Acidifying Foods Block The Release Of Growth Hormone

haidut

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Ray has written about the misconception of "growth hormone" (GH) being something to be desired, and how high levels of it are associated with many diseases, particularly cancer and diabetes.
It turns out that lowering plasma Ph (making the body more acidic) has a very strong inhibitory effect on GH release while raising Ph (more alkaline) increases GH release. This matches well with Peat's writings that cancer cells love alkaline evironment and the connection between GH and cancer.
The data comes from this book, which is obviously NOT recommended as a diet guide but it is helpful in the sense that it provides a chart/table ranking some common foods by their ability to acidify the body.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Paleo-Diet-Re ... 0470913029

I have attached the chart to the post. As you can see, in another confirmation of Peat's ideas milk (and other animal-source) products score particularly high while on the other hand you may want to think twice before eating lots of raising and/or spinach.
 

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Mittir

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haidut said:
This matches well with Peat's writings that cancer cells love alkaline evironment and the connection between GH and cancer.

I thought RP meant that cancers cells have alkaline environment inside the cell and
surrounds itself by acidic environment, which is a result of excess lactic acid production.
He also mentioned that intracellular pH of a healthy cell is slightly acidic but extra cellular pH is
slightly alkaline.here is a RP quote

Ray Peat said:
The alkaline cancer cell surrounds itself by the acid that it emits, and this extracellular acidity increases the ability of fatty acids to enter the cell (Spector, 1969); cancer cells, although they are synthesizing fat, also avidly take it up from their environment (Sueyoshi and Nagao, 1962b).
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/ca ... ergy.shtml
 
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haidut

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Mittir said:
haidut said:
This matches well with Peat's writings that cancer cells love alkaline evironment and the connection between GH and cancer.

I thought RP meant that cancers cells have alkaline environment inside the cell and
surrounds itself by acidic environment, which is a result of excess lactic acid production.
He also mentioned that intracellular pH of a healthy cell is slightly acidic but extra cellular pH is
slightly alkaline.here is a RP quote

Ray Peat said:
The alkaline cancer cell surrounds itself by the acid that it emits, and this extracellular acidity increases the ability of fatty acids to enter the cell (Spector, 1969); cancer cells, although they are synthesizing fat, also avidly take it up from their environment (Sueyoshi and Nagao, 1962b).
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/ca ... ergy.shtml

Right, so alkaline environment within the cell promotes cancer cell survival. I am pretty sure he recommends acidifying the cells, mostly through increasing the production of CO2:
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/water.shtml

"...Respiring cells are always producing some water, by transferring hydrogen from fuel molecules to oxygen. Respiration also produces carbon dioxide, which in itself is a Lewis acid (meaning that it binds electrons, rather than releasing protons), that associates with cellular proteins, acidifying them in the process. A large amount of carbon dioxide can exist inside cells in the bound form. Acidified cytoplasm (like any other mostly acidic polymer-gel) releases water and sodium. (This process is physically analogous to the process of flushing a water softener with salt, or a demineralizer with acid, to reactivate it.)"

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/ca ... ergy.shtml

"...When the pH of a protein gel becomes more alkaline, it swells. The electrical activation of a nerve causes a quick shift towards internal alkalinity (Endres, et al., 1986), followed by a sudden increase in lactic acid production. Although increased lactic acid causes acidity of an irritated or inflamed region, the conversion of pyruvic acid to lactic acid causes the interior of the stressed cell to become more alkaline, causing it to swell. This is the same process that causes the familiar swelling of tired muscles."

"...Increasing carbon dioxide lowers the intracellular pH, as well as inhibiting lactic acid formation, and restoring the oxidation of glucose increases CO2. Inhibiting carbonic anhydrase, to allow more CO2 to stay in the cell, contributes to intracellular acidification, and by systemically increasing carbon dioxide this inhibition has a broad range of protective anti-excitatory effects. The drug industry is now looking for chemicals that will specifically inhibit the carbonic anhydrase enzymes that are active in tumors. Existing carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, such as acetazolamide, will inhibit those enzymes, without harming other tissues. Aspirin has some effect as an inhibitor of carbonic anhydrase (Bayram, et al., 2008). Since histamine, serotonin (Vullo, et al., 2007), and estrogen (Barnett, et al., 2008; Garg, 1975) are carbonic anhydrase activators, their antagonists would help to acidify the hypoxic cells. Testosterone (Suzuki, et al., 1996) and progesterone are estrogen antagonists that inhibit carbonic anhydrase."
 

Kasper

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Are GH and HGH different ? And if so, what do you think about HGH ?

I found this figure at mercola's website:

hgh-graph.jpg


This makes me doubt if HGH is so bad. Because if it is bad, why have young people so much of it ?
According to wikipedia GH and HGH are the same, but maybe I'm missing something.
 
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haidut

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Kasper said:
Are GH and HGH different ? And if so, what do you think about HGH ?

I found this figure at mercola's website:

hgh-graph.jpg


This makes me doubt if HGH is so bad. Because if it is bad, why have young people so much of it ?
According to wikipedia GH and HGH are the same, but maybe I'm missing something.

Yes, I believe they are the same and it's just different ways of referring to the same compound. The correct name is probably HGH to distinguish it from BGH (bovine GH) and other hormones used in agriculture and food industry. Hwoever, no matter what you call it, GH is a known cancer promoter in adults. In children it has a very valid purposes - stimulating skeletal growth to normal size. In adults, GH and IGF-1 are tumor promoters. It would take a lot more than this thread to try and explain why GH and the growth it spurs is generally bad in adulthood, but suffice it to say you only want cells to grow and divide when there is a valid reason - wound healing, organ regeneration, etc. Uncontrolled cell growth and division is basically cancer. Ray wrote in one of his articles that the "primordial purpose of every cell is to grow" and the proper functioning of the adult organism consists mainly of devising and optimizing methods for restricting that growth most of the time. Here is something to consider:
http://lifescientist.com.au/content/hea ... s-65321653

"...The genes that controlled the behaviour of these early multicellular organisms still reside within our own cells, managed by more recent genes that keep them in check. It's when these newer controlling genes fail that the older mechanisms take over, and the cell reverts to its earlier behaviours and grows out of control."

And more specifically, an overview of the role of GH and IGF-1 in promoting caner:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23807602

"...Animals born with a deficiency in the cell surface receptor for growth hormone (GH) have a significantly reduced risk of developing cancer. Conversely, increased expression levels of GH and the GH receptor (GHR) are detectable in a variety of different human cancers... In addition to animal evidence, studies of individuals with Laron syndrome suggest that congenital GHR deficiency may also protect humans against cancer... Substantial evidence suggests the GH/insulin-like growth factor-1 axis initiates and promotes progression of cancer..."

Once you are an adult you want your cells to mostly differentiate (not grow) unless there is a major trauma and/or stress in which case short-term increases of GH may be beneficial to repair the damage by making cells divide and grow.
 
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I also was under the convincement that Ray Peat advocates a cell innard more acidic than the blood, both of these around a Ph of slightly alkaline 7,4.
 

Kasper

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Still very confusing.

Because, if this is true, than maybe for children it is good to overbreathe so that CO2 doesn't inhibit their GH production.
And maybe parmesan cheese is bad for children, if you reason this way.

What I've learned is that HGH is a healing substance, and that with aging and decline of HGH your body is less able to heal itself.
But the main reason, I doubt about growth hormone, is less scientific and more intuitive, if I do things that increase growth hormone, total body vibration/sauna, than this has very positive effects on my mood. I find it hard to believe that those things are bad for me.

But okay, I haven't studied this. Let's put some argument here from people that have studied this better than me.

Whatever the cause, the defect of GH secretion in obesity appears to be of secondary, probably adaptive, nature since it is completely reversed by the normalization of body weight. In spite of this, treatment with biosynthetic GH has been shown to improve the body composition and the metabolic efficacy of lean body mass in obese patients undergoing therapeutic severe caloric restriction. GH and conceivably GHRPs might therefore have a place in the therapy of obesity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10193871

If there is a defect of GH section in obesity, would it be beneficial to get obese ? Anyway, according to wikipedia, growth hormone seems to do something positive in adults, because if adults get growth hormone deficient, the following symptoms happen:

Recognised effects include:
-Increased 5-alpha-reductase
-Reduced sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG)
-Reduced muscle mass and strength
-Baldness in men
-Reduced bone mass and osteoporosis
-Reduced energy
-Impaired concentration and memory loss
-Increased body fat, particularly around the waistline
-Lipid abnormalities, particularly raised LDL cholesterol
-Increased levels of fibrinogen and plasminogen activator inhibitor
-Cardiac dysfunction, including a thickened intima media

Growth hormone seems not only related to growing, but also related to autophagy (cell recycling). This seems like a very beneficial process to me:

Autophagy helps to preserve organelles [2] and to keep cells functioning, as cells require a constant supply of nutrients (supplied by autophagy). [3] By doing so (recycling protein), autophagy reduces the overall burden of protein synthesis. [4] Full Free Article Energetic needs during starvation and stress are partly met by elevated autophagy. Stimulation of autophagy may also help cells to eliminate pathogens (virusses[5], bacteria etc). Failure of autophagy is thought to be one of the main reasons for the accumulation of cell damage and aging. [6] Autophagy protects against diseases such as cancer [7] [8], neurodegenerative disorders [9] [10], bacterial [11] [12] and viral [13] infections, ageing [14] [15], inflammatory diseases [16] [17] and insulin resistance [18] [19]. (supported by animal studies Full Free Article) Aging of the heart is accelerated when autophagy is impaired. [20] long-term caloric restriction may preserve cardiac function by promoting autophagy. [21] Melatonin (an endogenous antioxidant) modulates autophagy [22] increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and total glutathione (GSH) levels [23] Vitamin D also induces autophagy, mediated by (antimicrobial) cathelicidin. [24]
http://www.waiwiki.org/index.php?title=Autophagy
 
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Aiming for respiratory alkalosis just to increase GH does not seem an intuitive approach to me :D also the vibration and sauna can benefit you in so many other ways.
 
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haidut

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Kasper said:
Still very confusing.

Because, if this is true, than maybe for children it is good to overbreathe so that CO2 doesn't inhibit their GH production.
And maybe parmesan cheese is bad for children, if you reason this way.

What I've learned is that HGH is a healing substance, and that with aging and decline of HGH your body is less able to heal itself.
But the main reason, I doubt about growth hormone, is less scientific and more intuitive, if I do things that increase growth hormone, total body vibration/sauna, than this has very positive effects on my mood. I find it hard to believe that those things are bad for me.

But okay, I haven't studied this. Let's put some argument here from people that have studied this better than me.

Whatever the cause, the defect of GH secretion in obesity appears to be of secondary, probably adaptive, nature since it is completely reversed by the normalization of body weight. In spite of this, treatment with biosynthetic GH has been shown to improve the body composition and the metabolic efficacy of lean body mass in obese patients undergoing therapeutic severe caloric restriction. GH and conceivably GHRPs might therefore have a place in the therapy of obesity.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10193871

If there is a defect of GH section in obesity, would it be beneficial to get obese ? Anyway, according to wikipedia, growth hormone seems to do something positive in adults, because if adults get growth hormone deficient, the following symptoms happen:

Recognised effects include:
-Increased 5-alpha-reductase
-Reduced sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG)
-Reduced muscle mass and strength
-Baldness in men
-Reduced bone mass and osteoporosis
-Reduced energy
-Impaired concentration and memory loss
-Increased body fat, particularly around the waistline
-Lipid abnormalities, particularly raised LDL cholesterol
-Increased levels of fibrinogen and plasminogen activator inhibitor
-Cardiac dysfunction, including a thickened intima media

Growth hormone seems not only related to growing, but also related to autophagy (cell recycling). This seems like a very beneficial process to me:

Autophagy helps to preserve organelles [2] and to keep cells functioning, as cells require a constant supply of nutrients (supplied by autophagy). [3] By doing so (recycling protein), autophagy reduces the overall burden of protein synthesis. [4] Full Free Article Energetic needs during starvation and stress are partly met by elevated autophagy. Stimulation of autophagy may also help cells to eliminate pathogens (virusses[5], bacteria etc). Failure of autophagy is thought to be one of the main reasons for the accumulation of cell damage and aging. [6] Autophagy protects against diseases such as cancer [7] [8], neurodegenerative disorders [9] [10], bacterial [11] [12] and viral [13] infections, ageing [14] [15], inflammatory diseases [16] [17] and insulin resistance [18] [19]. (supported by animal studies Full Free Article) Aging of the heart is accelerated when autophagy is impaired. [20] long-term caloric restriction may preserve cardiac function by promoting autophagy. [21] Melatonin (an endogenous antioxidant) modulates autophagy [22] increasing superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and total glutathione (GSH) levels [23] Vitamin D also induces autophagy, mediated by (antimicrobial) cathelicidin. [24]
http://www.waiwiki.org/index.php?title=Autophagy

Kasper, nobod is saying HGH is always bad, it certainly has its physiological purposes in specific situations. That being said, here are some things that raise HGH by a factor of 10-12 and you judge for yourself if they are healthy:

1. Starving for more than 5-6 hours
2. Long distance running, to the point of hypoglycemia
3. Darkness and cold
4. Mechanical injury
5. Lack of sleep
6. Individual amino acids, especially tryptophan, argining and glutamine (all of them implicated in cancer and auto-immune conditions either when used in high doses as a mediator of the disease). Ironically, glycine, taurine, proline, BCAA, tyrosine, phenylalanine, threonine, and serine either do not raise HGH or do so very mildly. Those aminos also happen to have anti-cancer properties and in general calm the cells down.
7. Estrogen (http://joe.endocrinology-journals.org/content/155/1/159): I doubt you will consider estrogen goof for you.
"...We conclude that estrogen stimulates GH activity as well as GH binding and GHR mRNA levels in osteoblasts. These findings indicate that estrogen potentiates the effect of GH at the receptor level."
8. Prolactin - I also doubt you will claim this one is good for you.

All in all, HGH rises when the body is under some sort of stress. Like most stress hormones, short term increase is probably adaptive but long term is destructive.
You ask if it is good to be obese. "Surprisingly", the answer is "it depends". Have you heard of the obesity paradox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_epidemiology

Autophagy is a primitive "repair" mechanism when the body is starved. It is not something you'd want to encourage given that the body has better mechanisms for repair when NOT starved, and one of the most important one is pregnenolone and the other derivative steroids. This is also the reason children and infacts recover much faster, not b/c they have higher growth hormone!
Do yo know that autophagy means "to eat yourself"? So, your body starts consuming itself when starved. That doesn't sound too good, does it? Here is something else from the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy

"... In the context of disease, autophagy has been seen as an adaptive response to survival, whereas in other cases it appears to promote cell death and morbidity."

So, the "adaptive response to survival" when starved is what?? The answer is to eat the only thing available - yourself. Translation = not good. And the second part of that quote is self-explanatory - when not starving, autophagy is NOT good for you.
I think you are direction may be off a bit here. HGH rising as a result of natural events and for a short period of time is probably something not to worry about. But doing specific things to increase it is certainly not good.
May I ask - what is it are you trying to achieve? There may be safer ways to do that, so just let us know and we can try to help.
 

Blossom

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I really appreciate how you bring this all together so nicely. The wrong diet and other stressors in a low CO2 environment can really take it's toll. No wonder modern 'medical' treatments is so pathetic and ineffective. Just for starters the general population believes the alkalizing foods are the ones they need the most of while believing CO2 is a waste product. People also either exercise themselves to death or stress out if they don't! You can easily see where at every turn people generally do the very things with diet, breathing and exercise that promote cancer. I bet there is not one oncologist who has ever considered optimizing the cellular environment with a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor to promote healing. :roll:
 
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Blossom said:
Just for starters the general population believes the alkalizing foods are the ones they need the most of while believing CO2 is a waste product.

I think Peat's diet is more alkalizing than the average diet, since it avoid grains and consumes little meat, which are acid forming, and encourages fruits, which are alkalizing.
 

Kasper

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May I ask - what is it are you trying to achieve? There may be safer ways to do that, so just let us know and we can try to help.

I don't know if this is the right topic for this.

Let's put it this way. A short summary of my life would be something like:
0-12 years old a quite happy dreamy child
12-18 years old getting labeled like a smart, but terribly lazy kid
Getting huge stress from school, 3 weeks doing nothing, than 1 week of stressing and sleeping 2 hours a night with caffeine drinks
Getting huge stress from finding out being gay.
At 18 years old, I was a subject of a scientific study (for money), and my heart rate was measure 3 times a day. It was always around 28-40.
I guess that means, that I was hypothyroid back then, but doctors told me everything was fine with me.

18-21 years old Promised myself to never stress anymore in my life. Never sleep again for 2 hours a day. Begin experimentating with diets. Did a 4L OJ, egg yolk,salmon diet for months. Beginning to get frustrated that without stress I couldn't achieve anything, and with stress life felt like hell.

21 years old- until now I got a new label. ADD. I get ritalin. My heart rate jumped to 50-60. I began to think forward for more than 1 hour. I began to make plans. Suddenly life became easier and finally I began to achieve (get good study grades). After a couple of months, ritalin had less and less effect. At around this point I discovered the buteyko method. I began to found out that exercising together with ritalin gave me the effects that I initially had. I began to exercising with training masks (to increase CO2 while running). I began to walk for hours. Breathing exercises the whole ***t.

I didn't knew that breathing exercises could ruin your gut. It certainly did with me. It was not good before it, but after some time I had chronic diarhea. I quited the 4L OJ diet, and began with the gaps protocol. This diet was too hard. A little later artour from the buteyko method released there GI health book. This book let me recover my gut. I felt relieved. Diarhea was over, I got the no soiling effect (needing no paper at the toilet).

At around this time, I began to listen to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins techniques + Exercise with training mask + Ritalin made me really motivated, really doing a lot, grades at university became very high, and life was pretty good. But I guess that this energy comes from stress. There where period that I felt like I was able to do nothing. Needing sometimes a couple of days, some times a week to recover. Some times, I add something new. Like cold shower/cold baths/sauna then I need less time to recover. But I guess I just push my stress hormones to the limit this way. It doesn't really feel like "stress" it feels like excitement and energy.

There are enough downsides of this way of living. I think it is very bad for my digestion. I can get my digestion good, but with techniques that normal people wouldn't need. And the worst thing, I need to do a lot of ***t, to feel energetic, you know running with training mask, cold showers, ritalin, saunas to just act little bit normal and not feeling without energy and motivation. Also, there are some personality changes. I used to make people laugh, with all this stress hormones I'm deficient of any form of humour.

In some sense, I'm gratefull, I mean, I used to be the smart and lazy kid, and now I'm the smart and very motivated kid (that sometimes happen to be at home for a week). I would be absolutely frustrated if I was still not able to get out of my lazy mode at 23 years old. Last couple of months, I began to realize, that I'm probably hypothyroid. And I hope that Ray Peat style of living can gives me energy without needing to do all kind of crazy stuff. But, I'm now somewhere in between. I mean, if I have an exam tomorrow, and I feel absolutely lazy, I go for a cold shower, I jump at my rebounder with a training mask, grasp a cola, and there I am, full of energy.

But if I have less presure, I try to lower my ritalin dosage, I try to do less cold showers, and trying to go the Ray Peat way. After reading this topic, I began to think that maybe sauna and whole body vibration are also driving me in the wrong direction (incrasing GH) in that sense. But I find that hard to believe.

I'm not sure in which way I believe Ray Peat is right for me. I mean I use to be told that running, cold shower, sauna, jumping on rebounder, eating little, etc. etc. are good for you. And it did feel good. But at a price I guess. I'm not sure, I'm just going to experimtate and find out.
 
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haidut

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Kasper said:
May I ask - what is it are you trying to achieve? There may be safer ways to do that, so just let us know and we can try to help.

I don't know if this is the right topic for this.

Let's put it this way. A short summary of my life would be something like:
0-12 years old a quite happy dreamy child
12-18 years old getting labeled like a smart, but terribly lazy kid
Getting huge stress from school, 3 weeks doing nothing, than 1 week of stressing and sleeping 2 hours a night with caffeine drinks
Getting huge stress from finding out being gay.
At 18 years old, I was a subject of a scientific study (for money), and my heart rate was measure 3 times a day. It was always around 28-40.
I guess that means, that I was hypothyroid back then, but doctors told me everything was fine with me.

18-21 years old Promised myself to never stress anymore in my life. Never sleep again for 2 hours a day. Begin experimentating with diets. Did a 4L OJ, egg yolk,salmon diet for months. Beginning to get frustrated that without stress I couldn't achieve anything, and with stress life felt like hell.

21 years old- until now I got a new label. ADD. I get ritalin. My heart rate jumped to 50-60. I began to think forward for more than 1 hour. I began to make plans. Suddenly life became easier and finally I began to achieve (get good study grades). After a couple of months, ritalin had less and less effect. At around this point I discovered the buteyko method. I began to found out that exercising together with ritalin gave me the effects that I initially had. I began to exercising with training masks (to increase CO2 while running). I began to walk for hours. Breathing exercises the whole s***.

I didn't knew that breathing exercises could ruin your gut. It certainly did with me. It was not good before it, but after some time I had chronic diarhea. I quited the 4L OJ diet, and began with the gaps protocol. This diet was too hard. A little later artour from the buteyko method released there GI health book. This book let me recover my gut. I felt relieved. Diarhea was over, I got the no soiling effect (needing no paper at the toilet).

At around this time, I began to listen to Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins techniques + Exercise with training mask + Ritalin made me really motivated, really doing a lot, grades at university became very high, and life was pretty good. But I guess that this energy comes from stress. There where period that I felt like I was able to do nothing. Needing sometimes a couple of days, some times a week to recover. Some times, I add something new. Like cold shower/cold baths/sauna then I need less time to recover. But I guess I just push my stress hormones to the limit this way. It doesn't really feel like "stress" it feels like excitement and energy.

There are enough downsides of this way of living. I think it is very bad for my digestion. I can get my digestion good, but with techniques that normal people wouldn't need. And the worst thing, I need to do a lot of s***, to feel energetic, you know running with training mask, cold showers, ritalin, saunas to just act little bit normal and not feeling without energy and motivation.

In some sense, I'm gratefull, I mean, I used to be the smart and lazy kid, and now I'm the smart and very motivated kid (that sometimes happen to be at home for a week). Last couple of months, I began to realize, that I'm probably hypothyroid. And I hope that Ray Peat style of living can gives me energy without needing to do all kind of crazy stuff. But, I'm now somewhere in between. I mean, if I have an exam tomorrow, and I feel absolutely lazy, I go for a cold shower, I jump at my rebounder, grasp at cola, and there I am, full of energy.

But if I have less presure, I try to lower my ritalin dosage, I try to do less cold showers, and trying to go the Ray Peat way. After reading this topic, I began to think that maybe sauna and whole body vibration are also driving me in the wrong direction (incrasing GH) in that sense.

It sounds like pretty hectic life. I was under maybe similar stress in college since I had to get good grades to keep my scholarship (or I get kicked out of the US) while I at the same time working full time to support myself.
Anyways, with couple of broad strokes here is what I would do if I were you. Diagnosis of "ADD" and lack of motivation are virtually signature signs of low dopamine. I know Ray will say it is all from low metabolism but I find that for most people it does help to address their immediate problems first and then work on things that heal generally.
To keep stress under control, nothing comes close to pregnenolone IMHO. You just have to find the right dosage b/c for most people it is all over the range of 50mg to 1g a day. Search the forum for pregnenolone and you will get some good threads and sources. In addition to bringing stress down, it will also NOT remove your motivation and energy to accomplish things. If anything, it may increase them. If you favor the pharmaceutical route, 100mcg of clonidine at night will eliminate your stress like a silver bullet, BUT it will likely also remove your stress energy source so you won't feel like doing much. Cyproheptadine will help with sleep and reducing serotonin. Together, clonidne and cyproheptadine will likely make you feel like a child again - careless, dreamy...and lazy:): But it will affect your performance at school, so that's why I would go with pregnenolone. Also, the clonidine and cypro will likely fix whatever stress-related gut issues you have.
Once you have stopped the stress reaction, if I were you I would up my protein intake (together with sugar) and try to eliminate starches. Protein intake should not fall below 80g a day but if you slide for a day or two don't sweat it. Without adequate protein, you will NOT have enough dopamine to produce motivation do anything. Remember - certain aminos in the protein are the only precursor to dopamine and without them you will feel like crap. Serotonin, on the other hand, exists in abundance in the gut (e.g. its original name is "enteramine") and it will be "happily" released in your blood stream to poison you and further harm your gut. To summarize - without adequate protein you WILL be serotonin-dominant no matter what drugs you take and how much you breath with masks, etc.
I don't think you need 4L of OJ, and in fact that gives you so much citric acid that it harms both your metabolism and other aspects of health. Citric acid is, counter-intuitively, alkalizing to the stomach, and that's why it is added to a lot of over the counter acid-blockers. I would replace the OJ (for now) with Coke, coffee, etc.
I would take it easy with the caffeine for now. Caffeine is very much like thyroid hormone. If not taken in the proper dosage (which is different for everybody) and with enough sugar, it will cause a very bad adrenalin reaction and will crash your metabolism. It will also increase lypolisys, which will not only harm your metabolism but it will also make you even more serotonin-dominant since free fatty acids will displace tryptophan from albumin and it will to the brain where it will gloriously convert to serotonin and/or other toxic metabolites. So, find out how much caffeine works for you without making you nervous/jittery and stay at that level until you improve metabolism and then you can increase it. Once you start reacting well to caffeine, it is also a good sign that you will react well to thyroid supplement if you are interested in trying.
Up your salt intake. Salt will not only lower adrenalin, it will also lower serotonin. Serotonin is disposed of in sodium-dependent fashion, so more sodium = more serotonin metabolism and excretion. Sodium will also improve metabolism and thermogenesis similar to aspirin.
Overall, my advice is to keep things simple. If you find yourself running around in masks on a daily basis, doing some special "diet protocol", special foods, etc. then it is probably not right. Simple, broadly acting interventions is what works best in the beginning and then you can tailor even more as you improve.
In summary, I would do simple (deceptively) fixes to the diet and take some supplements to limit stress. Food should be at least 80g of protein to support both liver function and dopamine synthesis. Sugar intake should be high (250g-300g) to increase active thyroid hormone (T3), prevent protein from causing a stress response due to hypoglycemic effects of many aminos, starch should be zero (if possible), salt should be at least 5g a day (ideally 15g) to lower serotonin. So, high protein, high sugar, high salt, low starch. Supplemental pregnenolone as needed, usually in the range of 100mg-150mg a day is what works best for most people.
And finally, I would drop the Ritalin. Even though the official stance is that is increases extracellular dopamine by inhibiting its uptake, there is strong evidence that all amphetamine and phenetylamine drugs increase serotonin. Here is a case where Ritalin caused serotonin syndrome, and another study that claims the "stimulant" class of drugs are actually serotonergic:
http://www.eric.vcu.edu/inm/Mire.pdf
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9888856
http://www.australianprescriber.com/mag ... le/663.pdf (Look at Table 1 saying that amphetamines increase 5-HT release and inhibit uptake, so maybe even worse than SSRI drugs that "only" inhibit uptake)


You can increase dopamine much more safely by simply adding about 5g of BCAA to your protein meals, or supplementing on the side with 5g BCAA, 1,500mg of tyrosine and 1,500mg of Phenyalanine. Just make sure to do it during the day as there is evidence that tyrosine is only dopaminergic when the person is exposed to daylight/sunlight.

This is my initial take, but if you have specific questions you can PM me or keep posting on this thread so other people can chime in.
Good luck with getting your health back and getting on with your life.
 

Kasper

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I feel a little bit bad about hijacking this topic. Could we maybe split the last 2 posts to a new topic ?
 
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haidut

haidut

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Kasper said:
I feel a little bit bad about hijacking this topic. Could we maybe split the last 2 posts to a new topic ?

It's up to you. If you want to start a new topic, I can copy and paste my responses there and then delete them here.
 

mt_dreams

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haidut said:
Autophagy is a primitive "repair" mechanism when the body is starved. It is not something you'd want to encourage given that the body has better mechanisms for repair when NOT starved, and one of the most important one is pregnenolone and the other derivative steroids. This is also the reason children and infacts recover much faster, not b/c they have higher growth hormone!
Do yo know that autophagy means "to eat yourself"? So, your body starts consuming itself when starved. That doesn't sound too good, does it? Here is something else from the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy

"... In the context of disease, autophagy has been seen as an adaptive response to survival, whereas in other cases it appears to promote cell death and morbidity."

So, the "adaptive response to survival" when starved is what?? The answer is to eat the only thing available - yourself. Translation = not good. And the second part of that quote is self-explanatory - when not starving, autophagy is NOT good for you.

Autophagy like you mentioned is the process whereby your body starts to eat itself. The thought on this by backers of autophagy eating protocols is that your body will first start eating proteins in the body that are damaged. Then once you eat protein, the protein you consume will create new protein in place of the protein that was just used as fuel. The thought on this by autophagy backers is the body is more efficient in building new protein rather than repairing damaged ones. Someone in fantastic health may be able to pull off this kind of protocol (which is usually fasting for 16-22 hours a day, and eating big in and small window of time), but for most, fasting for that long will create stresses on the body which long-term will undue any benefit you get from fasting .

GH or HGH is a popular topic among people who want to bulk up (or maintain muscle mass into old age). The reason it starts off high, and then slowly lowers as you age is the body utilizes it to grow. It's added benefit of healing also comes into play as the body wants to make sure you live long enough to reproduce. Trying to bulk up at say 60 goes against everything the body wants at that age, which is why one would have to hack their GH in order to achieve something of that nature. I remember reading something by Mercola (about the same time he made the GH table from above) where he stated that eating sugar after you exercise will shut off GH, so it would be wise to avoid non-starch sugars after exercising (which is a ridiculous suggestion imo). Like autophagy, fixating on keeping GH high (examples given by haidut) will cause more damage/stress to the body than the added benefit which is bulking up muscle and using it to repair proteins.

I for one will not fast in order to achieve autophagy repair, rather looking to things like proper rest & recovery, sauna & light therapy, adequate sugar & protein intake to repair my body. Being 32 my body is already naturally lowering its GH, which I am fine with as I am more concerned with mobility & movement, than how quickly i can add on muscle.
 

Bluebell

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@haidut
"You can increase dopamine much more safely by simply adding about 5g of BCAA to your protein meals, or supplementing on the side with 5g BCAA, 1,500mg of tyrosine and 1,500mg of Phenyalanine. Just make sure to do it during the day as there is evidence that tyrosine is only dopaminergic when the person is exposed to daylight/sunlight."

Quite tempted to try this ... how does it feel to have increased dopamine? There have been times after partying, when I should have been hungover, when I instead felt incredibly motivated, energetic, and got lots done. I always wondered what kind of chemical shift caused that, and how I could reproduce it in a healthy way.
 
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haidut

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Bluebell said:
@haidut
"You can increase dopamine much more safely by simply adding about 5g of BCAA to your protein meals, or supplementing on the side with 5g BCAA, 1,500mg of tyrosine and 1,500mg of Phenyalanine. Just make sure to do it during the day as there is evidence that tyrosine is only dopaminergic when the person is exposed to daylight/sunlight."

Quite tempted to try this ... how does it feel to have increased dopamine? There have been times after partying, when I should have been hungover, when I instead felt incredibly motivated, energetic, and got lots done. I always wondered what kind of chemical shift caused that, and how I could reproduce it in a healthy way.

You are relaxed yet alert, and have lots of motivation to do whatever you want. Your thinking is clear and the world seems interesting and alive. If you are male, libido is very high, but I am hearing the similar things from females as well (i.e. Blossom using lisuride). I can't describe all the effects. Try it out and see if you get some of these effects, which would suggest it is working for you.
 

Bluebell

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Great, thanks, I think I might try it. Is that a good dose for a small female? & the Phenylalanine dose seems quite high?

Maybe I will try adding 5g BCAA to protein meals - that sounds so simple. How many grams of protein in the meal? Thanks so much.
 
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haidut

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Bluebell said:
Great, thanks, I think I might try it. Is that a good dose for a small female? & the Phenylalanine dose seems quite high?

Maybe I will try adding 5g BCAA to protein meals - that sounds so simple. How many grams of protein in the meal? Thanks so much.

Try without Phe first, just use BCAA. Based on studies with humans, anything over 30g of protein will likely have effect on neurotransmitters. So, just add the 5g of BCAA to your high protein meals.
 

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