictably, they came out against the Miracle Mineral Solution last July. Looks like it's still being sold, though. It would be difficult to totally eliminate use of it, since sodium chlorite is commonly available for water treatment.

Thank you for the MSM link. I'm familiar with Stanley Jacob's work, and have a copy of his book on MSM. It seems clear from the few experiments that he cites that MSM does enter the amino acids metabolism, but as far as I know the enzymes and reactions involved have not been identified. Dr. David Gregg has suggested that when MSM enters the body, an equilibrium is established between MSM and DMSO, and that much of the effect of MSM actually depends on DMSO. I don't think there's much financial incentive for studying the biochemistry of these compounds, because they are natural and cannot be patented. So there hasn't been a lot of progress in developing an understanding of their detailed biochemistry.

Yes, please keep us posted on how these things go for your daughter. I certainly wish her the best.

About the Wagner beam analysis, thanks for the advice! One never knows, but I'm guessing that this problem is not likely to come up in my daily routine in the near future! -)

Best regards,

Rich

 

[richvank]

It's my impression that Paul Cheney thinks that the shutdown of detoxification (both P450 enzymes and methylation) is functional, and that restoring it in people who are really sick would be a bad thing.

He seems to think the same thing about the low oxygen in the tissues: that it's decreased for a reason, to protect us from having "something worse" happening.

Is that your understanding of what his position is? Has he explained to you how the body might be purposefully shutting down methylation?

Based on my own experiences, I believe that my body works very hard to keep from detoxing anything, through any channel, if it's in a bad environment. If I force it to do so (for instance, by doing saunas, supporting methylation, taking csm, etc. etc.), I get extremely sick. In a good environment, detoxification is not fun, but it is bearable and fruitful.

I thus would like to pose the idea that there's only so much "loose" toxin the body can handle. If it's already at its limit from current exposures, loosening up more from the reserves may not be a good strategy. I've seen people skirt the edges of death trying to push it.

On the other hand, even when I've been in really good environments, my body has needed help of various sorts to detoxify effectively. So the idea (for instance) that the methylation block will reverse itself when the body is ready is not consistent with my experience.

Best, Lisa

Hi, Lisa.

I would say that Dr. Cheney has sort of an "anthropomorphic" view of the human body, if that makes any sense. In other words, it seems to me that he attributes a sort of "wisdom" to the body, which is involuntary from the point of view of the person's mind, and that this "wisdom" continues to guide essentially all the details of what goes on in the body even under conditions of serious disease. I have had some interesting interactions with him about this. He applies this view to a number of things, and yes, in the past to shutdown of methylation as well. However, more recently, in the "XMRV era,"he has suggested that supporting methylation might be desirable. As you may know, this idea seems to be catching on, and was mentioned by Judy Mikovits in her recent talk in Santa Rosa, because methylation of genes silences them, and retroviral genes should be vulnerable to this effect.

My view tends to be more mechanistic, probably because of my background in engineering and the physical sciences. I look for cause and effect in the processes that go on in the body.

I think it's possible that these two perspectives can be harmonized, and in fact, I think that has to be true, because both have validity, and truth must be self-consistent. The body does have automatic responses to the whole variety of stressors that it encounters, and it is often able to counteract them effectively to maintain allostasis. The question still is, though, to what degree is the body and its "wisdom" still in control, and to what degree has its capacity to take care of itself been exceeded, so that it has become a victim of external forces. Obviously, this must occur at some point, since death does occur as a result of external forces in many cases. And we also know that some of the body's responses can be excessive. For example, inflammation. There are situations in which the outcome will be better if inflammation response of the body is limited to some extent.

I appreciate hearing of your experience in dealing with simulataneous toxicity from various sources, and I think that what you say is valid. While the body "wisdom" idea does have merit, in my opinion (though I would say that it is built-in in the design) I think that the path toward progress in understanding what's going on needs to take into account the detailed cause and effect tree, to the degree we can sort out what it is.

Best regards,

Rich

 

[stressman]

Hi Dannybex,

Two years ago I was just a (thankfully!) retired engineer, so my learning curve is still near vertical. So, all contributions including yours, gratefully received.

In my daughter's case (let's call her "Curly" from now on) she's on an elimination diet at the moment. At her current stage she's able to eat several sulphur containing foods, eggs, meat, fish, garlic, brussels sprouts etc. We'll be keeping a keen eye out for anything that reacts badly.

Looking back two years, I break into a cold sweat at the very first protocol I put her on. This was after Dr Cheney's observation that 1/the blood was low on oxygenation, 2/even if it were oxygenated it wouldn't get delivered to where it was intended because 3/the body lacked the glutathione needed to deliver it.

After consulting my trusty Atkins I put her on Ge-132 for oxygenation, niacin as a vasodilator and NAC 600mg (Ouch!?) for the glutathione. Actually, she responded rather well until her stubborn (where did she get that from?) tendency to climb three steep hills in one day parked her on the sofa again...

Many thanks for your observations,

stressman.

 

[stressman]

Hi Rich,

Aye, but I've been out of Scientology for about 26 years now, though it is still with great fondness and admiration that I remember its techniques. Controversial, oh yes! Interestingly, the sauna detox did not, to the best of my recollection, use any chelator, the toxins simply washing into the bloodstream and out via the brain (in some cases) and the sweat. I turned on a full-blown 'trip' for about 10 minutes while in the sauna. This was very common so the exercise was always conducted in pairs so the 'twin' could help the other in such a case.

On water, fortunately Curly is strict about that anyway, and we've got her some multi vits and mins less Fe and Cu. Thanks for the reminder and your good wishes!

On MSM, Dr Atkins used to use either this or DMSO interchangeably. I gather the body swaps them from one to the other depending on what it requires. There's only 1 'O' between them.

I'll be posting progress soon.

Meanwhile, all the best,

stressman.

 

[stressman]

Hi everyone - please bear with me, I'm turning up some fantastic stuff during my continuing research. I'll write it up this week and post it.

Meanwhile, Curly's on her sixth week of 200 g of selenium. No change of course, but we don't expect any at this stage.

If you're still interested Dannybex, there's some good stuff coming up...

stressman

 

[stressman]

I started this thread on a note of surprise at discovering that IBS sufferers have very similar pathologies to PWC’s, and wondering why the condition precipitated to CFS in some but not in the case of PWIBS’s. It seemed to have something to do with toxic load, perhaps less in the PWIBS group than in PWC’s. Maybe.

So let’s go back to before the middle P, precipitation. The familiar stuff, stress, lowered glutathione, reduced resistance to toxicity especially heavy metals, mercury etc., and viral reactivation (severe EBV in Curly’s case). So where did all the selenium (Se) go (I’ll expand on this later)? The answer is 1/ gobbled up by the free mercury (Hg) and 2/ gobbled up by the reactivated viruses, which feed on Se. To the extent that, if they are starved of the Se, they mutate and start to get really rowdy. So, a body with little or no Se, hence little or no chance of making any more glutathione.

And so to Se. Here was my second surprise. CFS literature is heavily interwoven with various detox procedures, mainly for Hg because it’s about the worst there is, but also for all the rest. Why, when all a person needs to do is to pop some Se? Se and Hg form a bond (mercuric selenide, HgSe) as strong as two bulldogs with jaws locked together. Much stronger than any sulphur bond. I wouldn’t dream of pumping my precious offspring full of DMSA/DMPS anyway. Ugh!

In a large number of studies of sea birds, fish and even one on human cadavers, Hg and Se was found in approximately 1:1 molar ratio in the form of bound HgSe. This is almost completely non-toxic, to the extent that the body doesn’t even try to get rid of it. It accumulates in various parts of the body, including the brain (note!), and seems to stay more or less for life without toxic liability. So our famous poisonous fish, oozing Hg from the gills seems to be a folk myth in most cases. Swordfish, for example, are high in Hg. True. But they are higher in Se than Hg which means that all the Hg is bound, leaving an excess of Se. Which is very good for you, of course. The bound Hg does absolutely nothing. Wow. Wow… Steer clear of Pilot Whales and some fresh water fish though. They have more Hg than Se, so there is some free Hg to do its dirty work.

So that’s why I’ve started Curly on Se. I knew it was good, but I didn’t know it was THAT good when we started. It’s also good for cadmium, arsenic, lead, platinum and it even has a little go at aluminium (aluminum across the pond).

Given enough Se then, there would appear to be no liability to adding molybdenum, MSM and ALA at suitable later dates, as a general spring clean.

Words of wisdom welcome please!

 

[anne_likes_red]

Stressman no doubt you'll get some real wisdom, from the likes of Rich and others, in due course.

I'll just mention that I had DMSA mercury chelation 12 1/2 years ago after amalgam removal and selenium (along with Coenzyme Q 10, Vit C, molybdenium, chromium) was an important part of my protocol.

Best, Anne.

I started this thread on a note of surprise at discovering that IBS sufferers have very similar pathologies to PWC’s, and wondering why the condition precipitated to CFS in some but not in the case of PWIBS’s. It seemed to have something to do with toxic load, perhaps less in the PWIBS group than in PWC’s. Maybe.

So let’s go back to before the middle P, precipitation. The familiar stuff, stress, lowered glutathione, reduced resistance to toxicity especially heavy metals, mercury etc., and viral reactivation (severe EBV in Curly’s case). So where did all the selenium (Se) go (I’ll expand on this later)? The answer is 1/ gobbled up by the free mercury (Hg) and 2/ gobbled up by the reactivated viruses, which feed on Se. To the extent that, if they are starved of the Se, they mutate and start to get really rowdy. So, a body with little or no Se, hence little or no chance of making any more glutathione.

And so to Se. Here was my second surprise. CFS literature is heavily interwoven with various detox procedures, mainly for Hg because it’s about the worst there is, but also for all the rest. Why, when all a person needs to do is to pop some Se? Se and Hg form a bond (mercuric selenide, HgSe) as strong as two bulldogs with jaws locked together. Much stronger than any sulphur bond. I wouldn’t dream of pumping my precious offspring full of DMSA/DMPS anyway. Ugh!

In a large number of studies of sea birds, fish and even one on human cadavers, Hg and Se was found in approximately 1:1 molar ratio in the form of bound HgSe. This is almost completely non-toxic, to the extent that the body doesn’t even try to get rid of it. It accumulates in various parts of the body, including the brain (note!), and seems to stay more or less for life without toxic liability. So our famous poisonous fish, oozing Hg from the gills seems to be a folk myth in most cases. Swordfish, for example, are high in Hg. True. But they are higher in Se than Hg which means that all the Hg is bound, leaving an excess of Se. Which is very good for you, of course. The bound Hg does absolutely nothing. Wow. Wow… Steer clear of Pilot Whales and some fresh water fish though. They have more Hg than Se, so there is some free Hg to do its dirty work.

So that’s why I’ve started Curly on Se. I knew it was good, but I didn’t know it was THAT good when we started. It’s also good for cadmium, arsenic, lead, platinum and it even has a little go at aluminium (aluminum across the pond).

Given enough Se then, there would appear to be no liability to adding molybdenum, MSM and ALA at suitable later dates, as a general spring clean.

Words of wisdom welcome please!

 

[stressman]

Thanks Anne. How did you do on that, and are you still taking the Se?

Regards,

stressman.

 

[anne_likes_red]

Thanks Anne. How did you do on that, and are you still taking the Se?

Regards,

stressman.

Hi again.

Apart from nausea from the DMSA, I felt good on the protocol. But it's very hard for me to know if I really made any significant improvement on it becasue I contracted glandular fever (mono) several months after starting chelation and that really knocked me down the scale from a Bell's 8 to a 4. I never regained that 8!

My GP's wife has Multiple Sclerosis - she made great gains on the same chelation protocol, which was offered by another, integrative doctor. I understand she has to avoid wheat and other things, and she takes regular probiotics and other supplements. She's maintained her health well enough to work full-time for more than 10 years now.

I take 50mcg Selenium as L-selenomethionine in my Yasko multi.

I remember a lack of Selenium in the soil was suggested as a possible factor in the Tapanui Flu/ME outbreak back in the 1980's.

Anne.

 

[stressman]

Hi Anne,

Glandular fever is the EBV is it not? EBV feeds on Se, and given that NZ is Se deficient in the soil, your dose looks pretty small. Dr Atkins thinks we should all be taking 200 g every day, and he was basically addressing Americans who are well off in it. I wouldn't dream of arguing with the genius Dr Yasko though!

Have you tried Rich's mini-Yasko methylation turn on at all? It is this that we are aiming for when we have finished our detox regime.

Sadly, I recently lost an old friend to MS before I could cobble up a regime for the poor chap.

Best regards,

stressman.

 

[richvank]

***Hi, Stressman.

***My responses are at the asterisks below:

I started this thread on a note of surprise at discovering that IBS sufferers have very similar pathologies to PWC’s, and wondering why the condition precipitated to CFS in some but not in the case of PWIBS’s. It seemed to have something to do with toxic load, perhaps less in the PWIBS group than in PWC’s. Maybe.

***Maybe so. I think that genetics could also be a factor, as well as the particular species of bacteria involved. In CFS, it is not clear to me whether the problems in the gut cause glutathione depletion and the ensuing partial methylation cycle block, or whether the cause and effect is the opposite of this. Dr. de Meirleir believes that the former is true. I can envision mechanisms in which the latter might be the case. Namely, low glutathione should lower stomach acid production, and methylation deficit should lower pancreatic enzyme secretion, both of which should lead to problems in the digestive system. Perhaps the cause and effect can go either way, depending on the particular case.

So let’s go back to before the middle P, precipitation. The familiar stuff, stress, lowered glutathione, reduced resistance to toxicity especially heavy metals, mercury etc., and viral reactivation (severe EBV in Curly’s case). So where did all the selenium (Se) go (I’ll expand on this later)? The answer is 1/ gobbled up by the free mercury (Hg) and 2/ gobbled up by the reactivated viruses, which feed on Se. To the extent that, if they are starved of the Se, they mutate and start to get really rowdy. So, a body with little or no Se, hence little or no chance of making any more glutathione.

***I'm with you on Hg binding Se, but I hadn't heard that EBV lowers Se. Here is the abstract of a paper by Edwards et al. that lists some viruses that do code for a selenium containing enzyme. Later they added hepatitis C to this list:

Biol Trace Elem Res. 1997 Jan;56(1):63-91.
Genomic structures of viral agents in relation to the biosynthesis of selenoproteins.

Taylor EW, Nadimpalli RG, Ramanathan CS.

Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Design, University of Georgia, Athens 30601-2352, USA. wtaylor@rx.uga.edu
Abstract

The genomes of both bacteria and eukaryotic organisms are known to encode selenoproteins, using the UGA codon for seleno-cysteine (SeC), and a complex cotranslational mechanism for SeC incorporation into polypeptide chains, involving RNA stem-loop structures. These common features and similar codon usage strongly suggest that this is an ancient evolutionary development. However, the possibility that some viruses might also encode selenoproteins remained unexplored until recently. Based on an analysis of the genomic structure of the human immunodeficiency virus HIV-1, we demonstrated that several regions overlapping known HIV genes have the potential to encode selenoproteins (Taylor et al. [31], J. Med. Chem. 37, 2637-2654 [1994]). This is provocative in the light of overwhelming evidence of a role for oxidative stress in AIDS pathogenesis, and the fact that a number of viral diseases have been linked to selenium (Se) deficiency, either in humans or by in vitro and animal studies. These include HIV-AIDS, hepatitis B linked to liver disease and cancer, Coxsackie virus B3, Keshan disease, and the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), against which Se is a potent chemoprotective agent. There are also established biochemical mechanisms whereby extreme Se deficiency can induce a proclotting or hemorrhagic effect, suggesting that hemorrhagic fever viruses should also be examined for potential virally encoded selenoproteins. In addition to the RNA stem-loop structures required for SeC insertion at UGA codons, genomic structural features that may be required for selenoprotein synthesis can also include ribosomal frameshift sites and RNA pseudoknots if the potential selenoprotein module overlaps with another gene, which may prove to be the rule rather than the exception in viruses. One such pseudoknot that we predicted in HIV-1 has now been verified experimentally; a similar structure can be demonstrated in precisely the same location in the reverse transcriptase coding region of hepatitis B virus. Significant new findings reported here include the existence of highly distinctive glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px)-related sequences in Coxsackie B viruses, new theoretical data related to a previously proposed potential selenoprotein gene overlapping the HIV protease coding region, and further evidence in support of a novel frameshift site in the HIV nef gene associated with a well-conserved UGA codon in the 1-reading frame.

PMID: 9152512 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

And so to Se. Here was my second surprise. CFS literature is heavily interwoven with various detox procedures, mainly for Hg because it’s about the worst there is, but also for all the rest. Why, when all a person needs to do is to pop some Se? Se and Hg form a bond (mercuric selenide, HgSe) as strong as two bulldogs with jaws locked together. Much stronger than any sulphur bond. I wouldn’t dream of pumping my precious offspring full of DMSA/DMPS anyway. Ugh!

***It's true that Se and Hg form a very strong bond, which takes both out of bioavailability. It's also true that Hg binds much more strongly to Se than to the sulfur in sulfhydryl form.
With regard to DMSA and DMPS, I know physicians who use them, and who report good results with them, but I've also heard from people who have had bad responses to them. People who do not tolerate sulfur-containing foods or supplements don't do well with them.

In a large number of studies of sea birds, fish and even one on human cadavers, Hg and Se was found in approximately 1:1 molar ratio in the form of bound HgSe. This is almost completely non-toxic, to the extent that the body doesn’t even try to get rid of it. It accumulates in various parts of the body, including the brain (note!), and seems to stay more or less for life without toxic liability. So our famous poisonous fish, oozing Hg from the gills seems to be a folk myth in most cases. Swordfish, for example, are high in Hg. True. But they are higher in Se than Hg which means that all the Hg is bound, leaving an excess of Se. Which is very good for you, of course. The bound Hg does absolutely nothing. Wow. Wow… Steer clear of Pilot Whales and some fresh water fish though. They have more Hg than Se, so there is some free Hg to do its dirty work.

***I've read these papers, too. I just haven't had the courage to recommend use of high-dose selenium to bind mercury. I asked Dr. David Quig of Doctor's Data Lab what he thought about this at an autism conference a few years ago. He has specialized in heavy metals toxicity. He wasn't ready to recommend it for young children with autism, because he didn't know what the long term effects might be, but he said that if an old man (like me!) had Hg toxicity, he might consider it! As you noted, the animals seem to do O.K. with this Hg-Se complex,though. Se does have toxicity, so avoiding too high a level of "free" Se in the body would be important with this treatment. As far as I know, the toxic effects of Se are reversible if it is discontinued, though. The first symptoms of Se toxicity involve the nails and hair, I believe. I guess no one has had the courage (or has been able to get IRB approval, perhaps) to do this kind of study on humans. Getting funding for it would also be problematic, I think, both because Hg toxicity is sort of a political and legal football, and because there would be no possibility of patenting the treatment, having a monopoly, and deriving a tidy profit from it. From a purely scientific perspective, though, it looks tantalizing as a way to deal with Hg toxicity, and perhaps a way to deal with it in the brain.

***Another approach I have also kicked around on the internet boards, but still don't have the courage to recommend, is the possibility of trying high-dose methyl B12, after having cleared the inorganic mercury out of the rest of the body, beside the brain. Methyl B12 chemically has the ability to methylate mercury, which in theory could enable it to cross the blood-brain barrier and come back out of the brain. B12 in general is very nontoxic, so high doses would probably be O.K. The downside would be that if there was still inorganic mercury in the body, this could be methyated and possibly moved into the brain, which would be the opposite of what one would be trying to achieve. Again, I don't know of data on experience with this approach, particularly in humans, and the issues involved in doing such a study in humans would be essentially the same as with Se, though B12 has lower toxicity.

So that’s why I’ve started Curly on Se. I knew it was good, but I didn’t know it was THAT good when we started. It’s also good for cadmium, arsenic, lead, platinum and it even has a little go at aluminium (aluminum across the pond).

***I hope it pays off for her, and I'm glad that you are using a pretty reasonable dosage. I'll be very interested in how it goes for her.

Given enough Se then, there would appear to be no liability to adding molybdenum, MSM and ALA at suitable later dates, as a general spring clean.

Words of wisdom welcome please!

***I'm not sure my words contain all that much wisdom. I do appreciate being able to kick these things around with you, though.

***Best regards,

***Rich

 

[anne_likes_red]

Hi Stressman,

Yes EBV is what I had and I didn't know that it feeds on Selenium! Interesting. I think at least some people have a kind of reactivating EBV associated with their ME/CFS so I expect that puts quite a demand on their need for extra Se.

I am doing Rich's protocol. I've only started recently and I'm finding I have to take it very slow.

Yasko's full recommended dose of the Neurological Health formula would yield twice the dose I'm on, still that's a way short of what your Curly is taking

I do eat Brazil nuts though...that was strongly recommended to me by my nutritionally minded GP years before I got the EBV. Heres a University of Otago study comparing just 2 nuts a day to what I think (?) is a good dose of selenomethionine.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18258628
I don't eat a carefully measured 2 nuts a day but I have a small handful several times a week. I buy them in the shell and they're hard work to crack!

Best to you, and to Curly

Anne.

Hi Anne,

Glandular fever is the EBV is it not? EBV feeds on Se, and given that NZ is Se deficient in the soil, your dose looks pretty small. Dr Atkins thinks we should all be taking 200 g every day, and he was basically addressing Americans who are well off in it. I wouldn't dream of arguing with the genius Dr Yasko though!

Have you tried Rich's mini-Yasko methylation turn on at all? It is this that we are aiming for when we have finished our detox regime.

Sadly, I recently lost an old friend to MS before I could cobble up a regime for the poor chap.

Best regards,

stressman.

 

[stressman]

Hi Anne/Rich,

No, sorry, I misquoted the good Dr Atkins re EBV feeding off Se. I have no references saying it does. I had in mind, though, whatever other viral beasts may be lurking ready to pounce when the glutathione goes down. That includes reverse transcriptase (RT) of which Se is an inhibitor, with XMRV in mind (is that still under debate?). Presumably, should that be the case, more Se would become devoured unless it acts merely as a catalyst.

Rich, for one who still does not know a neutrophil from a lymphocyte, I shall have to get your abstract translated! I've copied Dr Taylor's table into my data though, thanks for that one.

On B12, once again my Atkins bible concurs with your notes above. I seem to remember one of the community being a bit windy of methylcobalamin, preferring hydroxycobalamin. Something to do with the methyl group, I thought it was Dr Myhill but I've just checked her book and it wasn't. I do know that if dimethyl selenium gets anywhere near methyl mercury the toxic effect is magnified about 10 000 times. The unfortunate rat died. I'll run some more checks on this.

Anne - thanks for your wishes re Curly, and you have mine for your current protocol.

Despite being constantly fatigued currently, Curly is basically strong as an ox, and one of her "things to do on the sofa" is watercolour painting. She's selling them on the internet, and has now got an art gallery interested. Inspiration for some, I hope.

Kind regards,

stressman.

Footnote: Dr Cheney is quoted as including EBV as a depleter of Se:

http://artemisandco.com/johnweb/CHAPTER13.htm

stressman

 

[stressman]

Week ten of the Se, 200 g/day. "Things" happening? A couple of months ago Curly told me that she had had no IBS problems until the CFS precipitated. Last night she told me that her innards now feel "completely normal for the first time in years". Well, we're watching this space to see if that lasts. If it does, however, that raises the issue of why. I can only conjecture at this stage, here goes: We know that some gut flora combine with Hg by forming a compound that protects them from it. Some of them give off H2S as a result of this compound. Right. So what happens when Se is swallowed and reaches these Hg-laden critters? It may seem likely that the Se disarms the Hg in the gut before it even becomes absorbed into the system.

This will be my next study but as usual, voices please!

I'm becoming more and more puzzled about this whole Se thing. When a body has enough Se, the Se knocks out the Hg by sacrificing itself, forming HgSe. What Se is left is used in running the body as normal. If there is little or no Se left, we've got trouble, big trouble that the community is all too familiar with. It seems to be a simple case of "that's what the body does with Hg". So, question: Why do so many studies refer to "detox pathways" for Hg? I can only assume at this stage that these detox pathways are the body's last ditch attempt to rid itself of the Hg in the absence of sufficient Se to do the job.

More voices please!

To recap briefly, Curly and I are not expecting to get anywhere fast by detox alone, just doing the groundwork prior to Rich's mini-Yasko methylation recovery.

I'd also like to thank everyone for contributing to this thread, and to wish you all well. If at the end of the day what we're doing now can help anyone when we've finished, it will have been very well worth it.

stressman.

 

[richvank]

Week ten of the Se, 200 g/day. "Things" happening? A couple of months ago Curly told me that she had had no IBS problems until the CFS precipitated. Last night she told me that her innards now feel "completely normal for the first time in years". Well, we're watching this space to see if that lasts. If it does, however, that raises the issue of why. I can only conjecture at this stage, here goes: We know that some gut flora combine with Hg by forming a compound that protects them from it. Some of them give off H2S as a result of this compound. Right. So what happens when Se is swallowed and reaches these Hg-laden critters? It may seem likely that the Se disarms the Hg in the gut before it even becomes absorbed into the system.

This will be my next study but as usual, voices please!

I'm becoming more and more puzzled about this whole Se thing. When a body has enough Se, the Se knocks out the Hg by sacrificing itself, forming HgSe. What Se is left is used in running the body as normal. If there is little or no Se left, we've got trouble, big trouble that the community is all too familiar with. It seems to be a simple case of "that's what the body does with Hg". So, question: Why do so many studies refer to "detox pathways" for Hg? I can only assume at this stage that these detox pathways are the body's last ditch attempt to rid itself of the Hg in the absence of sufficient Se to do the job.

More voices please!

To recap briefly, Curly and I are not expecting to get anywhere fast by detox alone, just doing the groundwork prior to Rich's mini-Yasko methylation recovery.

I'd also like to thank everyone for contributing to this thread, and to wish you all well. If at the end of the day what we're doing now can help anyone when we've finished, it will have been very well worth it.

stressman.

Hi, stressman.

I'm very happy to hear of Curly's progress!

I think you may be right about the action of selenium in binding mercury in the gut.

With regard to the body's detoxication of mercury, it is carried out by conjugation with glutathione, which involves the binding of a mercuric ions or methylmercury to the sulfur atoms in the sulfhydryl groups of glutathione molecules, followed by stripping off the glutamine and glycine, and acetyation of the remaining cysteine molecule.

While it's true that the binding of mercury to selenium is much stronger than to sulfur (perhaps by a factor of ten to the sixth power), it's also true that there is much more sulfur than selenium in the body (perhaps about 140 grams vs. less than one milligram). So I think that's how sulfur is able to compete for the binding of mercury and to actually remove it from the body. Chemistry is always involved with dynamic equilibria and competitive reactions.

Best regards,

Rich

 

[Freddd]

Hello everyone, Im new here so Ill briefly introduce myself. Im a retired aeronautical structural stress engineer (hence my nom de plume).

My daughter was diagnosed two years ago with ME/CFS and Ive devoted the intervening time to studying the condition. Ive studied all the big names associated with the disease, but did not discover the work of the good Rich van Konynenburg until a couple of months back, sadly. Quite a revelation!

This posting is a draft submission for peer review. I have not included any references at this stage.

So here we are, the three Ps, predisposition, precipitation and perpetuation, the first and last of which are well understood and described.

So what leads to the final precipitation of the condition? Ive dug out some very interesting stuff on the conditions that obtain prior to precipitation in a quest to answer my ongoing question as to why PWCs all have (very similar) gut dysbiosis. Stress seemed to be the most common link, so my Google Stress gut flora gave me the answer, though not the expected one. All hits were about IBS, not CFS. Well, well It turns out that stress destabilises glutathione, the HPA axis and of course, cortisol. This plays havoc with the gut flora. Question answered. However, it also indicated that PWIBS (sorry about the jargon) suffer the same physiological conditions as obtain in post-precipitation (i.e. chronic) ME/CFS.

So far then: Many PWCs also have IBS but not all PWIBSs have precipitated into the CFS state although the pathologies are very similar if not identical. It must be a matter of degree, then, if both conditions display loss of toxic protection from glutathione depletion, and H2S poisoning from the gut flora.

So- If we turn the degree up a couple of notches until CFS precipitates, what changed? Well, the toxic load of course. From then on, as is well documented, the condition is self-perpetuating.

Its said that what turns it on will turn it off. Efforts to supplement d-ribose to turn on ATP production meet with very limited success. The much more successful efforts to re-start the methylation cycle nevertheless do not produce a universal cure. Should we not therefore start by addressing the toxic load? That is, after all, where I believe we came in.

If Ive screwed up somewhere on this, start shooting now!

If I havent, then I suggest that selenium, NAC, MSM and ALA are the necessary starting agents though please DONT TRY THIS AT HOME! Dosages and phasing (if necessary) need to be determined by one much more knowledgeable than I.

Hi Stressman,

I do have something to say now. Paradoxical folate deficiency. For me folic acid is an on switch for IBS with everything else in place like adb12, mb12 etc. When the only difference is folic/folinic acid instead of or with Metafolin, the difference is extremely obvious. Having settled the variable, I can now turn IBS on and off in 3-4 days in each direction with 100% predictability. IBS is can also be turned on by lack of mb12. It appears to correlate 100% with the angular cheilitis which also turns on and off with folic and/or folinic acid. Consider that we are talking open sores that form in 3-4 days with folic acid. The same epithelial cell failure appears to occur in both my intestines and other places with exactly the same timing. The acne type lesions take a little longer to occur but also occur with the same timing plus a few days plus a more general inflammation. Consider that this could be a root cause, whether a simple folate deficiency or an induced one by folic acid, folinic acid, glutathione or NAC. Once you have intestinal inflammation b12 deficiency appears to follow and without the folate it can't be used in one of it's major roles anyway. Of course lack of folate may be just one of many facgtors as lack of mb12 can also trigger it.

 

[stressman]

Rich and Freddd - thanks for the gems!

stressman

 

[stressman]

Week 13 of 200 g/day of Se. Curly has been more or less crashed since last September. She does have her brighter days/weeks/months though. Last year we managed to make it to three family weddings a fair way up country. It was after the last one she crashed.

Mercifully, Curly is very in tune with her own body and is learning to live with the condition despite all the pitfalls. She wants to continue on Se alone until her next "traditional" crashing time of autumn, so I'm not arguing with that.

So - after a very strenuous day during this week, she crashed completely the following day. I was rather surprised, as Dr Myhill goes to great lengths to describe the mechanism of delayed (2-3 days) reaction. Her gut function also collapsed that day, so even if the Se is removing some of the H2S, something else obviously happened. Much paternal hand wringing and despair then. Until next day. "No, no daddy, perfectly OK and back to normal!"

Wow, gasp of relief.

I wonder what might have happened there?

I'm now wondering if there's a high dose innocuous Se compound that passes into the bloodstream (DMSO?) unchanged. If there is, it will fairly obviously not be toxic. But it might give up its Se when it meets some Hg. Mass production of HgSe, so to speak.

As always, thoughts welcome!

stressman.

 

[richvank]

Week 13 of 200 g/day of Se. Curly has been more or less crashed since last September. She does have her brighter days/weeks/months though. Last year we managed to make it to three family weddings a fair way up country. It was after the last one she crashed.

Mercifully, Curly is very in tune with her own body and is learning to live with the condition despite all the pitfalls. She wants to continue on Se alone until her next "traditional" crashing time of autumn, so I'm not arguing with that.

So - after a very strenuous day during this week, she crashed completely the following day. I was rather surprised, as Dr Myhill goes to great lengths to describe the mechanism of delayed (2-3 days) reaction. Her gut function also collapsed that day, so even if the Se is removing some of the H2S, something else obviously happened. Much paternal hand wringing and despair then. Until next day. "No, no daddy, perfectly OK and back to normal!"

Wow, gasp of relief.

I wonder what might have happened there?

I'm now wondering if there's a high dose innocuous Se compound that passes into the bloodstream (DMSO?) unchanged. If there is, it will fairly obviously not be toxic. But it might give up its Se when it meets some Hg. Mass production of HgSe, so to speak.

As always, thoughts welcome!

stressman.

Hi, stressman.

I'm glad that Curly bounced back fast.

People here can probably tell you about their own experiences with the timing and duration of crashes. My impression is that they can come on quite soon after a strenuous day.

My hypothesis to explain crashes in ME/CFS is that the glutathione level, already lower than normal, is lowered further as a result of stressors. Physical stressors, for example, cause a greater demand for ATP to contract the muscle fibers. The mitochondria have to operate faster to produce ATP faster, and this inherently generates more reactive oxygen species. Without sufficient glutathione, the resulting oxidative stress lowers the ability of the mitochondria to function by acting on aconitase in the Krebs cycle and on one of the cytochrome enzymes in the respiratory chain (electron tranfer chain), which ends up lowering the ATP output, and bringing about the crash.

The duration of the crash might be caused by oxidative stress damage to the lipids in the mitochondrial membranes, which need time to be repaired, or by loss of raw materials for making ADP and then ATP, as Dr. Myhill has quoted from Dr. Sinatra's book. In the latter case, supplementing D-ribose may help. Someone offered another hypothesis for the duration of the crash a little while ago, but I confess that I can't recall it right now. Maybe someone else knows what it was.

Best regards,

Rich