How To Keep Protein From Spiking Adrenaline

[Arctic Fire]

Would value your thoughts on how to avoid high stress hormones after eating protein.

A relative of mine gets crazy surges of stress hormones after minor stresses, including eating meals with more than roughly 15 g of protein. He's likely already protein deficient, so these surges are a big problem.

The adrenaline surges can come shortly after eating or (more often) 1-3 hours later. Typically, among other symptoms, he gets anxious/agitated and somewhat short of breath, he feels sensations of cranial pressure, and his blood pressure rises. Sometimes also gets chills or dry mouth. The surges last for hours.

We try to make sure that at each meal he gets gelatin if necessary to balance inflammatory amino acids as well as enough carbs and sat fat to balance the protein. He begins each meal with a few spoonfuls of ice cream and often ends a meal with a tablespoon of coconut oil. He shoots for at least 3X as much carbs as protein at each meal.

It seems like the surges are worse with liver and eggs than other proteins, but as far as we can tell, all proteins cause the surges if he eats enough of them.

Once a surge has started, even large amounts of sugar, sat fat, and salt don't usually do much.

The adrenaline surges tend to be worst (and most common) after lunch, but that pattern might reflect the timing of his clonidine doses.

Questions for you:
- Anyone with similar experiences?
- Any ideas about what's causing this reaction to protein? If just hypoglycemia, why doesn't sugar shut it down?
- Roughly what ratios of carbs to protein and sat fat to protein at each meal would you recommend for someone with high stress hormones?
- Any thoughts about how to prevent/avoid these reactions and get my relative more protein? Long shots are welcome.

Thanks for your help and insights.

Background on my relative:
- Eats mostly fruit, fruit juice, cheese, ice cream, gelatin, oysters, other shellfish, raw carrot, cooked mushrooms, and to extent he can tolerate them, eggs and liver. Experiments with starch have gone badly.
- He has low vitamin D, high TSH, high serum lactic acid.
- We think he may be deficient in several B vitamins and want to give him plenty of liver but...adrenaline.
- Appetite is poor.
- Generally can't take pro-metabolic supps like thyroid, aspirin, caffeine, pregnenolone, or adrenaline gets much worse.
- To improve his balance of CO2 to lactic acid, he takes B1, B7 (biotin), and low doses of acetazolamide. Also tapes his mouth at night.
- Takes clonidine for the adrenaline spikes. It helps, but not enough.
- Because of the adrenaline problem he is sedentary and has to avoid bright sunlight (adrenaline trigger).

 

[Arctic Fire]

Cheese seems less likely than other protein sources to cause severe reactions.

 

[Lurker]

Niacinamide might help lower lactic acid and push toward normal glucose burning metabolism. Ray has recommended fairly low dose ~70mg with meals.

Ray has also mentioned in the case of adrenaline symptoms with coffee is to add milk and sugar (and keep adding sugar until symptoms subside). And perhaps the liver could use some attention.

 

[Vinero]

Have you tried eating starch instead of sugar? Some people respond better to starch instead of sugar.
Try eating protein with well cooked white rice or potatoes.

Also, how do you know elevated adrenaline causes these reactions? Too much endotoxin or cortisol can cause those exact same symptoms too.
Maybe the gelatin increases endotoxin, some people have reported that gelatin can cause endotoxin-like responses.


Is he taking any drugs? Like cortisone for example? Taking glucocorticoids/corticosteroids tend to greatly increase blood sugar and cause symptoms like dry mouth, anxiety, high blood-pressure, cranial sensations etc.
I speak from experience. A few years ago I was taking a cortisone cream for a skin rash and got those same symptoms that you call high adrenaline.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Niacinamide might help lower lactic acid and push toward normal glucose burning metabolism. Ray has recommended fairly low dose ~70mg with meals.

Ray has also mentioned in the case of adrenaline symptoms with coffee is to add milk and sugar (and keep adding sugar until symptoms subside). And perhaps the liver could use some attention.

Thank you, @Lurker.

In past experiments, I think niacinamide revved up his metabolism enough to exacerbate existing nutritional deficiencies, but we were using doses well above 70 mg. A very low dose with a meal might be a different story, and is definitely worth a try.

Agree about supporting the liver. He takes K2 and B1, both helpful to the liver, but is probably short on other B vitamins. The catch is that (as @Amazoniac made clear in his thread about the Biskinds' work on B deficiency) resolving a B deficiency may require many B vits at once, and the best source, liver, is something my relative does not tolerate well. Maybe we'll try brewer's yeast until he can handle liver...

 

[Arctic Fire]

Good questions, @Vinero. Thank you.

Yes, we've tried starch, and he gets similar stress reactions to meals, plus additional symptoms like runny nose and mild constipation. Haven't tried starch recently, though.

I don't know that elevated adrenaline is the cause -- just a guess, based in part on clonidine's effectiveness (though, IIRC, clonidine can lower cortisol as well as adrenaline). I assume other stress mediators are involved, including lactic acid. He follows several of RP's recommendations for preventing endotoxin (raw carrot, mushrooms, no other raw veggies, etc.), and hasn't had obvious problems with gelatin before, but it's worth checking. If cortisol is the cause, what would you recommend? More sugar hasn't worked very well.

Thanks for sharing your experience with glucocorticoids. He's not taking meds besides clonidine and low doses of acetazolamide and cyproheptadine. Clonidine and cypro cause dry mouth, but these stress reactions to meals make the dry mouth much worse.

Have you tried eating starch instead of sugar? Some people respond better to starch instead of sugar.
Try eating protein with well cooked white rice or potatoes.

Also, how do you know elevated adrenaline causes these reactions? Too much endotoxin or cortisol can cause those exact same symptoms too.
Maybe the gelatin increases endotoxin, some people have reported that gelatin can cause endotoxin-like responses.


Is he taking any drugs? Like cortisone for example? Taking glucocorticoids/corticosteroids tend to greatly increase blood sugar and cause symptoms like dry mouth, anxiety, high blood-pressure, cranial sensations etc.
I speak from experience. A few years ago I was taking a cortisone cream for a skin rash and got those same symptoms that you call high adrenaline.

 

[fradon]

Would value your thoughts on how to avoid high stress hormones after eating protein.

A relative of mine gets crazy surges of stress hormones after minor stresses, including eating meals with more than roughly 15 g of protein. He's likely already protein deficient, so these surges are a big problem.

The adrenaline surges can come shortly after eating or (more often) 1-3 hours later. Typically, among other symptoms, he gets anxious/agitated and somewhat short of breath, he feels sensations of cranial pressure, and his blood pressure rises. Sometimes also gets chills or dry mouth. The surges last for hours.

We try to make sure that at each meal he gets gelatin if necessary to balance inflammatory amino acids as well as enough carbs and sat fat to balance the protein. He begins each meal with a few spoonfuls of ice cream and often ends a meal with a tablespoon of coconut oil. He shoots for at least 3X as much carbs as protein at each meal.

It seems like the surges are worse with liver and eggs than other proteins, but as far as we can tell, all proteins cause the surges if he eats enough of them.

Once a surge has started, even large amounts of sugar, sat fat, and salt don't usually do much.

The adrenaline surges tend to be worst (and most common) after lunch, but that pattern might reflect the timing of his clonidine doses.

Questions for you:
- Anyone with similar experiences?
- Any ideas about what's causing this reaction to protein? If just hypoglycemia, why doesn't sugar shut it down?
- Roughly what ratios of carbs to protein and sat fat to protein at each meal would you recommend for someone with high stress hormones?
- Any thoughts about how to prevent/avoid these reactions and get my relative more protein? Long shots are welcome.

Thanks for your help and insights.

Background on my relative:
- Eats mostly fruit, fruit juice, cheese, ice cream, gelatin, oysters, other shellfish, raw carrot, cooked mushrooms, and to extent he can tolerate them, eggs and liver. Experiments with starch have gone badly.
- He has low vitamin D, high TSH, high serum lactic acid.
- We think he may be deficient in several B vitamins and want to give him plenty of liver but...adrenaline.
- Appetite is poor.
- Generally can't take pro-metabolic supps like thyroid, aspirin, caffeine, pregnenolone, or adrenaline gets much worse.
- To improve his balance of CO2 to lactic acid, he takes B1, B7 (biotin), and low doses of acetazolamide. Also tapes his mouth at night.
- Takes clonidine for the adrenaline spikes. It helps, but not enough.
- Because of the adrenaline problem he is sedentary and has to avoid bright sunlight (adrenaline trigger).

This could all be related to blood sugar. if the protein in causing a high insluin spike and dropping his blood glucose then he will get adrenaline spikes because of it beuase the body will increase anxiety and agitation when blood sugar falls.

since insulin shuts off cortisol there is no cortisol to release fatty acids to compensate for the low blood sugar.

I had this very issue happen to me last week when i had a steack. some people are very sensitive to insulin or their bodies produce a lot of insulin.

i have a suggestion of either having coffee, black tea or coca cola with his meal since it has caffeine and caffiene can release fatty acids. he can try decaf coffee since it does not have too much caffiene which can effect his adreanline issues.

if he older he may not need so much animal protein and might be well off eating black beans. alot of proteins of methionine and this increases methylation which can increases adreanline. beans are low in methionine.

 

[Arctic Fire]

This could all be related to blood sugar. if the protein in causing a high insluin spike and dropping his blood glucose then he will get adrenaline spikes because of it beuase the body will increase anxiety and agitation when blood sugar falls.

Thank you for your thoughts, @fradon. You may very well be right that hypoglycemia is causing surges of adrenaline. But if so, then why doesn't consuming more sugar before the protein prevent or weaken the surges, and why doesn't consuming more sugar shut the surges down after they've started? I could be wrong, but it seems like he's getting plenty of carbs both before and after the protein.

 

[fradon]

Thank you for your thoughts, @fradon. You may very well be right that hypoglycemia is causing surges of adrenaline. But if so, then why doesn't consuming more sugar before the protein prevent or weaken the surges, and why doesn't consuming more sugar shut the surges down after they've started? I could be wrong, but it seems like he's getting plenty of carbs both before and after the protein.

stop the coconut oil...its a medium chain fatty acid that goes straight to the liver and can cause adrenaline spikes or energy bursts and not always in a positive way. some people have an allergic reaction to it and this could definitely trigger adrenaline or ketone allergy

the problem is mixing protein, carb, and fat can elevate insulin for about 4-6 hours and if he is hypoglycemic then this is 4-6 hours of low blood sugar and adreanline spikes. combinging protein,fat, carb/starch at a meal for long term can lead to insulin resistance also.

this video talks about insulin spikes with various food combincations starting at the 35 minute mark



he may be better off simply eating carbs like salad or just rice with no or very low protein and skip the fat. adding fat to any meal will increase the length of insuline spike and this will be how long his hypoglycemic attack will be...

if he has msucle wasting then adding some weight lifting excercises will help and will also give the sugar a place to go. if he is insulin resistance then his body is reacting to the high blood glucose and dumping a lot of insulin to take care of it.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Thanks for your reply, @fradon.

stop the coconut oil...its a medium chain fatty acid that goes straight to the liver and can cause adrenaline spikes or energy bursts and not always in a positive way. some people have an allergic reaction to it and this could definitely trigger adrenaline or ketone allergy

The surges of stress hormones are worse without the ice cream and coconut oil. And he's been using coconut oil for years with no problems.

the problem is mixing protein, carb, and fat can elevate insulin for about 4-6 hours and if he is hypoglycemic then this is 4-6 hours of low blood sugar and adreanline spikes. combinging protein,fat, carb/starch at a meal for long term can lead to insulin resistance also.

Had not heard that criticism of mixing macros before. If anything, I thought RP favored combining sugar and sat fat to suppress stress hormones, e.g. ice cream for preventing a migraine. I'll do some reading.

Thanks for the video -- will check it out.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Update: 900 mg of inosine before a meal reduces his stress response somewhat for an hour or so. A welcome development, but obviously we still need to fix the underlying problem.

 

[InChristAlone]

Have you considered histamine intolerance? Adrenaline rises when histamine rises (or at least it should otherwise people take epinephrine to combat life threatening allergic reaction). Have you ever tried vitamin C? Instead of clonidine you could try a good antihistamine like cyproheptadine.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Have you considered histamine intolerance? Adrenaline rises when histamine rises (or at least it should otherwise people take epinephrine to combat life threatening allergic reaction). Have you ever tried vitamin C? Instead of clonidine you could try a good antihistamine like cyproheptadine.

Thank you, @Janelle525. No, had not considered histamine intolerance, but if you know of a good article on the subject, pls link. Relative takes 1-4 mg of cypro; it helps, but not like clonidine. He drinks a lot of OJ and AJ. You think more vitamin C may be necessary? If histamine intolerance is the problem, he must have a severe case...

 

[oldfriend]

Are they eating fiber in the same meal as the protein? In my experience fiber spikes adrenaline and not protein, at least not directly. Protein causes a spike in insulin and has to be eaten with sufficient carbs to prevent BS problems which adrenaline issue might be attributed to. Also, I think glutamate intolerance is associated with adrenaline issues. Everyone here extolls the benefits of gelatin, but I'm not so sure about it. Gelatin is 10% free glutamic acid, which will stack with the glutamate in the protein source. Maybe not a big deal, but gelatin has other issues so it's worth looking into an amino acid supplement like Amino Pro.

 

[ilikecats]

@Arctic Fire whats your salt intake? If I was a betting man I’d say there’s not enough salt in your diet and that’s the cause of your problem. If I go below two tablespoons of salt a day (my salt needs vary but I’d say this is a good average) I get bad Adrenalin problems especially when ingesting any liquids.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Thanks for your suggestions, @oldfriend.

Relative does not eat much fiber besides the fiber from mushrooms and raw carrot, and a bit from fruit. He does sometimes have problems with the raw carrot, but most of his meals have low fiber, and protein gives him a stress response independent of fiber. He used gelatin for a while without problems, but it's worth testing gelatin-free meals.

I agree with your point about balancing protein with carbs. It's strange that he can eat a lot of carbs with protein and still get the stress response. He's clearly producing a lot of lactic acid; maybe if you're wastefully converting carbs to lactic acid, you need more carbs to balance a given amount of protein.

Are they eating fiber in the same meal as the protein? In my experience fiber spikes adrenaline and not protein, at least not directly. Protein causes a spike in insulin and has to be eaten with sufficient carbs to prevent BS problems which adrenaline issue might be attributed to. Also, I think glutamate intolerance is associated with adrenaline issues. Everyone here extolls the benefits of gelatin, but I'm not so sure about it. Gelatin is 10% free glutamic acid, which will stack with the glutamate in the protein source. Maybe not a big deal, but gelatin has other issues so it's worth looking into an amino acid supplement like Amino Pro.

 

[oldfriend]

Actually I have very similar problems to your relative. One thing I’ve done recently that’s changed things for the better is IdeaLabs Magnoil. I highly recommend it. I would look into supplementing b1 3x a day for combatting lactic acid. Sodium acetate has helped me there too, although I don’t take it nearly as often. high dose vitamin c is another thing you might look into. It helps with ammonia and will decrease the net output of adrenaline. It will help with constipation too, and that is key in managing ammonia. I know you said direct sunlight is bad, and in my experience was stressful at first, but feel much better on days that I get the full 2 hours+some exercise.

 

[oldfriend]

one more thing, be very careful with b7. It’s easy to crash blood sugar. Low doses are best

 

[Arctic Fire]

Thank you, @ilikecats. Good point about low salt inducing an adrenaline response to liquids. Since my relative gets a lot of his carbs from fruit and fruit juice, and he consumes more carbs the more protein he eats in a given meal, his fluid intake is correlated with protein. So it's possible that part of what we've been interpreting as a stress response to protein might be a stress response to fluid intake. And of course, hypoT people have trouble retaining sodium. But we've got him salting all his food, adding baking soda to his orange juice, and sipping salty water, so I'd be surprised if he's seriously deficient in sodium. Still, it's worth tracking his sodium consumption more closely.

@Arctic Fire whats your salt intake? If I was a betting man I’d say there’s not enough salt in your diet and that’s the cause of your problem. If I go below two tablespoons of salt a day (my salt needs vary but I’d say this is a good average) I get bad Adrenalin problems especially when ingesting any liquids.

 

[Arctic Fire]

Thank you for the ideas, @oldfriend. Very helpful to hear from people who are in a similar boat. I'd be interested in hearing more about your case -- is there a thread?

Will look into Magnoil, sodium acetate, and vitamin C. Relative currently takes B1, and it helps; not sure we've optimized the doses. Can you recommend sources of sodium acetate and vit C that you like? I know RP is pretty critical of vit C supps.

Actually I have very similar problems to your relative. One thing I’ve done recently that’s changed things for the better is IdeaLabs Magnoil. I highly recommend it. I would look into supplementing b1 3x a day for combatting lactic acid. Sodium acetate has helped me there too, although I don’t take it nearly as often. high dose vitamin c is another thing you might look into. It helps with ammonia and will decrease the net output of adrenaline. It will help with constipation too, and that is key in managing ammonia. I know you said direct sunlight is bad, and in my experience was stressful at first, but feel much better on days that I get the full 2 hours+some exercise.