Uric acid

[Gondwanaland]

What is the proportion of ribose to B3? (please apologize if it has already been said). I have just ordered D-Ribose and Niacin. I will start with 10-20mg of niacin (high doses can disrupt thyroid hormones) and would like to know how much ribose to take with that.

 

[Kimsie]

Hi Brenda,
Ribose can reenter the gycolysis pathway to produce more pyruvate, or glucose through the gluconeogenesis pathway. The cysteine in your ribose product can is one of the ingredients for glutathione, in fact NAC, which is often taken to increase glutathione, helps glutathione levels by adding cysteine. Did you take that ribose/cysteine product yesterday? If so you might want to hold off until you can get a pure D-ribose.

 

[Kimsie]

What is the proportion of ribose to B3? (please apologize if it has already been said). I have just ordered D-Ribose and Niacin. I will start with 10-20mg of niacin (high doses can disrupt thyroid hormones) and would like to know how much ribose to take with that.

Sarah Myhill recommends 5 grams 3 times a day and that is about what we are using. Are you using niacin or niacinamide? Niacinamide has a longer half life (about 4 hours instead of 1-2) in the serum than niacin, and doesn't cause a flush. Such a small dose as you are starting with probably won't cause a flush even if you use niacin. Some people have trouble tolerating one form or the other and should take which ever form they tolerate best.

I don't really think that you need to worry about a proportion of ribose to B3 because ribose can help recycle purines even without niacin or niacinamide, but you need the niacin or niacinamide along with the ribose to increase the NAD pool.

 

[brenda]

Hi Brenda,
Ribose can reenter the gycolysis pathway to produce more pyruvate or glucose through the gluconeogenesis pathway. The cysteine in your ribose product can is one of the ingredients for glutathione, in fact NAC, which is often taken to increase glutathione, helps glutathione levels by adding cysteine. Did you take that ribose/cysteine product yesterday? If so you might want to hold off until you can get a pure D-ribose.

Hi @Kimsie

No I did not take any but today I did find some pure ribose (I don't know if it is D-ribose) and took a small amount just a short time ago, with 250gm niacinamide to see what happens.

I had a Metametrix urine organic acids test in 2010 and Pyruvate was high 4.2 <6.4 and other Krebb cycle markers were:

Citrate >2000 (18-78)
Cis-Aconitate 92 (18-78)
Isocritate 172 (39-143)
a-Ketoglutarate 30.4 <35.0
Malate 3.0 <3.1
Hydroxymethylglutarate 6.0 <5.1

Perhaps that will give some idea

 

[brenda]

@alex3619

I see that you have high uric acid and metabolic syndrome like me, and just wonder whether you have had an organic acid test done and whether your Krebb cycle compares with mine?

Kimsie

My brother has gout and my sister had schizophrenia (died aged 35)

 

[Gondwanaland]

if you salvage more purines, you will make less uric acid

Am I left with more ammonia then?

 

[alex3619]

@alex3619

I see that you have high uric acid and metabolic syndrome like me, and just wonder whether you have had an organic acid test done and whether your Krebb cycle compares with mine?

I had my urinary organic acids tested in the 90s. Most ME patients have abnormalities but it tends to vary. I am not sure I can lay my hands on the test - I lost all my medical records from prior to 2005. I might have a note of it in my notebooks though, but I am not sure.

 

[Kimsie]

Am I left with more ammonia then?

I am pretty sure that the purine and uric acid cycles and salvage pathways don't involve ammonia. I think you are confusing the ammonia cycle, which produces urea, with uric acid, which is not the same thing. They both are excreted in the urine, but the pathways are different.

If you have high ammonia, then I would guess that you are catabolizing (using up) amino acids for energy production, which can be done both in the TCA cycle and the folate cycle.

If you could just use serine alone in the SHMT pathway I don't think there would be excess ammonia, but SHMT will make glycine when it runs in that direction, and so the glycine will build up and the ammonia producing path will have to be used, too, or else the SHMT pathway will start running backwards to use up the glycine.

There are a number of amino acids which lose an ammonia before they can enter the TCA cycle.

Taking alpha-ketoglutarate might help, but it would probably raise your glutamate levels.

 

[Gondwanaland]

Thank you so much for the clarification @Kimsie !
Any suggestions on how I can avoid producing too much ammonia (a little off topic, sorry)?
Anything I can add to my new supplement order immediately?

 

[Kimsie]

Hi @Kimsie

No I did not take any but today I did find some pure ribose (I don't know if it is D-ribose) and took a small amount just a short time ago, with 250gm niacinamide to see what happens.

I had a Metametrix urine organic acids test in 2010 and Pyruvate was high 4.2 <6.4 and other Krebb cycle markers were:

Citrate >2000 (18-78)
Cis-Aconitate 92 (18-78)
Isocritate 172 (39-143)
a-Ketoglutarate 30.4 <35.0
Malate 3.0 <3.1
Hydroxymethylglutarate 6.0 <5.1

Perhaps that will give some idea

It was probably the B6 that caused the detox then. B6 is used in aminotransferase reactions, and if you have been low in B6 and suddenly take a fairly large amount, all the aminotransferase reactions may have started producing a lot of amino acids that you have been low on. If it is a problem you should probably wait until the detox stops and then take a smaller dose of B6 and gradually work up. Make sure you are taking the other B's including thiamine B1, so that you don't get an imbalance.

Here are my thoughts about your test results:

Are you saying that your citrate was over 2000 and the normal high is 78? I think the pattern of your intermediates shows that there is inhibition in your TCA cycle. What was your glutamate? High? alpha ketoglutarate can be used to get rid of ammonia by being changed to glutamate so that might account for why the AKG was lower than the ones beforehand. I suspect that the enzyme after AKG is inhibited by high NADH which would make it higher so a lower number could show that the AKG is being used to get rid of ammonia. If you are using glycine in the folate pathway for energy production you could be producing excess ammonia that way. You can see what I call the folate energy pathway in the illustration in the post above.

The enzyme which changes citrate to Cis-Aconitate has iron-sulfur clusters in it that are damaged by oxidative stress, which could account for the extremely high citrate in comparison to the Cis-Aconitate.

 

[Kimsie]

Thank you so much for the clarification @Kimsie !
Any suggestions on how I can avoid producing too much ammonia (a little off topic, sorry)?
Anything I can add to my new supplement order immediately?

Well, thiamine might help, if you can tolerate it. I don't even know exactly how it helps, but it helped my husband, at least. If you can tolerate sweating, you might be able to get rid of some ammonia in a sauna. Otherwise, the best thing is to try to raise your NAD levels to bring ATP synthesis back to the oxidative phosphorylation where it belongs, but that could take some time if you are sensitive to supplements.

If you only ordered niacin, you might want to add niacinamide so that you have a choice about what form to take.

 

[brenda]

It was probably the B6 that caused the detox then. B6 is used in aminotransferase reactions, and if you have been low in B6 and suddenly take a fairly large amount, all the aminotransferase reactions may have started producing a lot of amino acids that you have been low on. If it is a problem you should probably wait until the detox stops and then take a smaller dose of B6 and gradually work up. Make sure you are taking the other B's including thiamine B1, so that you don't get an imbalance.

Here are my thoughts about your test results:

Are you saying that your citrate was over 2000 and the normal high is 78? I think the pattern of your intermediates shows that there is inhibition in your TCA cycle. What was your glutamate? High? alpha ketoglutarate can be used to get rid of ammonia by being changed to glutamate so that might account for why the AKG was lower than the ones beforehand. I suspect that the enzyme after AKG is inhibited by high NADH which would make it higher so a lower number could show that the AKG is being used to get rid of ammonia. If you are using glycine in the folate pathway for energy production you could be producing excess ammonia that way. You can see what I call the folate energy pathway in the illustration in the post above.

The enzyme which changes citrate to Cis-Aconitate has iron-sulfur clusters in it that are damaged by oxidative stress, which could account for the extremely high citrate in comparison to the Cis-Aconitate.

@Kimsie

I took 16 mg P-5-P then twice more today with 100 niacinamide. I took ribose at .25 teasp then twice today but my fasting glucose levels were up .5 points which worries me as I read somewhere not to take ribose if you are diabetic. I haven't got that diagnosis but have been watching my glucose levels as they spiking. I also took some b complex withj extra b2 as I seem to need it.

It seems that >2000 is the measurement but it seems a bit odd on the chart ie not showing as high as it says. It also says checked twice and verified.
Do you mean Glucarate or a-Ketoglutarate?
Yes I can smell ammonia from my urine often.

 

[Kimsie]

@Kimsie

I took 16 mg P-5-P then twice more today with 100 niacinamide. I took ribose at .25 teasp then twice today but my fasting glucose levels were up .5 points which worries me as I read somewhere not to take ribose if you are diabetic. I haven't got that diagnosis but have been watching my glucose levels as they spiking. I also took some b complex withj extra b2 as I seem to need it.

It seems that >2000 is the measurement but it seems a bit odd on the chart ie not showing as high as it says. It also says checked twice and verified.
Do you mean Glucarate or a-Ketoglutarate?
Yes I can smell ammonia from my urine often.

I mean glutamate, if you have had a test with it. When you take B6 it is important to supplement the other B's, too, so it's good to take the complex.

1/4 teaspoon of ribose is about 1 gram. It might be better to divide the dose down to 500 mg and take it more often so that it doesn't cause a spike in blood sugar. I am not sure why it would affect the fasting blood sugar levels. Don't you take your fasting glucose levels first thing in the morning? It sounds like you took it later in the day after taking ribose.

It might be that you are low in some of the other purine pathway ingredients that are needed to make more NAD, such as glutamine, aspartate and glycine, and if one of these is limiting the pathway, the ribose may not be getting used as much as it could be.

Some people have concerns with glutamine and aspartic acid due to possible increased exitability of the neurotransmitters so you have to decide if that's an issue for you, and whether you want to take them. What ever you do, you probably need to start low and build up. Glycine and glutamine can increase glutathione, because they are ingredients for glutathione. We take all three, with less of the aspartate and glycine, but no one in our family is sensitive to supplements. Aspartic acid powder is available from Bulk Supplements but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

 

[adreno]

Do the amino acids necessarily have to be free form? Wouldn't it be okay to get them in a protein powder? It is only the free form that causes issues, I never had problems with protein powders.

 

[Kimsie]

Do the amino acids necessarily have to be free form? Wouldn't it be okay to get them in a protein powder? It is only the free form that causes issues, I never had problems with protein powders.

I don't know. You would have to give it a try.

 

[Gondwanaland]

Well, thiamine might help, if you can tolerate it. I don't even know exactly how it helps, but it helped my husband, at least.

There is something about thiamine here:
http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/toxicagents/thiaminase.html

 

[brenda]

I mean glutamate, if you have had a test with it. When you take B6 it is important to supplement the other B's, too, so it's good to take the complex.

1/4 teaspoon of ribose is about 1 gram. It might be better to divide the dose down to 500 mg and take it more often so that it doesn't cause a spike in blood sugar. I am not sure why it would affect the fasting blood sugar levels. Don't you take your fasting glucose levels first thing in the morning? It sounds like you took it later in the day after taking ribose.

It might be that you are low in some of the other purine pathway ingredients that are needed to make more NAD, such as glutamine, aspartate and glycine, and if one of these is limiting the pathway, the ribose may not be getting used as much as it could be.

Some people have concerns with glutamine and aspartic acid due to possible increased exitability of the neurotransmitters so you have to decide if that's an issue for you, and whether you want to take them. What ever you do, you probably need to start low and build up. Glycine and glutamine can increase glutathione, because they are ingredients for glutathione. We take all three, with less of the aspartate and glycine, but no one in our family is sensitive to supplements. Aspartic acid powder is available from Bulk Supplements but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

@Kimsie

It seems that the warning regarding diabetics and ribose is due to the blood sugar lowering effect. That is if they are on insulin. I took my test first thing in the morning after having one dose of ribose the day before, so the rise is due to something else, unless there is a knock on effect with the receptors, will see.

This morning, I have run out of testing strips but they will be here in a day or two. I was somewhat wired last night and woke a few times in the night and had trouble getting back off so will lower my dose today. I read that others have this effect. I also was conscious of a slight fluttery feeling in the heart.

I do have some Glycine in so may try it in a day or two. The b6 was a good tip thanks very much for that.

 

[Gondwanaland]

after having one dose of ribose the day before,

At what time you took ribose the day before?

 

[brenda]

At what time you took ribose the day before?

It was sometime in the morning - about 10ish I think.

 

[adreno]

The first time I took ribose - 5g in the morning - I couldn't sleep the whole night. Even with lower doses I'm wary of taking it 3x daily.

Taking B vitamins later in the day often has the same effect - I can't sleep.

Even glutamine gives me insomnia. Glycine helps me to sleep, though. Aspartic acid I'm not eager to try, as I am prone to excitotoxicity.