Flu Shot? or not?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(RobH @ Nov 24 2007, 02:58 AM) [snapback]543529[/snapback]</div>

n=12 is not a significant clinical study, unfortunately. those can run into the 50s or 100s or 1000s or more. afaik progesterone regulates the effects of estrogen through regulation of ERs. the hormone/cancer link depends on where the cancer is located. uterine and breast cancers are very, very different in their responses to hormones and therefore, effective therapies.

:lol: who on earth told you that?!

look, what i'm saying is that progesterone inhibits an enzyme that converts chemical A to chemical B where chemical B has a negative effect. it works on an ENZYME. however, that is not its only effect. progesterone has its own RECEPTOR that mediates gene transcription, which is not relevant to the condition at hand (BPH), that we do not wish to stimulate because of the nonspecific side effects.

this is why progesterone is not used for DHT conversion inhibition in men: afaik the current treatment does not stimulate PRs. progesterone does and we know that for sure.

[cough] in FEMALES, yes. but you can't use pregnancy as the reference, given that pregnancy is mediated by progesterone (along with estrogen) after all. i'd say morning sickness (in early pregnancy anyway), increased fat storage, fatigue, and slower digestion are indeed some unpleasant side effects of progesterone that i would not like to experience but they're all for a purpose.

and you do know that estrogen levels get quite high at the same time, correct? surely you think there's some interplay going on there that mediates the overall effect? i'm sure there is...

i'll also mention that i am unable to find a peer-reviewed, published clinical study on bioidentical hormone replacement vs the currently used drugs. a casual mention that one is preferred over the other doesn't hold much water for me, i'll wait till someone publishes it.

but estrogen increases too!

i can tell you that it doesn't if you're already predisposed to it. i have already had one (benign, hormone responsive) breast tumor at age 23 and i've been warned very strongly that when i do get pregnant, i am to keep an extremely close watch for more tumors and act upon them immediately.

i'm adamantly against using any drugs during pregnancy unless absolutely necessary. period. pregnancy hormone or not, no way no how. you may recall some of the other wonderful effects of some other drugs used but not NEEDED during pregnancy.

DES
and
thalidmoide

IMO the only condition that warrants progesterone use is threat of premature birth. i'm a minimalist with drugs as is, pregnancy is NOT to be messed with IMO.

you're correct on both counts- but keep in mind that there are not just 2 or 3 hormones here. we're talking about the context being different (male body vs female, and even female breast vs uterus!) and differences in the hormonal milieu that lead to a different overall effect. it's very complex and i can't say that anyone anywhere has a complete handle on how it all works.

well, it drives proliferation. hyperplasia is the abnormal condition and estrogen is not responsible for that on its own.

i think it's time i drag up the [shudder, this brings back evil memories] steroid hormone chart. yes, e2 and DHT share T as a precursor. however, the blockade of DHT production shows clinical improvement while blockade of ER (ie the effect of E2) does not. so i would not say that E2 starts anything.


this one comes from IU in indiana.

here i have to disagree. i don't see the common effect of progesterone and i certainly don't see it as a miracle anything. estrogen replacement plus progesterone (presumably to counteract estrogen in sensitive tissue) decreases risk of endometrial cancer but also increases risk of invasive breast cancer. this is not a panacea here.

you're correct in that it is not a feminizing hormone. however, like i mentioned earlier there are bound to be nonspecific side effects due to the fact that progesterone is affecting DHT production in a non-PR dependent manner. PR mediated effects are therefore nonspecific side effects. just a cursory glance at the literature brings up things like aggression in males.

and i'll bring this up again- armidex is an aromatase inhibitor that decreases the production of E2. E2 has not been shown to contribute to BPH. blocking the production of E2 from T is bound to increase the production of DHT since it is the only way to get rid of T. DHT is the problem. so armidex could possibly worsen the problem. i thought i made that clear last time but it's certainly possible i didn't. i will admit that i am still working on my science communication skills.

 

It wasn't a clinical study. It was a career experience comment.​

For every large study, there is some individual back 15 years plus who discovered a relationship that merited further study. The knowledge originated as an impression that something was true, and evolved into a large study that "proved" the relationship. Dr. Lee introduced the idea of estrogen dominance, and I find this comment about cancer to be worth an extensive followup.​

Now consider that the treatment cost $10 a month (as an OTC cosmetic cream!). Mind you, this was just a side effect. The treatment was only intended to help with hot flashes and such.​

Oh, and another side effect was that it normalized bone density. His prize patient was a woman who was breaking bones at age 72. At age 84 her bone density had increased by 44%, and she had no additional osteoporosis problems. From some of Dr. Lee's other comments, I can assure you that Fosamax was not used. I rather doubt that she went to the gym for workouts...​

Dr. Lee was the first. He wrote a series of 5 books on the subject, and lectured extensively. The original book (which he self published) showed the chemical structure of the progesterone molecule on the cover. The loudest message that he wanted to get out was that progesterone is a very specific, single molecule that is not duplicated by Provera. I can hardly present 5 books worth of data here, so I suggest following a google search for "dr john lee" (with the quotes). It comes up with 51,000+ references. The primary ones worth looking at are his home page and Dr. Zava's hormone testing lab. There are also a multitude of sites selling progesterone creams, which usually just have brief quotes from Dr. Lee's work. Any site claiming Dr. Lee's endorsement is a fraud, as he was very careful to never endorse a specific product, only the characteristics of a good product.​

There is a convention of A4M going on next week. About 6000 people will gather in Las Vegas to discuss anti-aging medicine, including bio-identical hormone modulation. See http://www.worldhealth.net​

Dr. Zava's site references a French study of 3000+ participants where they used bioidentical progesterone. If there were an American study worth looking at, then I'm sure Dr. Zava would reference it instead.​

Dr. Zava did extensive study of breast cancer before getting into his current job as head of a hormone testing lab.​

Read "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer" by Dr. John Lee and Dr. David Zava.​

Also check out the vitamin D council at http://www.vitamindcouncil.com The Canadian Cancer Society has started a campaign to convince women to consume enough vitamin D. The American Cancer Society is AWOL on the issue. This is rapidly evolving science just now. My endocrinologist says that he would like to write a book about it, but the book would be obsolete by the time it came out. Meantime he has me on 50,000 IU vitamin D3 per week (after several months at the same dosage per day). Without blood testing, 50,000 IU per month would seem prudent.​

Vitamin D3 is a real threat to the established cancer business. I expect a full bore attack, with all sorts of "well done" studies that indicate that it's useless, or even dangerous. It will take at least 30 years to sort out any sense of reality. Meantime I'll take the advice of my doctors who keep up with the current research.​

You betcha! Provera, DES, and Thalidomide are dangerous drugs.​

Progesterone is a normally occurring body chemical that is sometimes at the wrong level. Adjusting that level to the level found in healthy women provides benefits. Dr. Dalton's experience suggests that it can produce superior children.​

The DES and Thalidomide examples are a demonstration of the danger of new chemicals. Naturally occurring chemicals like real progesterone have literally millions of years of adaptation with the human environment. Never before seen in nature chemicals like DES (and the modern GMO foods!) may have effects that are not identified for decades after their first use. Natural materials, even toxic ones, at least have known properties.​

Two points. Estriol seems to be missing from the chart. My understanding is that it is about the safest estrogen to supplement, at least if used in conjunction with progesterone.​

I notice that aromatase is involved in production of both estadiol and estrone. Neither of which are welcome in a man. Is there an alternative to Arimidex to block these pathways?​

Again I would refer you to the cancer book by Drs. Lee & Zava. I really doubt that anyone has demonstrated that bio-identical progesterone increases risk of invasive breast cancer. The term "progesterone" is frequently used (incorrectly) when the actual material is Provera or some similar progestin. When it comes to the large studies that you like, about the only thing that can be said about progesterone is that we don't know. We do know that Provera is a disaster.​

Blocking the T to E2 pathway is good. Older men fall apart because of the loss of T. If DHT is a problem, then the T to DHT pathway could use some blocking. So maybe older men need both an aromatase blocker and a 5a-reductase blocker. (beginning to sound like heart medications - this blocker, that blocker...).​

Your skills are fine. We've just been exposed to different information. That's what makes the discussion worthwhile.​

 

the thing is that a number of 12 total patients over the course of a career could be attributed to far more than the treatment at hand. ie how did he deal with negative controls? placebo? it's not like a doctor to give placebo in a practice setting.

i can't really comment on the bone density issue, that's way beyond my understanding and i'm trying not to stay up so late at night with my current work load

oh, i certainly agree that synthetic chemistry often can't produce a specific replica down to the atomic level. stereoisomers can be downright impossible to separate.

what i'm saying is that progesterone, the stuff that's produced IN the body, is a drug in itself. you know that. it has its own effects, and saying that it has no negative effects is not true. alter the chemical balance of anything natural and you run into the possibility that altering that level is going to change something. you can't be saying that the high progesterone during pregnancy doesn't bring about some MAJOR changes. not having gotten through a third trimester pregnancy myself, i can't testify through experience but a number of friends have let me know how miserable they got.

good thing or not, there is such a thing as "too much" in any case.

i'm not looking specifically for american studies. i'm searching an extensive database of journals from all over the world. (somewhat off topic, there is actually a very prolific group in hungary who has done great background for my own research, and i read many of their papers with no trouble)

do you have the citation for the paper? the selected references in his "press kit" weren't helpful for me to find it.

you mean, he created his job by founding the lab

i see a lot of doubt expressed about saliva testing.

oh my. vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, i'd personally avoid taking that high of a dose but if you're under a doctor's careful monitoring then that's the only way to do it.

3800 IU/day has been reported as the lowest level that produces an adverse effect, as measured by hypercalcemia.

i'll look more into it, i don't really know what level i'm getting per day actually.

all these tags are starting to mess with my head...

again, i wouldn't go messing with progesterone levels, period. if there's a threat of miscarriage due to low progesterone, i'd see that. but unnecessarily tampering with an otherwise healthy pregnancy is just unwarranted. IMO of course, but my study of development leads me to the conclusion that we just shouldn't go there.

cortisol is a natural chemical, but i wouldn't advise increasing that. TNFs are natural, again, wouldn't want to go there. just because it's already produced by the body does not mean that it's ok to add more. the body is a very delicate balance, MOST ESPECIALLY during fetal neurodevelopment, and given that the whole body is working toward equilibrium, you never know what else you're throwing off balance by adding external chemical.

my attitude here is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

e3 is only produced in the low (<30) micrograms per day level in non-pregnant humans, and has a very short half life (~1 hour). as far as i have been able to find, it is primarily made from fetal DHEA sulfate in the placenta.

ah, but e2 is involved in maintenance of neurons one of my coworkers has spent 5 years of her life on this study, e2 increases dopamine neuron number in male rats. (conversely, removing the ovaries in female rats will decrease neuron number!)

what i've been saying all along, and maybe i should explain this better, is that the concept of equilibrium is really messing with your plans here. think of this equilibrium like a traffic jam. you're in your car and you'd like to take path A. turns out, a tree has fallen across the street. there are more and more cars surrounding you as they reach the same point you are. there is one other path to take: path B. traffic flow will increase on route B since route A is no longer available. the issue here though, is that once you take route B you can't get your way back to A, you end up in a different destination.

if you block the conversion of T to E2, you inherently increase the production of DHT. we know DHT is the problem in BPH, since a DHT blocker is largely successful in treating the condition. so by blocking E2 you are increasing DHT. bad overall. unless you're into BPH, which does not sound fun to me!

and again i will contest that there is such a thing as "too much of a good/benevolent thing" whether it's natural or synthetic.

ahh, if you're solely looking to increase T, sure, block both! recall that you do need some presence of estrogen in the body, though.​

 

Man I love it when debates get so biologically technical it goes right over my head. lol



I will say I have to side with Galaxee when it comes to the minimalist aproach to drugs and pregnancy. With our knowledge of epigenetics growing every day we are finding out how easy it is to turn genes "on or off" due to simple additions or subtractions of specific chemicals and even vitamins.

 

But aren't you pursuing a Ph.D in a related field?

 

i have yet to see F8L get dragged into the dark underworld of hardcore biochemistry. c'mon, it's fun!

 

Obviously in the medical practice situation he did the best he could for every patient. Nobody got placebos. And the only relation to cancer that he saw at the beginning was that progesterone did not seem to be contra-indicated.​

But it doesn't follow that there are no useful observations that a doctor can make. Incidents that are outside the range of normal expectation are relevant and worth investigation.​

Taking it to the extreme, we only have a small number of anecdotal incidents that show that the atomic bomb works. I think quantity one was a more than adequate demonstration.​

Large numbers with all the crossover, double-blind, etc. controls are useful for picking up small differences. Large differences don't require anywhere near large numbers. In fact large number studies depend heavily on an assumption of uniformity across all the subjects. What good does controlling for a dozen variables do when there are a hundred significant ones? This leads me to the value of FDA qualification studies. They are just bureaucracy under color of science. The real science is in the careful design of the studies such they will demonstrate safety and effectiveness of the product. Not all "placebos" are inactive.​

Actually the FDA definition of a drug includes any substance that is claimed to cure or improve a recognized disease. So if I claim that some water that I sell cures dehydration, then I guess that makes my water a drug, subject to the whole range of drug qualification procedures the FDA applies. They're not so stupid as to enforce this example, but it is what their rules say.​

If naturally occurring progesterone is a drug, then are red blood cells also drugs? Is every chemical in the body a drug?​

Where is a rational line between naturally occurring chemicals and drugs?​

This is the essence of Dr. Lee's work. One of the things that he found was that many women's progesterone levels dropped to near zero starting at about age 35, a full 15 years before menopause. The havoc that this imbalance produces includes hot flashes, osteoporosis, and cancer. Restoring the normal balance with supplemental progesterone helps with all of these conditions. Using Provera does help with hot flashes, but it displaces any real progesterone causing additional havoc.​

Dr. Lee strongly disapproved of the massive doses of estrogens, progesterone, and testosterone commonly used today by anti-aging doctors. He would certainly have agreed with you about the issue of "too much" progesterone. The proper amount would be enough to bring the levels back to that found in healthy women, preferably duplicating the level that each individual had at an earlier age.​

My sugestion is to contact ZRT labs directly. Go to http://www.zrtlab.com , "About" tab, "Contact Us".​

Another source is Virginia Hopkins. She co-authored Dr. Lee's "What Your Doctor ..." books, and is an excellent resource in her own right. You can contact her through http://www.virginiahopkinstestkits.com​

One of the references she gives on her website is:​

Campagnoli C, Abba C, Ambroggio S, Peris C, “Pregnancy, progesterone and progestins in relation to breast cancer risk.†J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol, 2005 Dec;97(5):441-50.​

That's how it goes. You work in a university setting until a commercial opportunity looks better than the current gig...​

If you don't like saliva, Dr. Zava would be happy to sell you a blood spot test...​

The problem with both blood and saliva testing is that they try to represent a varying situation with a single number. What is really needed is multiple samples throughout a 24 hour period, perhaps as often as every hour. Since that's impractical, the whole measurement process is little more than a sample in time. Testing of the non-free fractions (the standard until recently) is just irrelevant to symptoms.​

The most significant use of testing is as a CYA function for when the DEA comes visiting to audit a doctor's use of controlled steroids. The FDA seems to like blood testing, so a prudent doctor will use that for testosterone. I think saliva testing relates better to symptoms, but that's a different issue.​

Not even read about the results of what happened when someone else did go there? Perhaps progesterone levels in pregnant women should be watched just like blood pressure.​

I believe that there are sub-optimum, optimum, and excessive levels for many nutrients. Just accepting whatever levels you happen to have may be more dangerous than adjusting them to healthy values. For example, folic acid frequently is at a sub-optimum level. Which is more dangerous in pregnancy, leaving it at a low level or correcting it?​

In the case of Downs syndrome children, should they be left untreated? I recently read that there is nutritional therapy available that allows a person with Downs syndrome to develop entirely normally. All of the Downs syndrome symptoms are apparently the result of oversupply of chemicals controlled by the extra chromosome.​

We agree about equilibrium and balance. But many people have significant imbalances. Petrochemicals and hormone laden food have destroyed whatever balance occured in earlier times. Normal diversity between individuals means that some people just don't develop the balance that others have naturally. Without a counterbalance for these effects we are left with severely out of balance systems.​

As for the danger of drugs, the only way to approach it is one at a time. Some very popular drugs are really dangerous (all statins deplete CoQ10), while an age-appropriate dose of deprenil probably extends brain function into older age.​

 

I have not achieved the level of nerdy biochemistry that these two have. My focus is more related to systems than delving too deep into biochem and humans.

 

i'm definitely not asserting that. but where the controls and such come in is to prove that the DRUG TREATMENT is what caused the improvement in condition. unless you keep us all in cages like lab rats (and even with lab rats, we have negative controls) you can't be 100% sure that something else did not cause the clinical improvement.

large number studies are needed for statistical purposes if you have high variability in your data. after all, statistics can and will b**ch slap us all after a lot of hard work. statistics is what gives us the yes or no answers.

you always need controls, that's the basic principle of science. i have had to spend a whole lot of my time doing control experiments to prove that my data is what i claim it is.

don't get me started on those people. i have lost a whole lot of faith in the FDA in recent years.

a good chunk of the placebo effect is the power of the brain- this is shown especially with depression. just bringing yourself to the doctor, taking steps to take care of yourself, can give the brain a big jump start. this is well known.

well, i just told you what i think of the FDA.

no, a drug is a chemical (excluding food) that alters the body somehow. dopamine is a drug.

rbc's are living cells, they don't really count as chemicals. again, any chemical that can alter the function of the body is a drug. if you administer glutamate into the brain, i feel bad for that subject because they're in for a massive seizure. naturally occurring, present in the brain at all times. crucial for proper neuronal firing patterns to occur. drug.

i am trying to get across that the body is full of its own drugs! when you exercise you release endorphins that stimulate opioid receptors and make you feel good! it's a reward for going out and doing something good for you. think of all the things that feel good in life- a great meal, a sip of wine, satisfying sex... all feel good because of the drugs your body produces. of course i'm focusing on the brain here since that's the system i work with most. but there are many, many different examples of this elsewhere.

to come up with one non-neuro example, adrenaline is a drug. i doubt i need to explain.

that requires a LOT of pre-planning- and we'd have to figure out exactly which earlier age? after all, even 21 and 25 years of age are going to be different.

that being the case, to match the 24 hour findings, we'd have to adjust dosage regimen in the replacements to carefully reconstruct the normal state. i doubt people will be willing to go through what it would take to reconstruct perfectly. compliance drops through the floor as dosage regimen becomes more complex.

i did read the paper, after reading about it a few posts back in the discussion. and even she was not claiming this should be done routinely. i honestly saw that paper as very preliminary data, and if i had the statistical expertise to do human studies i would like to review the numbers myself.

i can't stress enough how i feel about throwing extra anything into the body during pregnancy. even stress during pregnancy can affect postnatal attributes in the offspring. we know far too little to go interfering, and i personally would not volunteer my own offspring for that kind of questionable treatment.

a lot of times, providing a supraphysiologic concentration of a hormone will cause the body to stop making it on its own. negative feedback loop, we call it. i can't support that as natural.

another issue off the top of my head would be fetal response to an artificially high dose of progesterone would be to downregulate receptors. who knows what kind of long term response that would have? we know that PR expression is important in brain sexual differentiation, for one. i'm sure there are many more out there to find.

i say let it be. but that's just me.

there's *nutrients* that the body needs to get from the diet because it can't make them on its own, and then there's stuff the body can make on its own.
i wouldn't go comparing folic acid to progesterone.

i do agree that we do need to keep a close eye on what we eat and how we take care of ourselves. our bodies need the right fuels to keep running. but since we are all so different, there's no way we can specify one number as the "right" level to be at.

not chemicals- GENES. most trisomies are fatal, unrescuable. Down's children somehow survive. you can't silence gene expression through nutrition. you definitely aren't going to be able to target only the 50% extra that is present because of the trisomy. this is not a nutritional deficiency issue. i find the claim preposterous.

i agree that there's a lot of crap in what we eat, no thanks to the food industry. however, i don't advocate tinkering with stuff so excessively. i mean, realistically, most of us can't even afford to go to the doctor all that often! there's ideally and there's real world.

i did some digging for my MIL on the statins/q10 and i do agree with the supplementation of q10 with statin therapy.

selegiline? you're advocating giving MAO inhibitors for what? why on earth do you want to dump that crap into your system? to pre-emptively increase your synaptic dopamine and end up in the long run causing downregulation of DA receptors and upregulation of MAO B? not worth it unless the dopamine's gone and you've got nothing to lose anyway.

you take drugs so seriously, but are willing to treat symptoms you don't have with drugs. i see a contradiction and i'm wondering why.

 

I'm curious if you could elaborate on this and it's connection with epigenetics. I was under the impression that this is how epigenetics works, by switching gene expression on or off. I don't see how this would effect trisomies to any great extent since these genes are already set but varying levels of nutrients prior to conception could modify which genes get expressed no? I have not been introduced to epigenetics in school so my education thus far is only from articles and a couple Nova/BBC videos. Help set a brotha straight.

Here is a sample of an article on how this relates to trisomy 21 but it doesn't have much in the way of details due to it being a sample and I'm too tired to log into ProQuest to look for it. lol

TAKING A FUNCTIONAL GENOMIC APPROACH TO
THE STUDY OF DOWN SYNDROME​

PATHOGENESIS

 

Say no to mercury.

 

ahhh college human genetics that was a fun class. realize here that i haven't really done much with genetics since 2004, and therefore is not my best subject anymore, but i'll do my best.

let us start with the central dogma of molecular biology:
[DNA] --transcription--> [RNA] --translation--> [protein]

epigenetics basically is a heritable trait that is not associated with a change in DNA sequence. this can be as simple as "turning a gene on" in one cell where it was previously not active, and that gene's effect causes a change in phenotype that remains throughout future divisions of the cell- or as complex as improper DNA methylation patterns that can predispose you to autoimmune disease. there are many things that can be changed at each central-dogma step that can change the functional expression of a protein. things like histone remodeling and DNA methylation, RNA interference and protein modifications, are constantly occurring throughout the life of a cell.

a good example of a heritable change in phenotype without DNA sequence change would be stem cells. some eventually differentiate and rather than producing more stem cells, they change their gene expression patterns to become all kinds of things from chondrocytes to neurons.

here's a pretty decent review of epigenetics in the context of clinical disease.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/174/3/341

the article you lined looks pretty interesting- i believe it's someone's phd thesis (which kinda gives me a panic attack, because i have to produce that kind of thing by this time next year).

it appears to me that he spent his time looking at the genes whose overexpression produced the phenotypes of DS. some genes can be overexpressed with no visible harm done. others can be toxic. we're still learning exactly which genes are producing the toxic effects in the first place, so our understanding is ok but not sufficient. but i fail to see where supplementing nutrition is going to silence any extra dose of gene expression specifically. we can supply the body with adequate methyl groups to add to the DNA, and we can give it all the nutrients it needs to properly regulate everything on its own. that's about all we can do- some doses of genes are simply toxic. they're necessary at certain doses, so the likelihood of getting the body to deactivate the gene is very low. but it can't distinguish that it's making too much here, apparently. and so we can't force the body to stop producing toxic doses of gene a and gene b on its own, through adding supplements here and there.

the ideal way to go about this imo would be to find a way to detect and deactivate the extra chromosome before it causes the problem in the first place- but of course that's nowhere near feasible.

we could look at solving the problem by altering the epigenetics, but again i just can't see where we can specifically target the extra copy of 21 without the universal effects. by universally increasing methylation you can decrease transcription of, say, tumor suppressors while by universally decreasing it you can do the same thing to a subject by increasing the expression of oncogenes.

unfortunately, we just don't have anything specific and the body is not able to detect that this overexpression pattern is toxic and respond by decreasing gene transcription in the toxic genes.

nevermind that this all needs to happen in utero pretty much from day one that puts us in a very tricky situation.

 

Ok, I can grasp that. My main question was not are we able to turn gene expression on or off by adding additional nutrients but what is some nutrients were low to begin with and in effect inadequet for "normal" development. The case study was the one I mentioned last year about folic acid and agouti mice.

As for correcting the extra chromosome in trisomy 21 cases... that is beyond my knoweldge. lol

Thanks for the clarification.

 

ah, i was wondering what direction you were going with that! the agouti mice are a pretty interesting model.

absolutely, what you propose can and does happen. malnutrition can cause a number of epigenetic changes. so, though, can some cases of high doses of vitamins. in fact, back before we really understood much, malnutrition was considered a familial genetic problem. obviously we've come a long way but we have much more to learn.

 

Ahh thanks. I was hoping I wasn't learning bad information. Hahaha

We do have a long ways to go but I am continually amazed at the progress we have made and how these scientists come up with such amazing hypothesis testing procedures! Some of these ideas are nothing short of brilliant.

 

that's my favorite part of science- coming up with the route of problem solving. actually, i've been quite fortunate as a grad student to have dictated the entire direction of my project. most of us get the scripted "your project is ____. you will learn about ____ by using techniques x, y, and z." i was given a problem and told to map out a way to solve it, then had to pitch the idea.

that was about the most fun thing i've done in grad school. the plan has made some changes along the way, necessarily, but i love looking at a problem with my toolbox full of ways to investigate.

developing new methods would be even more fun than using established ones to solve a problem, but that's not what grad school's for. i've already overextended myself in methods, having brought 4 new ones to the lab...

 

I find the observation of nutrient treatment of Down's as entirely plausible. The extra chromosome causes a nutritional excess of several chemicals. The nutritional treatment is designed to overcome the imbalance created by that excess. The gene expression probably remains the same (the excess remains). I couldn't find the original description of the treatment, but I think it included massive doses of lipoic acid, trimethylglycine, and perhaps B12. Plus a lot more. The idea is that nutrients need to occur in a certain balance, and that an excess of one nutrient can be treated by an even larger excess of some other nutrient. Ordinarily an excess would be treated by just reducing the intake, but the extra chromosome makes that impractical.​

Again, the report as I recall was of two Down's children. The first got the nutrient treatment at several years of age, and developed much more normally than would be expected. The second child got the nutrient treatment on first diagnosis, and developed entirely normally. If I had (or was close to) a Down's child, I would be tracking down every hint of how the condition could be treated nutritionally. I certainly wouldn't be awaiting 100% certainty from double blind studies of drugs developed over the next 20 years.​

The specialty of anti-aging medicine makes extensive use of drugs that compensate for loses generally attributed to age. Deprenil compensates for the natural reduction in dopamine levels. As I recall, the natural reduction in dopamine with age would kill the average person at about age 110. But with Deprenil, that limit moves out several decades. Even when you don't care about a theoretical limit at age 110, you'd still like to function as well at age 60 as you do at age 20.​

Traditional HRT is an excellent idea targeted at continuing youthful function past the age at which it normally occurs. Good idea, disastrous implementation. Women aren't horses, and progestins are anything but natural. Replacing natural hormones with exact duplicates of those hormones is an appropriate implementation. All women need at age 50 is what they used to have at age 25. They don't need horse piss and never before seen in nature approximations of what they had at age 25.​

One claim regularly repeated is that testosterone causes cancer. And so the lower it goes, the more cancer occurs? Seems to me that if testosterone causes cancer, then teenagers should be the ones with all the cancer.​

Conventional medicine seems to have a real problem in accepting the idea of drug use for improvement of people who are already normal. That doesn't seem to stop the drug companies from redefining normal as sick, thus justifying all sorts of mayhem. Sports medicine clearly endorses use of drugs for the improvement of athletic performance. Of course there are the naughty drugs that aren't supposed to be used, but how about all the painkillers that allow an athlete to continue where any normal person would be laid up? How about using insulin to increase the absorption of nutrients? I haven't heard about any sports rules on this technique, but it is used.​

We live in a very drug oriented society now. There are major campaigns to teach kids to "just say no", and then they watch TV ads showing happy, athletic people who got that way by using the advertised drug. I think we need to teach kids (and ourselves!) how to select drugs appropriately, rather than just a blind prohibition. And saying that appropriate is anything your doctor promotes doesn't cut it with me. The distinction between my preferences and common usage is the specific list and dosages of drugs. I like things that support normal, or even supra-normal function. I don't like things that poison and otherwise foul up healthy function.​

As an example, the standards for what is "anemic" are age adjusted. What would be anemia at age 35 is accepted as normal at age 80. EPO can be used to give an 80 year old a hematocrit of 50, which has got to be more pleasant than 35. Which is "normal"? I guess 35 is normal, but it's not necessary with a modern drug like EPO. Why reserve it for just cancer treatment? The usual reasoning goes that some mid-20s bicyclists killed themselves by taking EPO. Well, you take an athlete with a natural hematocrit of 50, goose it up to 80, and then have them exercise with inadequate hydration. Instant dead athlete. Take an 80 year old feeble guy with a hematocrit of 35, goose it up to 45, and you've got someone who is much more alert and functional.​

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Any chance that the epigenetic research could be applied to human production of L-gulonolactone oxidase? This is a liver enzyme present in most animals that is required to produce vitamin C from glucose. The genome is present in humans, but is not translated. Turning it on would protect health with vitamin C, and reduce glucose levels. As Dr. Cathcart used to say, vitamin C is one of the reasons that dogs can eat s##t and we can't.​

 

nutrition does not include something produced by the body... just to clarify. an extra chromosome does not produce a nutritional defect. it produces excesses of the genes and therefore proteins encoded on the chromosome, some of which cannot be tolerated beyond a certain level in the cell.

based on what i just said above, i can't make sense of this. your second sentence contradicts your first one. you're right that there is no nutritional treatment that can stop a gene from being expressed, or stop a protein from exerting its effects in a cell. unless you sap the cell of proper nutrients to activate the proteins in question, which would be a universal effect and result in cell death.

but again, chromosomes do not encode nutrients. i think you're thinking that some gene is producing a protein that produces a toxic chemical, and you're thinking that counteracting that toxic chemical through supplementing the diet is going to work. but from what i've seen, the problem is that one of the genes in question keeps a transcription factor out of the nucleus. there is no nutritional supplement that will translocate something across the nuclear membrane, and again, nothing you can do to keep the protein in question from doing its job...

you're confusing genetics and nutrition.

improper development in utero, at least as far as the brain goes, is irreversible. we don't really grow a whole lot of new neurons, and when we do it's only in very specific parts of the brain like the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. this is why a healthy pregnancy is so crucial, and why interference with pregnancy is very bad.

nope, i call bullshit. see above. unless they knew at implantation that this child was destined to have down's... there's no way you can compensate for the improper neural development. for instance, hypoplasia occurs in the cerebellum due to what appears to be a resistance to an important cerebellar proliferation gene. but you can't just remove that gene somehow, and then expect things to return to normal! not after a child is born, that is supposed to happen long before then. there's a reason proliferation has to stop... if it doesn't... that's childhood brain cancer.

no. selegeline inhibits monoamine oxidase, decreasing degradation of dopamine, allowing it to stay in the terminal longer. it's indirect and imo causes more problems than it addresses.

this is basic pharmacology: you increase stimulation of a receptor (ie, one of the da receptors) and you decrease surface expression of it. you inhibit an enzyme (ie, mao) and you increase expression. the body always fights with you.

i don't think you understand how just playing with drugs like that can seriously affect the system in question.

nevermind that you can't target a specific area here, and by adding this to your system, you're bathing the brain in it... which can impair some forms of learning.

why should it accept that idea?
i'm no physician, so i don't see the effects of this first hand. but i can understand the concept of a side effect profile. i can understand that the body isn't as helpless as you'd like to think it is in many cases. i can understand that interfering with things can cause long term changes for the worse, even if the short term intent was for the better.

ok. i've spent a lot of time in a pain management clinic and i have yet to hear "oh, here, take this and you can keep on doing what you're doing"
no, DH's prescription for his back pain? NEW CAREER ASAP. here's some drugs (and a long lecture on narcotics) so you can live almost normally until we can isolate the problem and treat it. but get out of that job and do something else with your life NOW.

i'm not advocating a blind prohibition, or a blind running out and grabbing everything you deem to be a miracle cure. drugs are not toys, and you don't go taking drugs that you don't need because you feel you need it. i wish people knew more about biochemistry, to be honest with you. it's unrealistic, but then we'd have fewer people going on about how they want to take drugs x, y, and z without a real need for it...

no drug supports normal function in an already normally functioning human being. drugs are made to counteract abnormal function, but the wisest pharmacologist i've ever met aptly put it that "drugs are selective poisons"

and he's right, about the stuff you see on the market. they are. they were all developed to alter improperly functioning systems- to make a compensatory abnormal function to counteract a natural abnormal function.

i have familial gastroesophageal reflux. about a year ago, it showed up. i knew about it beforehand, but i wasn't about to go taking a drug i didn't need to keep it from happening in the first place. i'll say it for the 10th time...

If it ain't broke
Don't fix it

because by blocking those pumps before i needed to do so, i would have upregulated them, so when i really did need the meds they wouldn't work so well. the body adapts to whatever you throw into it, trying to restore the function it had prior to the drug's presence. i would have made my own problem far worse by pre-emptively treating something i didn't have.

doesn't that strike you as a bad idea?

oxygen demand decreases with age. but i'm not seeing any numerical differences, all the numbers i've found cite a range for "age 19 and older"

increased risk of thrombosis, maybe? there are plenty of other factors that influence rbc number. decreased nutrient absorption could be one, to revert to nutritional defects for a second. just defaulting to this treatment is a bad idea.

the gene has acquired many mutations since it is not expressed. a sequencing study from 1994 indicates that the protein would not be functional if it was expressed.​

 

These words like nutrient, drug, chemical, hormone, supplement, food, etc. all seem to have fuzzy boundaries. The term drug is particularly poorly defined. For example, in Japan CoQ10 is a drug that requires a prescription. In the USA it is a supplement that does not require a prescription. It's present as a component in food (meat). It's produced by the body.

The best I can do with labeling CoQ10 is that it is a naturally occurring chemical that is required by humans. A low level of it causes problems, and these problems can be alleviated by supplementation.

I prefer to identify a drug as a chemical not normally found in the body which is administered to impact the body chemistry.
Nutrients can be consumed as food or supplements, and may also be manufactured by the body. When consumed in excess of normal requirements, nutrients can have phamacologic effects.

Another example. Both cats and humans require retinol. Cats must consume it in food, while humans can produce it from beta-carotene. Both cats and humans require vitamin C. But cats produce it from glucose, while humans have to consume it as food. Same chemical, same requirement, different sources.

I'll try again. The result of having the extra chromosome is that an excessive amount of several chemicals are produced. Supplemental nutrients such as lipoic acid can be used to reduce the impact of those chemicals that are toxic when in excess.

The impact of nutrients on gene expression is largely unknown. I do recall that progesterone upregulated one gene (for aptosis), and down regulated another gene (that had something to do with cancer promotion). But then progesterone is a drug/hormone, not a nutrient (unless you supplement it... here we go again...)

The Down's child was born just like any other Down's child. What the successful treatment indicates is that the deficits we see in Down's children are the result of development after birth. Treatment before birth would seem impossible, since the required treatment for the child would totally mess up the mother.

I wish I could find the reference, but I haven't been able to. It may well be that the report was overenthusiastic, and that even the "completely normal" child still has deficits attributable to Down's. But it is clear (at least to me) that there was a major improvement over the expected development of two Down's children.

A little background on why I think Deprenyl is a good drug. There were several presentations at Smart Life Forum about the history and use of it. The primary area of discussion was about the identification of a bad batch of the stuff that killed a number of people and gave it a bad reputation. One fellow spoke of how he had been using it for about 10 years, and was very happy with it. At about age 65, he had lost his wife, his libido was non-existent, and life was downright poor. He got some Deprenyl, and life got much better. His libido (and sexual interest/function) returned, he found a new woman, and life continues to be very good. He didn't have any of the usual indications for the drug (no Parkinson’s), but it turned a downward spiral into a new life. At 75 he is among the sharpest people I know. He has no claimed or observable bad effects from the drug. I would assume that he takes several dozen other supplements that help to maintain health into old age. My guess is that he is taking 6 or 7 mg per day of liquid deprenyl citrate. Here's a link to a description of the anti-aging usage of deprenyl: http://www.antiaging-systems.com/a2z/deprenyl.htm

Another example. A 25 year old guy took one 5 mg pill of Deprinyl as an experiment. He was absolutely wired, couldn't sleep for 2 days. Not recommended for 25 year olds.

Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Then don't do it!

A lot of truth to that.

There are several treatments for pain that I've encountered that are not commonly offered.

Earlier in this tread I briefly mentioned the pain avoidance effect of high dose vitamin C. Dr. Cathcart once told about how he had fallen and injured his head badly enough to require a trip to the ER for several stiches. During the two hours between injury and actual treatment, he consumed 65 grams of ascorbic acid pills. The result was far less pain and inflammation than would occur without those pills. Just how he knew that 65 grams was the proper dose, as opposed to 20 or 100, I really don't know. My guess is that after 30 years of seeing what vitamin C could be used for, he just had a calibrated impression of what would work. I certainly wouldn't take that much orally, and certainly not within a two hour period.

Dr. Cathcart spoke of using ascorbate as an electron donor that neutralized excess free radicals. Anytime there is inflammation, there are free radicals that are contributing to additional damage. So much so that frequently 90% of the symptoms are due to the uncontrolled free radicals. Sop up the free radicals with ascorbate and you eliminate most of the pain.

Intravenous treatment with sodium ascorbate is about 10 times as strong as oral treatment. So 60 grams intravenous is equivalent to 600 grams orally, if you could absorb that much orally (which you can't). This is the area where the "miracles" occur. Stuffing pills isn't going to do it.

Dr. Thomas Levy has a book called "Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, & Toxins" that discusses this sort of thing. Dr. Levy is an interesting character who holds certifications as both MD and JD. I guess if you're fighting mercury usage with vitamin C you need to be both a doctor and lawyer at the same time. His website is http://www.tomlevymd.com/

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Adhesions typically develop at the site of any injury. Even after the original injury is fully healed, there can be pain due to those adhesions. Adhesions, as well as inflammation, can be reduced with the use of systemic enzymes. Most of the usage of systemic enzymes has been in Europe, although there had been some here. The classic enzyme blend used for this sort of thing is Wobenzym D. I've used Vitalzym to help with an old ankle sprain, and it definitely helped where nothing else had. The complaint that enzymes can't survive stomach acid or that they're too large to be absorbed is, in the gentle language of medicine, BS. The primary problem in using systemic enzymes is that they're slow. It took me easily 6 months and $400 worth of Vitalzym to improve my ankle, and the problem comes back if I totally back off of the enzymes.

Once when I had a root canal done, my dentist sent me home with some Vitalzym to control the inflammation. There was essentially no pain. When I had a similar operation from a different dentist, the pain was severe and lasted for days. The prescription Tylenol with narcotic didn't work anywhere near as well as the simple enzyme blend.

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You don't like drugs? Try a diet of water for 3 weeks.

Honestly, a water fast is a very effective way to cure inflammatory conditions. It seems the body has a preference for consuming weak and inflamed tissue over healthy tissues.

This is not something safe to do without medical management. When you fast, all sorts of junk comes out of the fat, and it may be necessary to terminate the fast early. Knowing what is a tolerable condition as opposed to cause for alarm is a medical skill.

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Infrared light therapy can be used to reduce pain. Here's a link to a doctor who provides Anodyne therapy: http://www.endocrinemetabolic.com/services/anodyne.htm There are all sorts of theories about the wavelength of the light used, and the pulse frequency. There may be something to the pulsing, but I wouldn't be surprised if the important factor is the total amount of light energy delivered. You could probably build a functional IR therapy machine with several hundred LEDs, using a mixture of colors (there are several IR colors, plus ordinary red). I think I saw the claim that IR penetrates up to 9 inches, so it can be used to cause heating of internal structures.

Not even vaccines? Hey, maybe we even touched on the main topic!

Reflux medications all strike me as a poor treatment. They are habit forming, and cause more problems than they cure.
Stomach pain is caused by a normal level of acid attacking an injured stomach wall. Neutralizing the acid stops the pain, but also stops normal digestion. Proper digestion requires enough acid, and adding more acid is frequently a better treatment than neutralizing what's there. Big fight between conventional and alternative medicine.

Recently I had a minor stomachache that went on for several days. I used some mastic gum for a few days, and that cured it. Supposed to even work for h pylori.

I carry activated charcoal capsules with me when I travel. When a bad meal causes problems, a few of those capsules has cleared up the problem immediately. At home I have a canister of powdered activated charcoal. A tablespoon of that stuff in water cleans out your entire GI track with the only side effect of giving you black poop. Oh, and if you sneeze into the canister you have to sell the home - that stuff is really messy.

I learned about activated charcoal from Dr. Agatha Trash. While I call her the charcoal lady, I notice that she utilizes a wide variety of natural materials. One of the comments on her website is that they do not initiate use of prescription medicines for their patients, but are willing to continue usage of existing medications where necessary.

Here's an interesting link about the usage of activated charcoal: http://home.bluemarble.net/~heartcom/activatedcharcoal.html

Well, I suppose with all the aspirin and warfarin being used, and the lack of vascular nutrients, then thrombosis is a concern. Nattokinase does a better job of clearing the fibrin out of the blood. The Pauling protocol of lysine and proline strengthens the vascular system. Arginine does wonders. With all these you can afford to have some functional vitamin K, which is required for healthy arteries.

Ah shucks. Well then could you make a supplement of L-gulonolactone? Dosing with vitamin C is like trying to fill up a sieve. Some local production of ascorbate would probably work better than any external source.