Boron—Essential To Ray Peat Health?

natedawggh

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Boron turns out to be extremely important in the balance of hormones, but boron deficiency has not been studied extensively in part because it is apparently so difficult to produce a boron deficiency in rats and mice, because they need so very little of it to be healthy.

Many of the effects of Boron supplementation have effects that are absolutely Ray Peat friendly, such as increased Calcium and Magnesium absorption and retention, and lower Phosphorus in the blood serum. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7840072 It also is reported to increase Testosterone in males and balance hormones in Females.

This study shows that stress causes an increased need for boron:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2222801

It is not toxic in very large amounts to humans, but deficiency apparently causes severe problems. I started taking it recently and experienced such a jump in my body temperatures that I was able to stop taking Progesterone, and I am only taking thyroid when I wake in the morning and when I go to sleep at night, reaching highs of 99.7 in the afternoon with no additional thyroid or progesterone. A few days before I could reach this with Progest and Thyroid, but if I didn't take it I would only get to 98.9. (for anyone that hasn't read my history, I used to have a low of 95.5 and highs of only 97.5)

I haven't seen any writings of Peat on Boron, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fit within in science and I am definitely enjoying taking it, and have noticed more and significant benefits than taking any supplements of sodium, calcium, magnesium, epsom salts, charcoal, cascara, or doing the low/no fat diet, increasing calories, etc., and the benefits seem to be in even more synchrony when taken in tandem with a Ray Peat diet of saturated fats, fruits, sugar, and avoidance of allergens.

There was one study where Boron supplementation caused an increase in both Testosterone and 17 beta estradiol in men, but the studies authors postulated that the increased Testosterone was converting into more estrogen in the already unhealthy subjects. That process could be short circuited by taking aromatase inhibitors such as Nettle, but the increase in Testosterone is likely to protect the males from the increase of estrogen anyway and would probably level out over time.
 

robertf

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And it displaces fluoride. I've been on it for a while and had nothing but good results. Great to take before bedtime.
 

treelady

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Thank you natedawggh ! I am ordering some. :)
 

tara

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Years ago I grew some root veges that grew in spirals. A gardener told me that's a sign of boron deficiency in the soil.
 

emmanceb

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I asked Ray about it and he said the following

Plants need it. I don't think people should have any more of it than they get from foods.

Wish he would've expanded on the reasoning but perhaps it is somewhat useful while one is hypo, not so much in good health
 

narouz

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emmanceb said:
I asked Ray about it and he said the following

Plants need it. I don't think people should have any more of it than they get from foods.

Wish he would've expanded on the reasoning but perhaps it is somewhat useful while one is hypo, not so much in good health

Yeah. Still...thanks! Very interesting.
Generally, it is represented as exceedingly safe at reasonable levels....
 

Zachs

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Like all minerals, boron is probably heavily depleted in the soil of conventionally and even organically grown produce.
 

Sheila

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I used boron in the past (3mg max) with quite a few patients, usually with some kind of arthritic presentation, with mixed results. Some swore by it and some found that over time (months) they needed more to achieve the same effect which is a warning sign for me that we've missed something important. These past 5 years that has been incorporating RP's understandings which makes near any old strategy more effective or unnecessary. When I researched the mineral, from memory I recall that boron, being very soluble, is easily flushed from the body and soils but in some areas soils are deficient whilst in others water supplies have it in excess depending upon the local geology. With deficient soils, Brassicaea tend to have hollow or star shaped hollows in their stalks, quite marked, so it is often used as a foliar (leaf spray replacement) as it is very important in flowering and plant head development eg broccoli. I suspected it might have some oestrogenic properties wrt human fertility akin to plant requirements but that might be fanciful and I never saw anything concrete there. Since deformation of veg is a sign of boron issues, I suspect many growers supplement their soil with it. It will be in kelp-based, fulvic based, paramag rock dust supplements and parts of Turkey are very high in boron so it's certainly to be found in Turkish figs.
Interested in the experiential findings here, thanks, will be further interested if they last so please let us know.
Sheila
 

Daimyo

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Boron in as anion nutrient in the soil, so it tends to be leached out easily. In higher rainfall regions (that usually have low B content) the boron applied in spring is usually gone by the fall. Either leached out or taken up by the plants.

The best way to know does your soil needs Boron is to do a soil test.
 

haidut

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emmanceb said:
I asked Ray about it and he said the following

Plants need it. I don't think people should have any more of it than they get from foods.

Wish he would've expanded on the reasoning but perhaps it is somewhat useful while one is hypo, not so much in good health

Boron is HIGHLY estrogenic. The bodybuilding community was crazy about it in the 1990s, but then they found out first hand that it raises estrogen (I think all 3 types) and dumped it. Boron has similar effects to cadmium, nickel, cobalt, etc and they are all estrogenic and carcinogenic in higher doses.
Peat is right that unless you are deficient you'd better not mess with it. See below for a study in men.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02785299

"...Supplementation with 10 mg B/d for 4 wk resulted in 84% of the supplemented dose being recovered in the urine. Plasma estradiol concentrations increased significantly as a result of supplementation (51.9±21.4 to 73.9±22.2 pmol/L;p<0.004) and there was a trend for plasma testosterone levels to be increased. However, there was no difference in plasma lipids or the oxidizability of low-density lipoprotein Our studies suggest that the absorption efficiency of B is very high and estimation of the urinary B concentration may provide a useful reflection of B intake. In addition, the elevation of endogenous estrogen as a result of supplementation suggests a protective role for B in atherosclerosis."
 

tara

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Parsifal said:
post 106220
haidut said:
Very interesting! Thanks.
What about Chromium, Molybdenum and other oligo-elements that we don't talk about?
I assume we need these. Not sure where to get molybdenum, but hoping the mushrooms I eat get me some chromium.
 
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Giraffe

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Parsifal said:
post 106220 What about Chromium, Molybdenum and other oligo-elements that we don't talk about?
I read a lot about chromium a couple of days ago. There are three documented cases of patients becoming insulin resistant after several months of parental nutrition lacking chromium. It was fully reversed after chromium was added.

It is hyped very much for diabetes, but according to a review I read on pubmed only one out of a dozen studies showed effectiveness. This one study was from China. The author concluded that chromium only helps people who are severely deficient.

Ray Peat thinks that chromium is too toxic to use as a supplement.
 
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Parsifal

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I remember reading that cinnamon has a lot of chromium in it, that's interesting.

Has anyone heard what Peat thinks about Fulvid Acid in Shilajit?
 

Giraffe

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Parsifal said:
post 106238 I remember reading that cinnamon has a lot of chromium in it, that's interesting.
I read that brewer's yeast is the best food source of chromium.
 
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tara

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Giraffe said:
post 106247
Parsifal said:
post 106238 I remember reading that cinnamon has a lot of chromium in it, that's interesting.
I read that brewer's yeast is the best food source of chromium.
Peat has only recommended brewers yeast extract for resolving diabetic states, IIRC. I wonder if the chromium is leached into the hot water extract? The solids are apparently quite estrogenic.
 
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Parsifal

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tara said:
post 106255
Giraffe said:
post 106247
Parsifal said:
post 106238 I remember reading that cinnamon has a lot of chromium in it, that's interesting.
I read that brewer's yeast is the best food source of chromium.
Peat has only recommended brewers yeast extract for resolving diabetic states, IIRC. I wonder if the chromium is leached into the hot water extract? The solids are apparently quite estrogenic.
That's a good question. BTW how can we get only the water from the solid?
 
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