Bicarbonate Vs. PaCO2 Blood Tests

[gbolduev]

Panic attack is not from high CO2. Panic attack happens from alkalosis when you hyperventilate and your CO2 drops very low. But before you hyperventilated your CO2 was higher than norm, and that was compensated by bicarbonate. Then all of a sudden your breath out all of your CO2 but bicarb stays high, since it takes days to adjust. And thus you get into alkalosis.

When people have panic attack they will be helped by breathing into the bag since CO2 will go up faster.

But not to have panic attacks at all. You need to lower your base CO2 level , so your bicarb level also stays low. So then when you hyperventilate from stess fear or what ever, even if you breath out all of your Co2, your bicarb would not be high and would not cause alkalosis

So, wouldn't lowering CO2 go hand in hand with lower metabolism? What else would make you set your normal CO2 point to be lower? And if it is lower metabolism, why would that be beneficial?

I am talking about NOrmal CO2 level, not lower not higher, I want it to be at ideal level. If you set it up higher then your bicarb will be up also. if you set it up lower , bicarb will be also lower in blood.
If you lower CO2, it will raise metabolism , since calcium and magnesium will come out of the cell,and thus they will allow sodium and potassium to enter the cell. Sodium and potassium make your metabolism work. When CO2 is high calcium and magnesium gets into ionized form, and enter the cell and block sodium and potassium entrance/ That is why zinc increases potassium in the cell, and manganese increases sodium in the cell. Manganese increases breathing drive and zinc increases bicarbonate.

 

[haidut]

Haidut,


People have their mouth open to breath out CO2, they are trying to hyperventilate since CO2 levels are too high.

I dont have cushings from putuitary otherwise I would have fixed it 10 times already))) I have adenoma on adrenal gland. And progesterone is a precursor to cortisol . I guess you get the scoop.I have extremely low estrogen in blood.

listen I saw the results of people ABGs. People get higher CO2 levels in blood the older they get. And obviously metabolism goes down with it. And the higher CO2 the lower metabolism will be.

Of course I am not talking about everyone. I dont understand why you are arguing about this Co2. It should be different for everyone. For some you need to lower it and for some to raise it. But you dont have to raise or lower CO2, you have to balance it with bicarb based on PH of the blood

PH of the blood and cell should be balanced.

Some people when they get older have low Co2, why is it low? it is low because body lowers it to compensate for lack of bicarbonate. and those people are in metabolic acidosis. And if you raise CO2 in that case , it will make you worse. That is why for those people you raise bicarb, which will automatically raise Co2

I am not saying that everybody needs to raise their CO2. I am saying that if people's metabolism slows down then their CO2 levels will be lower since most of their metabolism will be glycolysis and they will be producing more lactic acid and less CO2. Otherwise where will this extra CO2 be coming from? It seems like you are saying it is the exact opposite - people with slower metabolilsm will have higher CO2. How is that?
On the Cushings, I guess you have ectopic Cushings. I believe you ay have been misled like many other people. Progesterone is indeed a precursor to cortisol. However it is also a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist, together with DHEA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucocorti ... ntagonists
The rest of the things I listed would still help - i.e. DHEA, vitamin A, vitamin B6, etc. For the progesterone - if your ectopic Cushings is ACTH-dependent progesterone will help more than it will hurt, but I'd try the other things first.

 

[teenpeater]

I think this might explain everyone's confusion? in human phys we learned to calculate H+ and PaCO2 using this :

PCO2 = [HCO3 - ] x [H+] / 24

Type it into your calculator like this: pCO2 = HCO3 X (10 to the exponent (9 - pH)) / 24

Here are a couple of examples:

HCO3 = 29 mEq/L
pH = 7.45
then calculated pCO2 = 42.87

HCO3 = 24 mEq/L
pH = 7.35
then calculated pCO2 = 44.67

So in other words, you can have a high bicarbonate and a low CO2, if you have a higher blood pH (first example).

You can also have a low bicarbonate and a high CO2, if you have a lower blood pH (second example).

 

[haidut]

I think this might explain everyone's confusion? in human phys we learned to calculate H+ and PaCO2 using this :

PCO2 = [HCO3 - ] x [H+] / 24

Type it into your calculator like this: pCO2 = HCO3 X (10 to the exponent (9 - pH)) / 24

Here are a couple of examples:

HCO3 = 29 mEq/L
pH = 7.45
then calculated pCO2 = 42.87

HCO3 = 24 mEq/L
pH = 7.35
then calculated pCO2 = 44.67

So in other words, you can have a high bicarbonate and a low CO2, if you have a higher blood pH (first example).

You can also have a low bicarbonate and a high CO2, if you have a lower blood pH (second example).

Thank you, that's nice to have handy when reviewing blood work. Then I am wondering what genius decided to make the "complete" metabolic panel (quote b/c I am being ironic) include only bicarbonate levels without also checking blood pH. Is there a way to calculate CO2 form bicarbonate and the electrolytes that the panel measures? Some formula that would tie bicarbonate to sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium?

 

[tara]

Hi.
Gbolduev's point about appropriate diet depending on a person's state, and in particular their pH levels, seems reasonable to me. I don't grasp the complexity, but it seems reasonable that different pH levels will result in minerals etc being used (or stored or excreted) in different ways. I expect there will continue to be more to learn in this area than is well known now.
Your explanations of the CO2 and baking soda effects in athletes fitted my understanding. I guess if your system is too acidic from too much lactic acid, then you may need something else to help alkalinise the system, rather than just increasing CO2 in the short term, which would further lower pH. Is this how you see it?
Your description of the acute part of panic attacks made sense to me, but I don't understand why you think they arise on a background of too high CO2 levels - I had the impression that people with chronically low CO2 were more prone to them, and that if they could gradually raise their CO2 set point this would usually be protective. Maybe the vulnerability to panic attacks also reflects a paucity of alkaline buffers?
My understanding of Buteyko method is that people prone to migraines (me) and panic attacks can both be prone to bad reactions to trying to raise CO2 levels too quickly by reduced breathing exercises, but that we can benefit from increasing it very gradually.

I understand that respiratory alkalosis can result from hyperventilating and so lowering CO2, and I think respiratory acidosis is the opposite - ie hypoventilation resulting in too high CO2 and excessive acidity. Right?
I don't yet really understand what metabolic alkalosis and acidosis involve. From you PoV, is increased breathing rate (reducing CO2 levels and increasing pH) potentially protective against metabolic acidosis? You (and Haidut?) seem to say you can't help this with calcium or sodium bicarb (which I don't quite understand), but why not the other alkaline minerals? I think sodium bicarb might have just temporary effect, whereas increasing alkaline mineral stores overall would provide for a more stable pH balance?

I have the same question as Mas and Haidut - what was your sample for testing blood gases? I too had the impression that it is much more common in the general population to be hyperventilating than hypo. It wouldn't surprise me at all if this were sometimes a consequence of other imbalances - as the body's attempt to counteract excess acidity, for instance, as well as other factors (like stress driven-hyperventilation, postural factors, etc)
Do you have any explanation for Buteyko's remarkable success in his hospital, from which almost all the 'hopeless' cases (that the rest of the medical system had given up on) walked out of? My understanding is that his major intervention was to train reduced breathing, and to support this with diet (and exercise as appropriate). Maybe he supplied all the appropriate minerals to allow for improved metabolism and increased CO2 levels?

I have not read anywhere that Peat says serotonin and estrogen are all bad - I don't think it is fair to call him insane for things he has not said (but maybe I missed it somewhere?). He has many times talked about chronic excessive levels being problematic, and he seems to think this is common in stress conditions. He has also mentioned that estrogen has an important place for particular functions.

I think Peat regularly makes the point about us needing many minerals, including not only calcium, but also potassium, magnesium, sodium, zinc, copper, selenium, and he makes occasional mention of others (eg he says we probably usually get enough boron from plant food). He doesn't say everyone should just eat lots of calcium and forget about the other minerals. He suggests that healthy people may need less magnesium and sodium because they retain it better, and people with low metabolisms may need more because the lose it quicker.

Thanks teenpeater for the chemistry explanation - I'm still thinking one day I'll study some chemistry. :)

gbolduev, do you have any thoughts on the usefulness of UpH measurements for figuring out what we need?
Reams take was that if the UpH was generally too acidic, then increasing dietary alkaline buffers, including particular forms of calcium, tends to be helpful. He seemed to have a view that included recognising the importance of all the essential minerals. (He and some of the current RBTI practitioners would also say that UpH alone is not enough - you need the rest of the RBTI test suite to get a good picture of what's going on.)

 

[gbolduev]

Dear Haidut,

I know everything about my condition and I know what helps it and what not. Progesterone puts me in a coma , DHEA crashes me totally. Progesterone raises my secretions so does DHEA. You seem to be misled by all these studies. In real life it is completely different since everyones metabolism and body chemistry is different

One more time high CO2 causes slower metabolism. Not slower metabolism causing high CO2. Slower metabolism causes low CO2. I have no idea why we are going circles about this simple thing.

Example for you Haidut , so there are no more questions or misunderstandings


Person has PH of 7.40.

His Co2 is 35
his bicarb is 24

You eat sugar----your CO2 goes up to 40 your bicarb goes up to 26 PH stays 7.40.

what happens with minerals in the cell;

before sugar they were perfect, sodium is perfect potassium is perfect calcium and magnesium are perfect

after sugar, calcium goes up , magnesium goes up in the cell, sodium and potassium go down. in the cell

metabolism is slowed down.

Child is born with high sodium in the cell, high potassium , low calcium low magnesium. this is called fast oxidation. With aging oxidation is going down. Calcium goes up magnesium goes up , and sodium and potassium go down.

You dont quite understand the amount of CO2 which is produced by yeast in our body. It is HUGE. SO when metabolism is slow, lets say your adrenal gland is not working. You will have tons of CO2 in your blood and CO2 is not only abou metabolism , it is metabolism plus breathing plus yeast plus ecology.

Calcium and magnesium go up in the cell only if CO2 is high. With aging 80% will have high calcium and magnesium in the cell. When they are ready to die, they will have low CO2 but that is already crash period of life like last 10 years of life and their body chemistry is called 4 lows, in that case their calcium and magnesium will go down to buffer acids although they still have high CO2, their CO2 will show up low in blood as a compensation.

 

[tara]

Lower CO2 means lower oxygen supply to cells. How is this consistent with increased metabolism?

 

[gbolduev]

Tara

the reason why I said panic attacks arise from high base level of CO2 is simple. If you have high base level of Co2 in blood, that will cause you to have high base level of bicarbonate in blood. If you all of a sudden hyperventilate, CO2 will go down very fast but bicarb which was high in blood would stay there for days since kidneys are slow. This causes periods of alkalosis. IN alkalosis your calcium is not working and potassium shifts into the cell fast. If you have low base potassium level , ICF plus ECF you will have seizure since potassium will move fast into the cell and in blood it will be low.


I was helping people for about 2 years when I had time. And one of my requirements were blood gases and hairtests and red blood cells.From which I read the metabolism and what was going on . One single test is not enough, I wanted to see things in blood things in the cell and gases. People had all kinds of imbalances and problems, All of them tested blood gases at emergency rooms. Thru this time I saw about 100 or more blood gases and their matching blood and their matching hair. Everything matches perfectly to the blood gases, SO basically if I get a blood gas test now, I will tell you how your hairtest will look like.

The population sample was from regular people that did not feel 100% in life, but they were still working walking and only small percent had major problems. SO basically population of my sample was from people like you and me. Funny thing that samples varied from the city and the village and interestingly Co2 was the difference


As far as serotonin and estrogen , I was replying to Haidut about it . Ray peat proposes that aging is caused by serotonin and estrogen. I propose that aging is caused by lack of estrogen in 80% and too much estrogen in 20%. If you collect blood samples of at least 100 people, you will see that 80% will have low estrogen and low bioavailable copper and low ceruloplasmin not high. Adrenal glands go down with age and ceruloplasmin goes down, which causes low estrogen not high. ALso estogen mimics substitute copper in the body and that lowers estrogen since body thinks you have too much copper in the tissues.


I wrote here not to agrue , I wrote here to share information.
I dont sell anything and I dont really have time to practice anymore. Too busy at my fund now.

I hope this information will be useful to someone. But I dont really have time to post here on a constant basis. You get hooked on it))) And I cant afford that


Good luck guys.

 

[gbolduev]

Tara,

High metabolism people have high CO2. HIgh Co2 people will have low metabolism. You dont get that CO2 is not only from metabolism

It all depends on the PH of the blood. If you have low PH and you increase CO2 your metabolism will go down. If you have high PH and you increase CO2 your metabolism will go up.

 

[tara]

Tara,

High metabolism people have high CO2. HIgh Co2 people will have low metabolism. You dont get that CO2 is not only from metabolism.

It all depends on the PH of the blood. If you have low PH and you increase CO2 your metabolism will go down. If you have high PH and you increase CO2 your metabolism will go up.

My understanding is that most CO2 does come from metabolism, but how much is retained has a lot to do with breathing rates, which can be influenced by various things.

It does make sense to me that if pH is low, then increasing CO2 can cause trouble. Why does increasing intake of potassium and other alkaline minerals not resolve this problem?

I believe the atmospheric CO2 rates in the city and country are not relevantly different (we are talking hundreds of ppm, right?), but I imagine that there may be many factors in city living that could affect the body's breathing rates and CO2 levels, eg polution.

 

[tara]

Yes. estrogen production goes down in aging.
I understand Peat to say that since progesterone production goes down too, the result can be a higher estrogen:progesterone ratio, with more of the estrogen remaining in the tissues (where they continue to produce chronic issues), but less of it seen in blood samples.
Your seeing low estrogen in blood samples does not seem at odds with this explanation?

I am trying to understand what may be going on too, not just trying to win an argument. :)

 

[gbolduev]

If your PH is low, and you take potassium or sodium , that will increase met rate and raise CO2 even higher. This will require more calcium and magnesium to keep it low. But your body energy production will not be ideal. . I did not say you dont have to take other minerals, I balance people with minerals, and it is not about the alkalinity of those minerals, it is about what they do in the body for metabolism.


Cities have very high acetaldehyde rates which causes high CO2 levels.

If you have candida you will have high CO2 also .


Hey all hormones go down with aging. ON hair tests of aged or sick people estrogen influence is lower than progesterone. Sodium is lower than potassium usually . Meaning that progesterone is higher than estrogen , and that is understandable, We dont bind copper. Estrogen in blood causes copper to be bound. One of the reasons for copper not to bind is high CO2 levels. Copper lowers blood PH and if you have reps acidosis copper will be stored in the liver. also Iron will be stored in the liver, since IRon raises metabolism and body does not want that with high CO2


That is exactly why peoples livers are full of copper and iron when they die.

 

[natedawggh]

Haidut,

People have their mouth open to breath out CO2, they are trying to hyperventilate since CO2 levels are too high.

I dont have cushings from putuitary otherwise I would have fixed it 10 times already))) I have adenoma on adrenal gland. And progesterone is a precursor to cortisol . I guess you get the scoop.I have extremely low estrogen in blood.

listen I saw the results of people ABGs. People get higher CO2 levels in blood the older they get. And obviously metabolism goes down with it. And the higher CO2 the lower metabolism will be.

Of course I am not talking about everyone. I dont understand why you are arguing about this Co2. It should be different for everyone. For some you need to lower it and for some to raise it. But you dont have to raise or lower CO2, you have to balance it with bicarb based on PH of the blood

PH of the blood and cell should be balanced.

Some people when they get older have low Co2, why is it low? it is low because body lowers it to compensate for lack of bicarbonate. and those people are in metabolic acidosis. And if you raise CO2 in that case , it will make you worse. That is why for those people you raise bicarb, which will automatically raise Co2

Sorry but this is totally off base. You argue that conditions should be different for different people and then you drop pseudo-science as if your ideas are constants in human physiology, which would then mean that everyone does in fact benefit from having a homogenous set of conditions. So which is it?

Just because someone has a high level of something in the blood DOES NOT mean they have a high level of it in the tissues. Old people who do have higher measureable CO2 but mouth breathe have higher blood CO2 because it's ON ITS WAY OUT OF THE BODY. Ray Peat talks about CO2 at a cellular level, not blood plasma and certain,y not by the mount being exhaled. If you were also correct then according to your theories a person with high CO2 would not benefit from ascending to altitude but in fact people do benefit from altitude because the CO2 concentrations are higher (much, much higher than in cities, where you claim it is too high) and yet people at altitude have lower incidence of all degenerative diseases.

Progesterone is also not a precursor to cortisol. It has many of the same properties as cortisol but without the catabolic effects. People with high cortisol have low progesterone and people with high progesterone have low cortisol. You can't have chronically elevated levels of both, it's physiologically impossible, because the action of each opposes the other.

You also claim that taking external hormones is crazy, but then how else would someone with an imbalance correct such an imbalance and how is taking bicarbonate less crazy than taking hormones, especially if as you say it has such a profound effect on "balance?" I had extremely low body temperatures, insomnia, thyroid rumors, hair loss, and excessive weight gain and taking thyroid and progesterone reversed ALL of those conditions and I habe regrown hair, lost weight, and raised my average body temperature by four full degrees. Given these results I am much more inclined to believe Dr. Peat's take on human physiology over yours.

 

[mas]

Tara,

You made an interesting point here that got me to thinking:

“I believe the atmospheric CO2 rates in the city and country are not relevantly different (we are talking hundreds of ppm, right?), but I imagine that there may be many factors in city living that could affect the body's breathing rates and CO2 levels, eg polution.”

_______________

Cities and suburbs with high population densities would have in addition to higher CO2, carbon monoxide - CO and lots other noxious gasses.

Do hospitals do tests for these noxious gasses?

___________________

Ray gave a talk about CO:

Herb Doctors 2013: Carbon Monoxide

These poisonous gasses would definitely be having bad biological effects. There are so many complex bodily system cause and effect interactions and other unmeasured variables going on, I don’t think simple absolute statements about CO2 measurement from a one-off blood test are sufficient.

 

[gbolduev]

Haidut,

People have their mouth open to breath out CO2, they are trying to hyperventilate since CO2 levels are too high.

I dont have cushings from putuitary otherwise I would have fixed it 10 times already))) I have adenoma on adrenal gland. And progesterone is a precursor to cortisol . I guess you get the scoop.I have extremely low estrogen in blood.

listen I saw the results of people ABGs. People get higher CO2 levels in blood the older they get. And obviously metabolism goes down with it. And the higher CO2 the lower metabolism will be.

Of course I am not talking about everyone. I dont understand why you are arguing about this Co2. It should be different for everyone. For some you need to lower it and for some to raise it. But you dont have to raise or lower CO2, you have to balance it with bicarb based on PH of the blood

PH of the blood and cell should be balanced.

Some people when they get older have low Co2, why is it low? it is low because body lowers it to compensate for lack of bicarbonate. and those people are in metabolic acidosis. And if you raise CO2 in that case , it will make you worse. That is why for those people you raise bicarb, which will automatically raise Co2

Sorry but this is totally off base. You argue that conditions should be different for different people and then you drop pseudo-science as if your ideas are constants in human physiology, which would then mean that everyone does in fact benefit from having a homogenous set of conditions. So which is it?

Just because someone has a high level of something in the blood DOES NOT mean they have a high level of it in the tissues. Old people who do have higher measureable CO2 but mouth breathe have higher blood CO2 because it's ON ITS WAY OUT OF THE BODY. Ray Peat talks about CO2 at a cellular level, not blood plasma and certain,y not by the mount being exhaled. If you were also correct then according to your theories a person with high CO2 would not benefit from ascending to altitude but in fact people do benefit from altitude because the CO2 concentrations are higher (much, much higher than in cities, where you claim it is too high) and yet people at altitude have lower incidence of all degenerative diseases.

Progesterone is also not a precursor to cortisol. It has many of the same properties as cortisol but without the catabolic effects. People with high cortisol have low progesterone and people with high progesterone have low cortisol. You can't have chronically elevated levels of both, it's physiologically impossible, because the action of each opposes the other.

You also claim that taking external hormones is crazy, but then how else would someone with an imbalance correct such an imbalance and how is taking bicarbonate less crazy than taking hormones, especially if as you say it has such a profound effect on "balance?" I had extremely low body temperatures, insomnia, thyroid rumors, hair loss, and excessive weight gain and taking thyroid and progesterone reversed ALL of those conditions and I habe regrown hair, lost weight, and raised my average body temperature by four full degrees. Given these results I am much more inclined to believe Dr. Peat's take on human physiology over yours.

Sorry but I am not going to argue with you . I have high progesterone and high cortisol at the same time if I take progesterone cortisol goes higher in my case. You dont quite grasp how progesterone and cortisol work. Progesterone is more connected with aldo not cortisol.( https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/ ... =yfp-t-250


If you take progesterone you can make more aldo and cortisol If you are constantly stressed then you have low aldo and high cortisol, that is why when you take progesterone you can raise your aldo . But at the proper way would be to lower cortisol if it raised. If you are missing potassium , you can have high cortisol and high progesterone at the same time which happens often.


External hormones will help your metabolism at the expense of your tissues. I am totally against external hormones and same result will be achieved just by balancing you correctly. Hormones are taken only if you are missing an organ. If you are not missing anything , no hormones should be taken , but correct balalncing should take place.

Ray peat did not invent external hormones, they are given to tons of people, Show me one who is cured of anything)))

It is not problem to raise metabolism , you just raised metabolism with your hormones that is ok. But your body chemistry is not ideal, we are talking about ideal body chemistry here. if you are slow oxidizer that you were with low body temperatures, if you raise your progesterone and thyroid, your potassium will go in the cell. but with it will go up calcium. I bet you anything that I am right. It is very easy to take hormones, but they dont fix the real problem that you have. It makes it worse at most cases in the long run, but of course at first you will feel better.

One more time, if you are not missing an organ , then most likely your hormone are down for a purpose. Do you think when you are sick your body want to make you feel bad? It does it on purpose it has to do it, same as with chronic fatique , metabolism is lowered on purpose and to raise it you need to fix the problem for which body wants to lower metabolism not just give the body hormones to raise metabolism.
If you ever look at body chemistry all at once you would understand what \I am talking about.

Why do you even listen to Ray Peat, regular doctors give out the same hormones to everyone on a daily basis. They see low progesterone in blood boom give progesterone, they see low T3 boom give T3.

And every single body gets worse on it over time. Since progesterone and T3 were lowered on purpose in most cases.

If you do have mechanical problem with the gland, I agree you need to take hormones otherwise you need to find what you are missing and taking hormones in 80% change will make you worse over time

And to me I will take Dr ECks ideas over Peat at anytime. Since ECK is a real scientist and Peat is a pseudo science based on some research. Eck tested all of this for 40 years on humans. Peat takes his info from studies? from animals? It is a joke

PEAT does not have even 100 people population sample. HE talks from himself. Eck saw 100000 people a year. And Watts sees probably 3 times that a year now.


I am not offering you my system and not telling you what to do. All I am saying that everyone is different and everyone needs different things in every single case. And giving all people progesterone and thyroid is insane

 

[haidut]

Haidut,

People have their mouth open to breath out CO2, they are trying to hyperventilate since CO2 levels are too high.

I dont have cushings from putuitary otherwise I would have fixed it 10 times already))) I have adenoma on adrenal gland. And progesterone is a precursor to cortisol . I guess you get the scoop.I have extremely low estrogen in blood.

listen I saw the results of people ABGs. People get higher CO2 levels in blood the older they get. And obviously metabolism goes down with it. And the higher CO2 the lower metabolism will be.

Of course I am not talking about everyone. I dont understand why you are arguing about this Co2. It should be different for everyone. For some you need to lower it and for some to raise it. But you dont have to raise or lower CO2, you have to balance it with bicarb based on PH of the blood

PH of the blood and cell should be balanced.

Some people when they get older have low Co2, why is it low? it is low because body lowers it to compensate for lack of bicarbonate. and those people are in metabolic acidosis. And if you raise CO2 in that case , it will make you worse. That is why for those people you raise bicarb, which will automatically raise Co2

Sorry but this is totally off base. You argue that conditions should be different for different people and then you drop pseudo-science as if your ideas are constants in human physiology, which would then mean that everyone does in fact benefit from having a homogenous set of conditions. So which is it?

Just because someone has a high level of something in the blood DOES NOT mean they have a high level of it in the tissues. Old people who do have higher measureable CO2 but mouth breathe have higher blood CO2 because it's ON ITS WAY OUT OF THE BODY. Ray Peat talks about CO2 at a cellular level, not blood plasma and certain,y not by the mount being exhaled. If you were also correct then according to your theories a person with high CO2 would not benefit from ascending to altitude but in fact people do benefit from altitude because the CO2 concentrations are higher (much, much higher than in cities, where you claim it is too high) and yet people at altitude have lower incidence of all degenerative diseases.

Progesterone is also not a precursor to cortisol. It has many of the same properties as cortisol but without the catabolic effects. People with high cortisol have low progesterone and people with high progesterone have low cortisol. You can't have chronically elevated levels of both, it's physiologically impossible, because the action of each opposes the other.

You also claim that taking external hormones is crazy, but then how else would someone with an imbalance correct such an imbalance and how is taking bicarbonate less crazy than taking hormones, especially if as you say it has such a profound effect on "balance?" I had extremely low body temperatures, insomnia, thyroid rumors, hair loss, and excessive weight gain and taking thyroid and progesterone reversed ALL of those conditions and I habe regrown hair, lost weight, and raised my average body temperature by four full degrees. Given these results I am much more inclined to believe Dr. Peat's take on human physiology over yours.

Sorry but I am not going to argue with you . I have high progesterone and high cortisol at the same time if I take progesterone cortisol goes higher in my case. You dont quite grasp how progesterone and cortisol work. Progesterone is more connected with aldo not cortisol.( https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/ ... =yfp-t-250


If you take progesterone you can make more aldo and cortisol If you are constantly stressed then you have low aldo and high cortisol, that is why when you take progesterone you can raise your aldo . But at the proper way would be to lower cortisol if it raised. If you are missing potassium , you can have high cortisol and high progesterone at the same time which happens often.


External hormones will help your metabolism at the expense of your tissues. I am totally against external hormones and same result will be achieved just by balancing you correctly. Hormones are taken only if you are missing an organ. If you are not missing anything , no hormones should be taken , but correct balalncing should take place.

Ray peat did not invent external hormones, they are given to tons of people, Show me one who is cured of anything)))

It is not problem to raise metabolism , you just raised metabolism with your hormones that is ok. But your body chemistry is not ideal, we are talking about ideal body chemistry here. if you are slow oxidizer that you were with low body temperatures, if you raise your progesterone and thyroid, your potassium will go in the cell. but with it will go up calcium. I bet you anything that I am right. It is very easy to take hormones, but they dont fix the real problem that you have. It makes it worse at most cases in the long run, but of course at first you will feel better.

One more time, if you are not missing an organ , then most likely your hormone are down for a purpose. Do you think when you are sick your body want to make you feel bad? It does it on purpose it has to do it, same as with chronic fatique , metabolism is lowered on purpose and to raise it you need to fix the problem for which body wants to lower metabolism not just give the body hormones to raise metabolism.
If you ever look at body chemistry all at once you would understand what \I am talking about.

Why do you even listen to Ray Peat, regular doctors give out the same hormones to everyone on a daily basis. They see low progesterone in blood boom give progesterone, they see low T3 boom give T3.

And every single body gets worse on it over time. Since progesterone and T3 were lowered on purpose in most cases.

If you do have mechanical problem with the gland, I agree you need to take hormones otherwise you need to find what you are missing and taking hormones in 80% change will make you worse over time

And to me I will take Dr ECks ideas over Peat at anytime. Since ECK is a real scientist and Peat is a pseudo science based on some research. Eck tested all of this for 40 years on humans. Peat takes his info from studies? from animals? It is a joke

PEAT does not have even 100 people population sample. HE talks from himself. Eck saw 100000 people a year. And Watts sees probably 3 times that a year now.


I am not offering you my system and not telling you what to do. All I am saying that everyone is different and everyone needs different things in every single case. And giving all people progesterone and thyroid is insane

Couple of things before we stop this bickering.
First of all, can you please provide some information on these ratios that keep coming up? I saw several times that you said 80% of people are this way and 20% of people are the other way. I think the specific examples are for progesterone, estrogen and CO2. So, please do share some data that we can review. I know you say not to trust studies but what they do offer (if they are well done) is removing the bias from the sample of people you have seen. Maybe it's just the group of people you helped that show this distribution, maybe not.
Second, most of the stuff Peat has said decades ago has turned out to be right. I am not trying to defend the man, I am always skeptical of radical ideas until I see some independent confirmation. But in his case, both the theory on estrogen and serotonin, and the results seem to match what he has said years ago.
Estrogen and serotonin do change as the body is trying to protect you, and nobody here is arguing that the your own body is trying to hurt you. However, these changes are supposed to be short-term and then return to normal. When they become adaptive and chronic, then estrogen and serotonin become a direct cause of further problems. And the reason the body cannot bring them back to their correct levels is low metabolism. That is Peat's main idea I think. Yes, the body will protect you initially by raising stress hormones but when done long term these hormones cause structural changes, and also inhibit metabolism, so that even if the initial condition is gone the body cannot rectify the stress hormones.
As far as estrogen and serotonin go - have you seen brain images from people exposed to high estrogen? Both man and women brains shrink by about 15% when estrogen is chronically higher than the 75% range. Both estrogen and all estrogen mimetics like BPA have this effect. They shrink testicles, shrink brains, shrink thymus, and enlarge liver. How is this a good thing? Progesterone does the exact opposite. Serotonin has very limited function beyond platelet aggregation and GI motility, so if it is elevated the overwhelming chances are that it is pathological. You mentioned babies, so I mention babies too. When a baby is born, its serotonin is so low it is usually undetectable in the blood and if it is this is usually a sign of GI infection or some sort of poisoning. You will probably say that the balance is the key. But when the body has gone out of whack and cannot maintain this proper balance something must be done. Peat says that instead of chasing around hundreds of variables and trying to modify each one of them, fixing metabolism will generally allow the body to restore the balance. I do agree with you that sometimes working to raise metabolism may be counterproductive if there is a chronic issue that needs to be addressed first. This most likely means bacterial infection or some kind of poisoning. Peat is certainly in favor of using antibiotics for things like SIBO. He does not take Candida seriously IMO, but let's say that I agree it should be getting attention if it is out of control. Do you know of any reliable measures for detecting chronic bacterial infections or Candida invasion/overgrowth. If you do, please share.
Progesterone is indeed more tied to aldosterone then cortisol, but it is also both a glucocorticoid antagonist and mineralocorticoid antagonist. I sent you the link about glucocorticoid, and here is the study on the mineralocorticoid antagonist.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11246598
"...In the second half of a normal menstrual cycle, progesterone levels rise. Progesterone binds to its specific receptor, but also to the mineralocorticoid receptor; thus progesterone acts as a mineralocorticoid antagonist. For this reason, natriuresis is slightly enhanced in the luteal phase, and, as a reflection of the negative sodium balance, plasma renin and aldosterone rise by 20-50%.".
So, progesterone raising aldosterone or cortisol in your case may be due to very different reasons than just being a precursor to these hormones - i.e. progesterone makes you lose salt and this leads to rise in aldosterone to compensate for it. Also, you can have elevated aldosterone and have most of it inactivated through high progesterone antagonizing the receptors. The drug cyproheptadine, which is a serotonin antagonist, does the same - it blocks the effects but you may still continue to have high serotonin in blood. I agree with natedawg that having high progesterone and high cortisol is physiologically unmaintainable in the long run. One or the other must go down or somehow be blocked from exerting action.
Anyways, you don't have to reply to most of my rant. This thread is getting almost hostile and that is not my intention. But if you can provide some justification for the 80/20 examples you gave that would be great. I am not trying to disagree with you, I am just saying that my experience has been different and that the studies also support more Peatarian view. We are not here to worship anybody, we try to get everybody to a point where they find what aspect of Peat's recommendations work for them. At least that's my purpose on this forum. If I can use your example, it looks like it works for 80% of people and the other 20% are struggling.
Thanks again for contributing.

 

[charlie]

Let's please keep this thread civil.

 

[narouz]

Is an eruption imminent? :?

 

[chris]

There is nothing wrong with disagreeing.

Why did you lock this thread then Charlie?

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2992&p=81723&hilit=shred+of+evidence#p81723

 

[charlie]