Ray Peat Email Advice Depository

[Sheila]

Regarding transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation (tvns), via a device connected to the ear tragus, for someone with surgery-induced vagal nerve damage and a second person with endotoxic old age symptomatology, used in a gentle and considered fashion:

"I don’t think there is a good reason for implying that it’s just the vagus nerve that’s being stimulated, or what parts of the brain are being stimulated, but it seems to work as well as acupuncture, and is safe. Has the person tried progesterone and acetazolamide?"

 

[Lizb]

I asked about mild cognitive impairment/likely dementia

"Things that increase the metabolic rate improve memory, reaction time, etc., relax bladder, build muscle. Vitamin D, high calcium intake (two liters/day low fat milk), aspirin, angiotensin receptor blockers, thyroid, progesterone and DHEA (5 mg), adequate protein, bowel regularity, are important for supporting oxidative metabolism."

 

[gaze]

Me:
In what way were American eugenicists inolved in anti-soviet propoganda?

Ray:
The eugenicists, seeing themselves as a better class, wanted to eliminate poor people and immigrants, so there was a great overlap with the anti-union, anti-socialist political campaign. Working class people who were enthusiastic racists and anti-red were the instruments of the upper class who mostly stayed in the background.

 

[KyrieEleison]

Can someone ask Ray Peat if smoking one or two rolled up organic cigarettes a day protects against covid 19 and other infections?

 

[metabolizm]

Safest way to avoid magnesium deficiency: "Drinking milk and a little of the water that kale has boiled in."

 

[meatbag]

Originally posted by @Cloudhands

asking about relationships & polyamory

"Our society is committed to creating artificial scarcity to maintain authoritarian relationships everywhere, especially sexual, interpersonal, reproductive relations. The basic sense of reality tends toward coherence, so one's sense of dutiful conforming affects the sense of erotic sensuality. The organism's well being is limited by all of the anti-empathic, exploitative institutions we interact with" - RP

 

[MatheusPN]

The response of Ray, thanks to Tansia, related to vulvodynia. Can fully be seen here: Ray's View Of Causes Of Vulvodynia

"Endometriosis is clearly the result of too much estrogen, and there are good reasons for thinking a similar imbalance is involved in vulvodynia. Estrogen increases the presence of mast cells, which are found increased in the painful area. Mast cells secrete a variety of proinflammatory and pain-inducing substances including histamine, serotonin, and renin, which is converted locally to angiotensin. Estrogen supports formation of all those. Low vitamin D, low calcium intake relative to phosphate, and low thyroid function contribute to the excess of estrogen relative to progesterone. Vitamin D, milk, cyproheptadine (antagonist to histamine and serotonin), thyroid, and angiotensin blockers (such as telmisartan or candesartan) should help to correct the condition."

 

[mmb82]

I was disappointed with the lack of effort in this response, but with all the vitamin A talk going on, here is Ray's view on high levels of serum vitamin A:

Me: "Hi Ray,

I had blood tests done about one and a half years ago for serum vitamin A levels. The results came back at the high end of the lab ranges (57 ug/dL), so I decided to do a "vitamin A free" diet, virtually eating zero preformed vitamin A and reducing carotenoids to the equivalent to a few hundred IUs of vitamin A daily on average. I retested my serum vitamin A levels thrice since my first test in January 2019 and the results came back high every time (around 57 ug/dL). Does this indicate potential subclinical hypervitaminosis A? It seems odd that with no vitamin A in my diet for about 1.5 years that my serum vitamin A levels are still so high.

Are there any supplements or things that can help speed up the process of eliminating the excess vitamin A stored in the liver?
Are there any things that are protective against excess vitamin A?"

Ray's response: "I don’t think there are any problems associated with the high end of the normal range. A diet lacking vitamin A is likely to lack other important nutrients."

 

[Amazoniac]

Me:

"How do you estimate the transdermal absorption of vitamin D? Is it based on the uptake of minor planets, the asteroids? The available experiments that I read are confounded by the composition of the product used.

Why do you consider oral supplementation better (when tolerated)?
What differences do you expect depending on the route?"​

Raj:

"If the superficial layer of skin is reduced by a long bath and rubbing, much more is absorbed; the concentration of the solution, the thoroughness of the rubbing in, and not washing it off, all make a big difference. Some people, after using it transdermally for several weeks showed no change in their blood level. Taking it orally, nearly all of it is absorbed."​

Me:

"Do you think that supplemental vitamin K2 is necessary when using vitamin D? I never came across your take on this.
If you don't mind me asking, do you use it? Which one and how?

From your observations of people's experiences with vitamin D, when is it contraindicated?"​

Raj:

"They can be used separately; I use both. I don’t know of any contraindications to vitamin D, but it’s important to avoid harmful excipients."​

Me:

"Which form of K2 do you prefer? Why?
You usually apply them together on skin?
What would you consider a reasonable ratio (generalizing it)?"​

Raj:

"I use any K1 or K2 if it’s in a safe vehicle such as olive oil. If it has MCT in it, I use it on my skin."​

 

[Maljam]

Question:

Dear Ray,

I wondered roughly what percentage of your daily calories come from fat, do you know? Or what percentage would you recommend most people consume coming from the common saturated fat sources?

Thank you.


Ray peat:


It depends partly on your metabolic rate and activity level, but you need enough carbohydrate to prevent ketosis. Generally using mainly carbohydrates for energy is better, because a higher respiratory quotient prevents reductive stress, the metabolism that can lead to diabetes, dementia, heart and kidney disease, cancer. I think it would be good to aim for 30% of calories or less. Milk with 1% fat is a good staple—the high calcium content helps to keep a higher metabolic rate.

 

[Maljam]

Q. Would exfoliating skin before topical administration increase absorption?

RP: Damaged skin absorbs more than intact skin.

Q. Would you recommend against exfoliating the skin before applying vitamins?

RP: If you keep skin wet for about an hour, the dead skin cells loosen, and rub off easily with a light towel rub.

 

[Maljam]

Q. I was just wondering what you thought about the research coming out about the long term neurological damage from people recovered from coronavirus?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30228-5/fulltext

RP: Influenza has similarly high neurological effects, in some cases that’s the only symptom of infection. The MRI changes don’t seem informative. Being sick affects the brain, lungs, blood vessels, etc.

 

[Vileplume]

Me:
Hello Dr. Peat,

I’ve noticed a pattern recently. I will eat eggs and grapes for breakfast, then go for a 45-minute morning walk with milk and warm coffee in my thermos. Although I typically wake around 97.5 and after breakfast can get my temp up to 98, after my walk, my temp is frequently very low, sometimes at 96.1. Usually I eat a few carrots and the temperature rises to 98.0 over about 30 minutes.

Do you know why I might have drastically reduced temperatures after morning and evening walks? Should I stop them?


Dr. Peat:
I think it’s best to start the day with carbohydrates and milk, before having eggs. When glycogen stores are low, the high quality protein of eggs can lower the blood glucose. That’s more likely to happen if thyroid and vitamin D are low.

 

[metabolizm]

I asked Ray about my apparent intolerance to milk, which I have linked to poor digestion and gut inflammation in general.

Ray: A daily raw carrot or some cooked mushrooms should improve its digestion.

 

[RealNeat]

Me:
My wife and I are adopting a cat that has been vaccinated and neutered. He is about 2 years old. I want to mitigate the harm done by these procedures. What do you think would be a good way to do this? Supplementary androgens? How about diet? Im going to try and buy raw meat scraps from the local butcher and switch him onto that. I'm afraid he will develop urinary tract issues and am trying to prevent it, I know you have a cat so any tips would be appreciated.

Ray:
Eating their normal foods, rodents and birds, they usually eat the bones, so on a meat diet it’s important to give them extra calcium—bone meal, egg shells, cheese, milk. A vitamin D supplement is usually necessary (high dietary calcium with vitamin D lowers parathyroid hormone, and prevents soft tissue calcification and stones. Probably a weight-appropriate dose of DHEA would be helpful, maybe about a fourth of a milligram per day.

 

[gaze]

Me:

I said a longer version of : High fat diets or grains as a better source of calories during possible upcoming food shortages, especially fruit?

Ray:

I think butter and cream are safe sources for a large part of the calorie requirement, generally better than grains (unless they are nixtamalized, alkali treated). I have been using frozen concentrate and reconstituted pasteurized juice for a long time, because of the scarcity of ripe oranges in the US. In Mexico, I’ve never run into an unripe orange, so there I usually juice my own. I think, for important things like oranges, milk, and cheese, the US is going to have more trouble than rural Mexico.


Also to anyone reading this, please continue posting on this thread if you have past emails with Ray, even if you think your email exchange won't help many people. I personally enjoy reading all his responses and there's always someone who can benefit from seeing different questions and answers from Ray, no matter the question.

 

[gaze]

Posting this exchange someone else sent to me:

Anonymous:
I've came across various studies displaying that a positive IGF1:IGFBP3 Ratio is A Predictor Of Male Vertex Balding through skull/collagen growth leading to blood constriction and calcification.

I'm aware that milk contains IGF-1 but no IGFBP3 which would be seen as a negative given the above. Do you have any thoughts on how we can stop or lower the IGF-1 increasing from milk, or how to increase IGFBP3 to offset the increased IGF1?

Also do you see any negative effects from the opiate-like products found in cows milk such as the casomorphins and whey peptides?

I really want to include milk as a stable in my diet, but these worries are lingering in my head, as I’m trying to regrow the hair I have lost.

Thank you, I will be sure to pass on the response to anyone with the same concerns.

Ray:
Skull growth is matched by skin growth and formation of new blood vessels. Increased fibrosis is associated with higher estrogen, lower testosterone, and there is a strong increasing trend in recent decades for both of those, and they coincide with a reduction of milk consumption during that time. The incidence of hyperparathyroidism has increased during this time, and that hormone causes hair loss. Calcium and vitamin D help to lower parathyroid hormone. I think milk helps to prevent baldness, as well as obesity, colon cancer, and dementia.


Dan Med J. 2013 Feb;60(2):A4567.

Increasing incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism in Denmark

Ali Abood, Peter Vestergaard

Introduction: Primary hyperparathyroidism is a common endocrine disorder with different epidemiological patterns among countries. In Denmark, the incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism was last described in 1999 when it was reported to follow an increasing trend. In the present study, we evaluated trends in the incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism in Denmark up to 2010.

Material and methods: All patients diagnosed with primary hyperparathyroidism from 1977 to 2010 were included. Annual incidence rates were calculated.

Results: The overall incidence was clearly increased at the end of 2010 with an annual rate of 16 per 100,000. Following a cyclic curve, year-to-year incidence rates were fluctuating. During the entire period, the incidence was higher in women than in men. Furthermore, in women above the age of 50 years, a five-fold increase in incidence was observed, while there was no difference in the increase among men above the age of 50 years compared with men under the age of 50 years.

Conclusion: The incidence of primary hyperparathyroidism in Denmark continues its remarkable rise. The overall increase in incidence may be the result of more frequent plasma calcium measurements as well as the prevailing obesity epidemic. The dramatic increase in incidence observed among women over the age of 50 years requires further studies. The causes of the cyclic trend observed are uncertain, as no seasonal variation was seen.

Skin Appendage Disord. 2019 Feb;5(2):90-93.

Frontal Fibrosing Alopecia: An Emerging Epidemic

Paradi Mirmirani 1 2 3 , Antonella Tosti 4 , Lynne Goldberg 5 , David Whiting 6 , Bahman Sotoodian 7

Since the initial description of frontal fibrosing alopecia (FFA) in 1994, increasingly more cases of FFA have been reported in literature. Although clear epidemiologic data on the incidence and prevalence of FFA is not available, it is intriguing to consider whether FFA should be labeled as an emerging epidemic. A medline trend analysis as well as literature review using keywords "alopecia," "hair loss," and "cicatrical" were performed. Medline trend analysis of published FFA papers from 1905 to 2016 showed that the number of publications referenced in Medline increased from 1 (0.229%) in 1994 to 44 (3.5%) in 2016. The number of patients per published cohort also increased dramatically since the first report of FFA. Over the time period of January 2006-2016, our multi hair-referral centers collaboration study also showed a significant increase in new diagnoses of FFA. At this juncture, the cause for the rapid rise in cases is one of speculation. It is plausible that a cumulative environmental or toxic factor may trigger hair loss in FFA. Once perhaps a "rare type" of cicatricial alopecia, FFA is now being seen in a frequency in excess of what is expected, thus suggestive of an emerging epidemic.

 

[gaze]

I found this email exchange on the Facebook page from a while back, some of you may have seen it. I think it was such a good exchange that it deserved to be on here.

The question:
Dear Dr. Peat,
Do you have any advice for dealing with destructive feelings - pent-up anger, resentment, hate, jealousy, childhood trauma, rejection, feeling unloved, feeling world-weary, feeling alienated in a world full of serotonin-driven automatons - that resurface whenever metabolism isn't optimal or when stress becomes too much?
Food, progesterone, thyroid, sunlight and other prometabolic substances are helpful, but they don't clear up the energy of the past stuck in the system and influencing the evaluation of the present.
How to protect oneself from being vulnerable, without getting bitter and coldhearted?
And how does one know when to run away from a stressful situation and when to work through it and improve oneself in the process?

Ray:
Although I think escaping from stressful situations is good in principle, it can be very hard in practice. For acute situations, having a milkshake, some pregnenolone and progesterone and coffee as needed, can make it possible to direct the anger energy into mental actions. The reality is that societies are populated mostly by those authoritarian automatons, but when I realize that the world still contains lots of sentient intelligent beings—some humans, many mammals, insects, mollusks, plants--I see that alienation from the malicious system is better than joining it.
It’s helpful to understand how particular bad actions fit into the bad system, even though it makes you realize that the problem is immensely bigger than the immediate thing that you’re reacting to. Wilhelm Reich and Alice Miller wrote about some of the ways that the evil automatons are created. But beyond that system of automatons, there’s the real world of living intelligences.
When I was investigating how my autonomic nervous system works, I realized that my body takes on specific feelings in the presence of different individuals, with a sense of fibers going out from the solar plexus connecting with people that I feel free with, and a sense of shrinking discomfort in other situations. With practice, I found that I had some control over those reactions, and by directing my attention to them I could maintain a sense of myself while in the presence of the manipulators-robots.
Besides being self protective or therapeutic, the consciousness of alienation from a bad system puts you into a position where you might be able to reduce some of its destructiveness.

 

[blob69]

Q: Is "saline placebo" in vaccine studies really a saline placebo and nothing else?

RP: Technically, “saline” could refer to a variety of salts in solution, and many safety tests have deliberately used an inflammation-producing “placebo.” It’s hard to find anything honest in the vaccine business.

[My comment: Aluminum salts, such as aluminum hydroxide, are commonly used vaccine adjuvants.]

 

[blob69]

I asked Ray about his thoughts on new viruses being of endogenous origin, meaning that our body produces them and they do not come "from the outside".

His reply: “We have all been exposed to various corona viruses many times, and interactions of viruses within infected organisms are thought to be where new strains originate. Ralph Baric’s group at Universithy of North Carolina in recent years described the steps of creating the virus in their lab. I don’t know of any reason to suppose why a new corona virus would evolve only in exotic species.”

I also sent him an excerpt from the book Virus Mania (below) and asked for his opinion about it.

His reply: “I think that stress-induction of exosomes is a source of unique viruses, potentially emitted from every kind of organism. Besides our “own” DNA, our chromosomes have a huge repertoire of foreign DNA to work with, but while in the stress condition that modifies our DNA, we are also open to things that are going around, such as colds and mumps.”