Better Metabolism- Higher Heart Rate And. Lower Oxygen Saturation (spO2)?

[yerrag]

Today I woke up to a heart rate of 62! I've been consistently waking to 54 for a long time. About a month ago, my last of two teeth with hidden pockets of periodontal disease was pulled. I had been observing over the past month my waking heart rate and spO2, and the heart rate has steadily gone up, while my spO2 has gone down slightly. My spO2 is at 97 waking up, which is an improvement from 99 in my previous posts.

I guess the latent infection and the toxins created put a level of stress on my body, and this resulted in lower metabolism for me as part of the body's adaptation process. I was able to review my wbc blood test reports going back to 15 years, and I noticed a consistent trend as far as my neutrophils go. I had started out with 50% neutrophils, and have gone up to 74% in a steady increase over the years. This, to me, indicates a chronic worsening infection over the years that I didn't know about.

Next week, I'll take blood tests and ask for the CBC panel and see what effect the removal of the source of infection in my periodontal condition has. I've always wondered before about the significance of the WBC (neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosonophils, basophils) portion of CBC, but never gotten around to appreciate it. Now, I know it is a marker for either an active or chronic infection.

And with a chronic infection, it would also make sense why my ferritin level is high at 202 ng/mL. This might appear to be within range (range being 30-400 ng/mL in my blood test), but a recent thread on iron talks about true normal ferritin levels being 15-25. "Iron And Gluten, The Toxic Tandem" Presentation By Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD

My heart rate being low, and spO2 being high - they're just the tip of the iceberg. Now, I'm seeing how they are a manifestation of an underlying condition. The ducks are lining up now for me. Not all of the ducks are here yet, and I'll post as they show up.

 

[yerrag]

So far, we have these values upon waking up-

nwo2012: 97% sat, 78 bpm, 36.9C (oral)
Aspekt: 98%, 87, 36.1C
yerrag: 99%, 56, 36.5C (ear)

@yerrag, do you think your body is purposely keeping your heart rate low and metabolism slightly suppressed because of the heavy metal toxicity in your kidneys? I'm just curious!

37C. feel pleasantly warm
oxsat is 96 or 97, interestingly...
80 HR, up to 85 or even 90.

Good news!

Today I woke up to 96 spO2 67 heart rate and 36.8 C temps.

Big improvement from where I was!

The pasr few nights I have been sleeping very well also, with no snoring at all. I have my cell phone set to airplane mode beside me to monitor my sleep quality.

Past few days, my heart rate has been reaching into the 90s during the day, and my temps would reach 37.2C. I was concerned at first, but seeing that my sp02 went down as my heart rate increased, I felt the increased heart rate was due to better metabolism, as indicated by lower oxygen saturation readings. This meant higher oxygen demand resulting in higher tissue oxygenation.

I attribute this improvement to the resolution of a latent periodontal infection 2 months ago. My neutrophils count had gone down from 70s to 64 from a test a month ago, and I expect it to go further down. This means a lower bacterial burden. While my blood pressure remains high at 180/120, it doesn't go higher anymore even with a higher heart rate.

I can now see how monitoring spO2 can help me monitor health from a metabolic standpoint. A person with a high heart rate and a high temperature gets a stronger validation of his health when a high metabolism is confirmed by higher tissue oxygenation. Contrary to popular understanding, a lower resting spO2 reading (in the 90s) is better than a reading of 99-100.

But this is based on the assumption that there's no underlying condition of hypoxemia, or low oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. I was once hypoxemic, due to mercury toxicity, so this can be a confounding factor.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Today I woke up to a heart rate of 62! I've been consistently waking to 54 for a long time. About a month ago, my last of two teeth with hidden pockets of periodontal disease was pulled. I had been observing over the past month my waking heart rate and spO2, and the heart rate has steadily gone up, while my spO2 has gone down slightly. My spO2 is at 97 waking up, which is an improvement from 99 in my previous posts.

I guess the latent infection and the toxins created put a level of stress on my body, and this resulted in lower metabolism for me as part of the body's adaptation process. I was able to review my wbc blood test reports going back to 15 years, and I noticed a consistent trend as far as my neutrophils go. I had started out with 50% neutrophils, and have gone up to 74% in a steady increase over the years. This, to me, indicates a chronic worsening infection over the years that I didn't know about.

Next week, I'll take blood tests and ask for the CBC panel and see what effect the removal of the source of infection in my periodontal condition has. I've always wondered before about the significance of the WBC (neutrophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, eosonophils, basophils) portion of CBC, but never gotten around to appreciate it. Now, I know it is a marker for either an active or chronic infection.

And with a chronic infection, it would also make sense why my ferritin level is high at 202 ng/mL. This might appear to be within range (range being 30-400 ng/mL in my blood test), but a recent thread on iron talks about true normal ferritin levels being 15-25. "Iron And Gluten, The Toxic Tandem" Presentation By Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD

My heart rate being low, and spO2 being high - they're just the tip of the iceberg. Now, I'm seeing how they are a manifestation of an underlying condition. The ducks are lining up now for me. Not all of the ducks are here yet, and I'll post as they show up.

this is great news. How much K2 MK4 are you using? I wonder if that is helping.

 

[yerrag]

this is great news. How much K2 MK4 are you using? I wonder if that is helping.

I'm using 15mg/day of K2. I'm also getting 2000 joules/cm2 of near infrared light daily. Also 2g of eggshell powder daily.

 

[yerrag]

I'm using 15mg/day of K2. I'm also getting 2000 joules/cm2 of near infrared light daily. Also 2g of eggshell powder daily.

I also am on 3 x 700mg niacinamide.

 

[energyandstruct]

So much good stuff on carbon dioxide. Thanks for sharing this. Makes me want to start trying out my carbogen bath. I just want to see personally what it can do for me. I've had it for a year already and haven't tried it. I wasn't keen on using the carbogen breathing unit, as I expected it to increase my tissue oxygenation, and it wouldn't be good for my high blood pressure. On the other hand, the carbogen bath is about having my skin exposed to CO2, and I expect it to work differently from the breathing unit.

Still four sets of data:

nwo2012: 97% sat, 78 bpm, 36.9C (oral)
Aspekt: 98%, 87, 36.1C
yerrag: 99%, 56, 36.5C (ear)
blossom: 99%, 79, 36.5C (oral)

As far as Aspekt's data goes, I have to wonder why at a high heart rate of 87, the temperature is slightly lower than the expected (afaik) 36.5C waking temperature. @Aspekt what could you share about your context?

@nwo2012, your sat is the lowest and you have a higher than normal waking temperature, and it looks good. Is this the effect of inclined bed therapy? the resting heart rate could still go up during the day.

Was Ray Peat at a high elevation when he got his 89% sat reading? He doesn't say where he was but he said it was when he was feeling really good. I sure would like to try all the metabolism boosting supplements like thyroid, progesterone, pregnenolone, niacinamide, coffee, sugar, and the different ways to increase CO2 (bag breathing, carbogen breathing, and carbogen bath, drinking soda water) and see how that would improve my sats, but I couldn't because all of those things increase my blood pressure. Would uncoupling the mitochondria lead to lowered sats? Don't you think there is a good possibility that we are still long way off from the level of metabolism Ray achieved? If that's true, we're really not reaching our potential.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm not advocating using the abovementioned boosters to metabolism. Just as my condition makes my body restrict my metabolism, as evidenced by my much lower heart rate, I believe that each of us have his own condition, which the body bases on to determine a metabolic rate that is optimal to his own context. Why does one get to have a high heart rate, in the 80s, for example, and yet he isn't using up plenty of oxygen and therefore his oxygen saturation remain on the high 90s? Could it be that he's running up against a wall in terms of oxygen transport (say there's mercury blocking oxygen uptake in the hemoglobin), or he's running short on vitamin A, or magnesium, that it impacts the full enablement of the phosphorylative oxidative pathway. For sugar metabolism to be maximized, all of the enzymatic reactions have to be firing on all cylinder, otherwise the energy output would be lessened. If the reactions are suppressed somehow, the demand for oxygen would be lessened, and the uptake of oxygen into cells would be lessened, and the oxygen saturation values would stay high. At that condition, adding say thyroid wouldn't help.

Or take the case of someone with pulmonary obstruction that limits his oxygen transport capability. If he supplements progesterone, it will force metabolism to increase and his oxygen demand will increase. But if the oxygen transport is defective, he will incur an oxygen deficit and he may turn to anaerobic glycolysis for energy, and then he will produce lactic acid. This will in turn affect acid-base balance. And when high blood/ecf acidity causes him to exhale more CO2, he will have less CO2 in his blood, and he will further then have a diminished capability to deliver oxygen to his tissues. There comes a point when the body reaches a steady-state condition as it adapts to the new set of conditions. Needless to say, he is making do with what he's got and making the best of it. That balance, as imperfect as it is, is what registers with us as a certain set of data involving our oxygen saturation, heart rate, and temperature (and etCO2).

Yet I'm hopeful that there is somebody in our forum that has reached this apex but isn't aware of it. He/she would probably have plenty of hair, have very good complexion, and have a much more highly developed brain. If only all cellphones have a heart rate monitor and a pulse oximeter built-in.

So spo2 doesn’t need to be much above eighty? If spo2 is reflective of blood oxygen concentration and the Bohr effect means that blood oxygen is fisplaced by co2 but goes into tissues when displaced, I guess it would seem that one can be healthy with lower spo2. But spo2 is sometims lowered due to hypoxia that has nothing to do with co2 so maybe it’s not always good? Trying to suss out the safety of my co2 experiments

 

[yerrag]

So spo2 doesn’t need to be much above eighty?

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

If spo2 is reflective of blood oxygen concentration and the Bohr effect means that blood oxygen is fisplaced by co2 but goes into tissues when displaced, I guess it would seem that one can be healthy with lower spo2.

spO2 helps in determining how much oxygen, on a relative basis, is being released from the blood to the tissues. If the spO2 is always at 99, or much worse, at 100, it indicates that all the blood oxygen is staying put and not being released to the tissues. Unless I have hypoxemia, which is low oxygen transport in the blood (can be caused by mercury toxicity or by emphysema), lower spO2 is an indication that oxygen is being released to tissues. I have seen my spO2 levels go down to 96 when I wake up, and to 94 when I stop holding my breath for a long time. Ray Peat has experience spO2 at 89, when he is feeling very good. But thete is a limit to how low spO2 can get, as there are physiological limits. I don't think it's reasonable to expect anything good coming out of spO2 levels at where you 80, as you had mentioned.

But spo2 is sometims lowered due to hypoxia that has nothing to do with co2 so maybe it’s not always good? Trying to suss out the safety of my co2 experiments

On the contrary, spO2 is increased by hypoxia, as the tissues are not getting oxygen from the blood, and the oxygen concentration stays high in the blood.

This can be confusing at the start, but once you see the relationship, you'll be amazed how little understanding most health professionals have on properly interpreting oximeter readings. Also, be sure you understand the difference between hypoxia and hypoxemia.

 

[ecstatichamster]

You want high CO2 levels which show up as lower saturation levels to a point. 97 or 98 is pretty good I think under normal elevations and circumstances.

80????? You’d be dead, LOL.

 

[yerrag]

I'm beginning to think that heart rate, temperature, and oxygen saturation, taken together is very useful in assessing our metabolism and health.

One can get a high heart rate because his heart isn't pumping very efficiently, and get the false impression that he is in top shape. But if that high heart rate isn't due to a higher metabolism, he would have a low oxygen demand, and less oxygen would be absorbed from the blood by the tissues. Thus more oxygen will be left in the blood, and this would be reflected in high spO2 readings.

So, between 2 people with identical heart rates and temperatures, the one with a lower oxygen saturation reading would be healthier. This is on the assumption that none suffer from hypoxemia.

 

[energyandstruct]

I’ve had spo2 drop to around 87 in the one night I measured throughout the night. Unsure how much consumer grade pulse oximeters measure this correctly but I have had trouble breathing perhaps caused by my cci.

 

[yerrag]

What is cci?

 

[energyandstruct]

What is cci?

Craniocervical instability

 

[energyandstruct]

However I’ve heard that spo2 dropping that low for a few minutes at night is not that big of a deal. Gonna keep measuring

 

[energyandstruct]

I'm beginning to think that heart rate, temperature, and oxygen saturation, taken together is very useful in assessing our metabolism and health.

One can get a high heart rate because his heart isn't pumping very efficiently, and get the false impression that he is in top shape. But if that high heart rate isn't due to a higher metabolism, he would have a low oxygen demand, and less oxygen would be absorbed from the blood by the tissues. Thus more oxygen will be left in the blood, and this would be reflected in high spO2 readings.

So, between 2 people with identical heart rates and temperatures, the one with a lower oxygen saturation reading would be healthier. This is on the assumption that none suffer from hypoxemia.

well goin by subjective symptoms plus heart rate helps suss out if it’s caused by stress or high metabolism but yes, it can be misleading. If u r in pain or stressed and ur heart rate is high it’s not a sign ur metabolism is perfect

 

[yerrag]

I’ve had spo2 drop to around 87 in the one night I measured throughout the night. Unsure how much consumer grade pulse oximeters measure this correctly but I have had trouble breathing perhaps caused by my cci.

I can't vouch for consumer grade oximeters but they seem to do quite well imho. The sensors used are pretty much off the shelf and that helps lower its cost. These are used also in fitness gear as well as some smartphones such as in the Galaxy S Series.

Sorry to hear about your cci. I don't know if reaching 87 at times, even momentarily, on your spO2 raises any alarms, but you're good to keep tabs on it. From my own observation of my heart rate, I've not touched lower than 94, and I would be concerned if I went below 90. When you reached 87, what was your heart rate? Since it was for a brief moment that you reached 87, at what level did it stabilize after that?

Some of the people on this thread are waking up with a strong heart rate already (unlike me) which seemed to indicate that even while sleeping, the body's metabolism doesn't slow down. Perhaps it's during sleep that the body repairs, detoxifies, recharges, and restocks itself, and this requires a lot of energy. It could very well be that during sleep we could be using up lots of oxygen, and this could cause our spO2 levels to come down. It's just that I don't have sleep data to tell you that maybe getting a value of 87 spO2 in normal.

Perhaps there is a trove of research on this, as with many fitbit style devices that can be used to monitor sleep, spO2 and heart rate data can be obtained that tells you your experience is normal. You could go to one of our sleep threads here and ask around.

 

[energyandstruct]

I can't vouch for consumer grade oximeters but they seem to do quite well imho. The sensors used are pretty much off the shelf and that helps lower its cost. These are used also in fitness gear as well as some smartphones such as in the Galaxy S Series.

Sorry to hear about your cci. I don't know if reaching 87 at times, even momentarily, on your spO2 raises any alarms, but you're good to keep tabs on it. From my own observation of my heart rate, I've not touched lower than 94, and I would be concerned if I went below 90. When you reached 87, what was your heart rate? Since it was for a brief moment that you reached 87, at what level did it stabilize after that?

Some of the people on this thread are waking up with a strong heart rate already (unlike me) which seemed to indicate that even while sleeping, the body's metabolism doesn't slow down. Perhaps it's during sleep that the body repairs, detoxifies, recharges, and restocks itself, and this requires a lot of energy. It could very well be that during sleep we could be using up lots of oxygen, and this could cause our spO2 levels to come down. It's just that I don't have sleep data to tell you that maybe getting a value of 87 spO2 in normal.

Perhaps there is a trove of research on this, as with many fitbit style devices that can be used to monitor sleep, spO2 and heart rate data can be obtained that tells you your experience is normal. You could go to one of our sleep threads here and ask around.

my pulse ox seems decent quality but also I’ve had trouble recording through the night Bc I have to tape it to my finger and sometimes that puts pressure on the button and turns it off recording mode. Since I have trouble breathing in my sleep it seems important.

However I have heard Lots of things can contribute to the reading being off, like finger being cold or something. I have gotten disturbingly low readings that then jumped up to 99% quickly so I only take a low readi. Seriously if it’s stable. Will try this with my carbogen huffing but not too worried.

 

[energyandstruct]

Ppl have their spo2 drop with nitrous to like 60 without having any signs of neurotoxicity. Idk

 

[yerrag]

Just wanted to share this article about hypoxia downregulating mitochondrial oxygen consumption:

HIF-1 mediates adaptation to hypoxia by actively downregulating mitochondrial oxygen consumption. - PubMed - NCBI

I've suspected that my kidneys suffer from hypoxia, as I have high uric acid, but I can't really be sure as a recent serum EPO test found it to be within range. Maybe the hypoxia is bad enough to produce more uric acid, but not bad enough to increase EPO?

Anyway, I just thought that this could be downregulating my heart rate as well.

 

[yerrag]

Is this normal?

When I'm lying down and well-rested, and for a good 15 minutes I have a pulse oximeter attached to a finger, I would get an spO2 reading of 97-98 usually. But from time to time, maybe every minute or two, the pulse oximeter will show my reading go down to as low as 89 before coming back up. My oximeter also beeps when the reading is 94 and below.

I never used my oximeter for a long time. Usually, it's for a few seconds only. So maybe all of you use it this way as well.

I wonder if you could try using it the way I described my using it. Do you observe the same thing as I did?

@Blossom @ecstatichamster @nwo2012 @firebreather

Thanks!

p.s. I thought it's normal for the spO2 to stay steady within a tight range and not go to the low 90s unless one is exerting some effort. So it came as a surprise to me that I was regularly seeing my readings dip towards the low 90s before returning to the high 90s - all the while I was just lying down relaxed.

 

[Blossom]

When I'm lying down and well-rested, and for a good 15 minutes I have a pulse oximeter attached to a finger, I would get an spO2 reading of 97-98 usually. But from time to time, maybe every minute or two, the pulse oximeter will show my reading go down to as low as 89 before coming back up. My oximeter also beeps when the reading is 94 and below.

Yes, in my experience it is quite common. It’s always possible you have a bit of obstructive apnea too and when lying down and relaxing your airway might become partially blocked. That’s just an educated guess of course.