Geneticist Links Chronic Fatigue To Mitochondria Dysfunction

thegiantess

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
316
This article is actually pretty depressing. It's a personal account of a Stanford genetics professor who's son has the worst case of CFS I've ever heard of. Anyway, he thinks the cause to defective mitochondria!

The puzzle solver
 

faramir

Member
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
13
Thank you for sharing! Yes, it is very, very sad! I'm currently reading the book Plague( One Scientist's Search for the Truth about Human Retroviruses and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism and Other Diseases. The poor woman, Dr Mikovits, was basically 'savaged' because she suggested a possible link to vaccines and these diseases. Applying Ray Peats insights would definitely help! But it's often difficult for people to think outside the box of mainstream approaches.
 
OP
thegiantess

thegiantess

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
316
...prob obvious but the title should be mitochondria dysfunction. I couldn't figure out how to edit the title.
 
OP
thegiantess

thegiantess

Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2015
Messages
316
A lot of disease and ageing seems to be tied to mitochondria dysfunction, some studies conclude that oxidation rates are not as expected in those situation (glucose or fatty acid oxidations - sometimes one remains intact while the other is broken).

Impaired mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation and insulin resistance in aging: novel protective role of glutathione. - PubMed - NCBI


Right. I guess the question becomes how to fix it in someone as sick as the guy in the article. He can't consume food or even be near to others. Quite a challenge.
 

Simonsays

Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2016
Messages
299
This story reminds me of a property i visited quite a few years back as part of my job. I was met by a frail couple in their 80s. The property was being sold as they were moving to a bungalow as they could no longer cope with the stairs. They then told me that their son was sick in bed and could i be careful not to disturb him.

It transpired he had a form of "ME" or CFS" , not sure which. He had been bed ridden for many years, i think he was in his mid 40s. He had been a super fit "kick boxer" who had picked up a virus of sorts whilst training in his 20s , but continued to train , but went down hill very fast and had never recovered. He was dying and the only time he left the home was when the ambulance took him to hospital , as his heart was failing.

I remember as they were devoted to caring for him, but they themselves were struggling to cope. I can still see in the kitchen the various bowls of different foods and supplements they were trying to treat him with.

It was heartbreaking.
 

jyb

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2012
Messages
2,783
Location
UK
Right. I guess the question becomes how to fix it in someone as sick as the guy in the article. He can't consume food or even be near to others. Quite a challenge.

The study I linked proposes one solution (which tends to disagrees with Ray's reasoning). A central point in Ray's work is that it is glucose oxidation which is impaired (and a lot of his recommendations are about that specifically).
 
Last edited:

PakPik

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2016
Messages
331
Mitochondrial dysfunction just doesn't come out of the blue -unless is some very rare genetic inherited mitochondrial defect-. I'm tempted to say CFS/ME has an infectious origin, and this infection generating a immunodeficiency state (think something similar to AIDS, in fact CFS used to be called Non-HIV AIDS in the 90s!). I've lost the count how many times I've read people telling their stories and pointing out that they got all just weird after going on a trip usually to a third world country and that they received multiple vaccinations (I've heard the hepatitis B implicated as a common thread), then they go back home and and get flu like symptoms that mark the beginning the usually life long battle called CFS/ME. Another commonality is that when they begin their flu like symptoms it is accompanied with newly onset or acutely worsened inflammatory bowel disease, and then little by little the neurological problems creep in. This is like a script I've seen over and over, and Mr. Dafoe fits perfectly.
This disease in my opinion and experience can not be beaten if the underlying infections are not dealt with and the immunodeficient state fixed, no matter how much mitochondrial/metabolic support is given. The infections need to go. Sadly this is a political disease, and I doubt mainstream medicine will help truly uncover, understand and treat it in our lifetime, worse off, they persecute and ridicule the researchers that really discover important things.
 
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
7,370
I know how that guy feels like, but in a smaller form. I guess I have a weaker virus? :ss cmon dude
 

charlie

Admin
The Law & Order Admin
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
14,359
Location
USA
"Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" = hypothyroidism. Fix cellular energy per the recommendations of Ray Peat and CFS goes away. The flu experienced by some in the beginning was enough to knock down their metabolism so that "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" could set it. A huge stress like moving, or death in family can do the same thing.

Once again, just another case of all things hypothyroidism.
 

whodathunkit

Member
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
777
Such_Saturation said:
Ya'll ********** need Peat
Sorry, but as one of those *********** who has recovered from a moderate if undiagnosed case of CFS, and struggled for years to do it, I can tell you that Peat doesn't do those ********** any good. I tried Peat about four years ago, when I still had acute symptoms of CFS, and while I was lucky in that it didn't make me worse, six months of it changed nothing about the way I felt. I got a little fatter. Maybe a little more sluggish. Blood sugar went up a couple clicks. Nothing earth-shattering, but no improvement.

But many people with CFS have such reactions to Peat-approved foods that Peat's strategies will actively make them worse. Sometimes sick almost unto death. Some of them get severe gastroparesis from Peat approved foods. Gelatin? Forget it. OJ? Bwuhaha. It's not a point of whether or not the food would be good for them...sure it would. But they can't eat it, for much the same reason a person with shellfish allergy can't eat shrimp. Only these people react to everything.

Also to other Peat approved therapeutics like NDT and progesterone, etc.

I cleared most of my symptoms with other supplements. I managed to overcome my mito dysfunction to the point where I have a pretty good quality of life. It took several years. I'm circling back around to Peat because I think I can be better and his ideas resonate with me. I'm trying another experiment and having great results so far. Maybe Peat will be the final brick in the wall of my health.

But many CFS sufferers aren't as lucky as me and can't tolerate the same supps I took. Same reason they can't tolerate a lot of foods: severe side effects that make life intolerable. Can't persevere to see if you can get to the other side because persevering is just too much to endure.

What causes the mito dysfunction is anybody's guess. As @PakPik said, viral loads are often involved, but aren't the whole story. A prolonged virus that gave me odd neuralgia symptoms for months played a part in the onset of my severest symptoms, even if it doesn't seem to be playing an ongoing part in my life (like Lyme can be a lifelong battle, for example).

IMO PUFA is very heavily involved in CFS, too. Anybody that's interested in Peat knows it's a mito killer. Ditching it has done me no end of good. I think eliminating it would benefit everyone, even if I do loves me my porridge, still. I don't eat it much, but will always love it. :)

Another thing involved in CFS is probably genetic mutations. These people have a lot of snps that don't occur in such preponderance in normal populations. It's like getting stung by a bee...one or two stings can be absorbed by most people. But if you get stung 25 or 50 times, your body just can't handle it. I myself more odd snps than the general population. They accounted for a lot of my puzzling life-long problems once I found out about them. Of course snps don't always get expressed, but once they're expressed it's awfully hard to turn them off. Much easier for them never to get turned on. That's another hurdle facing folks with CFS. The sickest ones seem to have even more weird snps than someone like me, and they're probably all being expressed. And they're too sick to exert the energy to get them turned off.

Anyway, the main point to this post is that people who have never suffered with this confusing and debilitating disease ALWAYS want to oversimplify the route to recovery. I did it myself, before I learned so much about it. But there's nothing simple about it, and glib, snappy suggestions are not helpful at all. Y'all *********** who are glib and snappy about it are the ones who just don't get it. And thank your lucky stars your life never took a path where you had to. Get it, I mean.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

jyb

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2012
Messages
2,783
Location
UK
I cleared most of my symptoms with other supplements. I managed to overcome my mito dysfunction to the point where I have a pretty good quality of life. It took several years.

Do you mind sharing the steps that cured or helped you? CFS looks tough and so it would interesting to see what your experiments led you to do.
 

charlie

Admin
The Law & Order Admin
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
14,359
Location
USA
@whodathunkit, when you tried Peat four years ago did you supplement with thyroid?
 

whodathunkit

Member
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
777
@whodathunkit, when you tried Peat four years ago did you supplement with thyroid?
No. Mainly because I tried it years before that and it was a horrible mess. I know now why I wasn't successful with thyroid or Peat in the past. Not really concerned about the whys of the past because I've moved beyond them. But I'm not a typical CFS sufferer, either. My case was overall pretty moderate. I at least still had the residual (mental and physical) energy to persevere. Lots of people don't.

Please trust me when I say not everything works for everyone. Not even Peat works for everyone. That's probably hard for people who have had stunning results from it to understand, but that's the way it is. If the side effects from a therapeutic measure are too severe to be tolerated, then the therapeutic measure can't be applied. Peat doesn't know everything about genetics and viral loads, and there are factors affecting these sick people and mutations interacting in ways that we may never understand.
 

whodathunkit

Member
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
777
@Such_Saturation: I'm having good results with Peat AFTER cleaning up my metabolism with a non-Peat approach. Peat did not work for me when I was sick.

Further point is that not everything works for everybody. And sometimes things work at one time but not another. For various reasons.

Or was that your point and I just missed it?
 
Joined
Nov 26, 2013
Messages
7,370
@Such_Saturation: I'm having good results with Peat AFTER cleaning up my metabolism with a non-Peat approach. Peat did not work for me when I was sick.

Further point is that not everything works for everybody. And sometimes things work at one time but not another. For various reasons.

Or was that your point and I just missed it?

Well the thing is, unless you were downing corn oil every day, it would be hard to say what "Ray Peat" would have done in your situation. Secondly, there's no way to tell whether this "Peat" approach (which you have done twice) or the "non-Peat" approach (done in between the two) has "cleaned up" your metabolism. The bottom line is that the issue is with mitochondria and energy production, and Ray Peat has been saying this for the better part of half a century.
 

whodathunkit

Member
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
777
there's no way to tell whether this "Peat" approach (which you have done twice) or the "non-Peat" approach (done in between the two) has "cleaned up" your metabolism.
Oh, REALLY? So you're going to jump inside my head and my body now and say there's no way for my poor pea brain to figure out that the recovery I began to experience at least six months after I quit Peat style was due to the supplements I took rather than my stint with Peat?

You really must be psychic bordering on omnipotent to make these kinds of assumptions. No wonder you seem to think you're qualified to tell sick ********** what they should do.

Here's basically how it went. For six months I did a fruit/milk/seafood/liver/sugar/coffee/fruit juice diet. (Peat enough for you?) At the end of that six months none of my biomarkers had improved, and I still couldn't go to the gym and work with weight for a half hour without getting PEM for weeks afterwards. Look up PEM if you don't know what it stands for. It's a pretty big indicator of mitochondrial function.

But after six months on the supplements, I could exercise again without getting protracted PEM. Still got PEM, but not as bad. Within two weeks of starting the supplements I started getting the urge to exercise again. I couldn't indulge the urge at that point...no tolerance at two weeks...but to experience the spontaneous urge to move after so many years of never wanting to get up out of the chair was HUGE.

Now, after nearly three years on the supplements, I can work out for 1.5 hours at a time, a couple times per week. On other days I do some HIIT. Other days I do an hour of Pilates. And even with all that activity I can still go to work and have enough energy to do other things.

Accomplished due to the supplements. Not Peat style.

The bottom line is that the issue is with mitochondria and energy production, and Ray Peat has been saying this for the better part of half a century.
We can agree on that.

And that is what I addressed, very effectively I might add, with the *other* approach I took that was more suitable for me at the time. Now Peat is suitable for me, too. I'm looking forward to being able to get the good out of it this time around.

But the thing is, to pull this back around to the actual topic of the thread, is that unless you've walked a mile in the shoes of someone with an illness as baffling and debilitating as ME/CFS, you really shouldn't make assumptions about what's good for them and how they can recover. It doesn't work the same way for everyone...the path to healing from serious illness is always convoluted. You sound pretty young, but all I'm really saying is just try to understand that, and respect the fact that there are other perspectives than yours, and things going on with complex illness that you and even RP might not understand. Consequently, cutesy remarks about what sick ********** should do aren't really cute at all. Unless you've got no other perspective than the myopia of youthful exuberant health. In which case, you're excused.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom