Best proxy for measuring endotoxin load?

Nomane Euger

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Aweful if you are on strict carnivore.

Amazing if you add plenty of raw milk and fruit juice like I do.
how much carbs do you eat per day?
 

haidut

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I recently heard @haidut talk about this on DR's podcast.
He mentioned there is a lab test one can do to measure the endotoxin load in the blood.

I will obviously perform a complete liver panel to assess the basics on my carnivore diet. I have no doubt my enzyme values will be much less elevated than they were prior to it, as I feel a lot better and clearer.

If someone recalls what blood test Georgi was talking about, I would appreciate.

In addition to what the others in the thread suggested, I would also add HDL measured together with LDL. It is well-known that ethanol raises HDL more so than LDL, and that HDL is what carries cholesterol back to the liver. Ethanol drastically increases endotoxin absorption into the blood due to increasing gut cells (and actually all cells in the body) permeability. Cholesterol (when in its non-esterified form) can bind to and neutralize endotoxin, and the cholesterol-endotoxin complex is carried back to the liver by HDL. So, if your HDL is in the upper 25% of the normal range and your LDL is in the bottom 50% of the normal range, it suggests endotoxin (or other toxin) exposure. It is not as specific as some of the other biomarkers mentioned in the HIV thread, but it is good enough and easy to measure and combined with RBC is probably reliable enough for most people. This may be one of the reasons why ALL drugs developed to artificially raise HDL have spectacularly failed and in some cases increased mortality, because chronically high HDL is actually not a good sign. Acute HDL elevations are crucial for neutralizing (endo)toxins but chronic HDL elevations strongly suggests there is either dietary introduction of toxins (e.g. PUFA, ethanol, etc) or compromised gut barrier, which ultimately manifests in poor health. It just so happens that PUFA raises HDL, which should immediately tell you how "good" PUFA is for us. In other words, anything that raises HDL is likely something that the body perceives as toxin/poison.

Pregnenolone and progesterone can also neutralize endotoxin directly but their levels actually drop when there is endotoxin overload because endotoxin interferes with cholesterol's metabolism downstream, and also "wastes" cholesterol for the process of neutralization, so less is available to metabolize into downstream steroids.
 

GelatinGoblin

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In addition to what the others in the thread suggested, I would also add HDL measured together with LDL. It is well-known that ethanol raises HDL more so than LDL, and that HDL is what carries cholesterol back to the liver. Ethanol drastically increases endotoxin absorption into the blood due to increasing gut cells (and actually all cells in the body) permeability. Cholesterol (when in its non-esterified form) can bind to and neutralize endotoxin, and the cholesterol-endotoxin complex is carried back to the liver by HDL. So, if your HDL is in the upper 25% of the normal range and your LDL is in the bottom 50% of the normal range, it suggests endotoxin (or other toxin) exposure. It is not as specific as some of the other biomarkers mentioned in the HIV thread, but it is good enough and easy to measure and combined with RBC is probably reliable enough for most people. This may be one of the reasons why ALL drugs developed to artificially raise HDL have spectacularly failed and in some cases increased mortality, because chronically high HDL is actually not a good sign. Acute HDL elevations are crucial for neutralizing (endo)toxins but chronic HDL elevations strongly suggests there is either dietary introduction of toxins (e.g. PUFA, ethanol, etc) or compromised gut barrier, which ultimately manifests in poor health. It just so happens that PUFA raises HDL, which should immediately tell you how "good" PUFA is for us. In other words, anything that raises HDL is likely something that the body perceives as toxin/poison.

Pregnenolone and progesterone can also neutralize endotoxin directly but their levels actually drop when there is endotoxin overload because endotoxin interferes with cholesterol's metabolism downstream, and also "wastes" cholesterol for the process of neutralization, so less is available to metabolize into downstream steroids.

Great reply Haidut! Very useful ??
 
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TheBeard

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In addition to what the others in the thread suggested, I would also add HDL measured together with LDL. It is well-known that ethanol raises HDL more so than LDL, and that HDL is what carries cholesterol back to the liver. Ethanol drastically increases endotoxin absorption into the blood due to increasing gut cells (and actually all cells in the body) permeability. Cholesterol (when in its non-esterified form) can bind to and neutralize endotoxin, and the cholesterol-endotoxin complex is carried back to the liver by HDL. So, if your HDL is in the upper 25% of the normal range and your LDL is in the bottom 50% of the normal range, it suggests endotoxin (or other toxin) exposure. It is not as specific as some of the other biomarkers mentioned in the HIV thread, but it is good enough and easy to measure and combined with RBC is probably reliable enough for most people. This may be one of the reasons why ALL drugs developed to artificially raise HDL have spectacularly failed and in some cases increased mortality, because chronically high HDL is actually not a good sign. Acute HDL elevations are crucial for neutralizing (endo)toxins but chronic HDL elevations strongly suggests there is either dietary introduction of toxins (e.g. PUFA, ethanol, etc) or compromised gut barrier, which ultimately manifests in poor health. It just so happens that PUFA raises HDL, which should immediately tell you how "good" PUFA is for us. In other words, anything that raises HDL is likely something that the body perceives as toxin/poison.

Pregnenolone and progesterone can also neutralize endotoxin directly but their levels actually drop when there is endotoxin overload because endotoxin interferes with cholesterol's metabolism downstream, and also "wastes" cholesterol for the process of neutralization, so less is available to metabolize into downstream steroids.

Thank you !

Spot on for endotoxins slashing Preg values, when I was at my highest endotoxin load with my garbage western diet, my Preg was under bottom of the range.

The consequent low HDL from steroid use: would you say it' because the body now has plenty steroid supplied and doesn't need to maintain high cholesterol levels to cascade it down to Preg and further down to testosterone?
Basically a negative cholesterol feedback loop, and nothing to worry about?
 

haidut

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Thank you !

Spot on for endotoxins slashing Preg values, when I was at my highest endotoxin load with my garbage western diet, my Preg was under bottom of the range.

The consequent low HDL from steroid use: would you say it' because the body now has plenty steroid supplied and doesn't need to maintain high cholesterol levels to cascade it down to Preg and further down to testosterone?
Basically a negative cholesterol feedback loop, and nothing to worry about?

Yes, androgens have been used for decades to treat high cholesterol (off-label of course, b/c Big Pharma tries to suppress anything that competes with its beloved statins). There is even the famous "Dzugan hypothesis", which says that high cholesterol is nothing except an adaptive sign of hypogonadism and as such calls for treating it with an androgen + pregnenolone combination - i.e. something we have discussed on the forum many times as well. For some reason, Dr. Dzugan did not make the thyroid-hypogonadism connection, so he stayed a step lower in the causality cascade, but it it still years ahead of mainstream medicine, which insists that cholesterol is evil and only by targeting it directly with statins one can achieve health.
"...To confirm their findings, Drs. Arnold Smith and Sergey Dzugan conducted a clinical study on 41 patients with high cholesterol between years 1997 and 2003. The astounding result from this study was that by properly replacing the steroidal hormones lost to normal aging, 100% of the subjects experienced a significant reduction in blood cholesterol levels."

So, androgens lower both LDL and HDL simply because they increase conversion of cholesterol into downstream steroids, and also exert negative feedback on endogenous cholesterol synthesis. They also improve gut barrier, lower inflammation, and may even bind/neutralize endotoxin (similar to cholesterol and the pregnane steroids, but likely not as effective for that purpose) and that also leads to lower HDL as there is not much endotoxin and/or cholesterol to transport back to the liver.
Btw, not all steroids have those beneficial effects. Some of the AAS bodybuilders use increase both LDL and HDL and that to me is a good sign that such steroids are not beneficial.
 
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TheBeard

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Yes, androgens have been used for decades to treat high cholesterol (off-label of course, b/c Big Pharma tries to suppress anything that competes with its beloved statins). There is even the famous "Dzugan hypothesis", which says that high cholesterol is nothing except an adaptive sign of hypogonadism and as such calls for treating it with an androgen + pregnenolone combination - i.e. something we have discussed on the forum many times as well. For some reason, Dr. Dzugan did not make the thyroid-hypogonadism connection, so he stayed a step lower in the causality cascade, but it it still years ahead of mainstream medicine, which insists that cholesterol is evil and only by targeting it directly with statins one can achieve health.
"...To confirm their findings, Drs. Arnold Smith and Sergey Dzugan conducted a clinical study on 41 patients with high cholesterol between years 1997 and 2003. The astounding result from this study was that by properly replacing the steroidal hormones lost to normal aging, 100% of the subjects experienced a significant reduction in blood cholesterol levels."

So, androgens lower both LDL and HDL simply because they increase conversion of cholesterol into downstream steroids, and also exert negative feedback on endogenous cholesterol synthesis. They also improve gut barrier, lower inflammation, and may even bind/neutralize endotoxin (similar to cholesterol and the pregnane steroids, but likely not as effective for that purpose) and that also leads to lower HDL as there is not much endotoxin and/or cholesterol to transport back to the liver.
Btw, not all steroids have those beneficial effects. Some of the AAS bodybuilders use increase both LDL and HDL and that to me is a good sign that such steroids are not beneficial.

I had been wondering about this very property of AAS for a while.
Thank you for shedding light on it !

I'm very much likely going to jump back on my Testosterone + DHEA + Preg protocole for all those benefits.
 
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