Occasional Boron Supplementation

Goobz

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No problem! They are very inexpensive to buy at most grocery stores.

I found a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon. I'll just use that in a bottle, mix it up, and throw out half the water and refill the rest. And then do that again to reach about a 1/16th. My plan is to slowly drink this amount (should be 30 ish mg of boron I think) over a day or so and see how I feel.

Thanks again
 

Blossom

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You're welcome.
I found a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon. I'll just use that in a bottle, mix it up, and throw out half the water and refill the rest. And then do that again to reach about a 1/16th. My plan is to slowly drink this amount (should be 30 ish mg of boron I think) over a day or so and see how I feel.

Thanks again
Sounds good!
 

Nokoni

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But such tiny amounts
Lol about the "how many teaspoons in a teaspoon" :):. But just FYI, 1/8th teaspoon is not a tiny amount. Depending on age and joint issues you may need that much, but even a tenth of that might be enough. You want to stick with least amount necessary because higher doses can induce tremor.
 

Inaut

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Typically 1/8th teaspoon in a litre of water was the dosage for women and 1/4 for men.
 

Nokoni

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Typically 1/8th teaspoon in a litre of water was the dosage for women and 1/4 for men.
The Australian scientist who discovered the benefit of boron for arthritis about 60 years ago had a thriving business in boron, selling thousands of bottles per month with no advertising but word of mouth, and I think his formulation was 3 mg per day. (Then he got put out of business by big pharma after he went to them for help, and boron was promptly declared a poison.) I think his ultimate recommendation was 6 mg per day. Probably more than that would be appropriate for established joint disease, but if supplemented from childhood it might very well be enough to forestall it, hence my "depending on age and joint issues".
 

Nokoni

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D

danishispsychic

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I use boron and it really helps my joints but I do pulse dose it -- like 3 days in a row and then 4 off etc.
 

Nokoni

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lol same thing - different number.
Going from boron amount to Borax amount: boron / 11% = Borax. 1 g boron / 0.11 = 9 g Borax.
Instead, mistake I've made a few times is: boron * 11 = Borax. 1 g boron * 11 would give 11 g Borax.

So 11 is the right number (those in bold above, but actually it's closer to 11.5) but "other way around" was my shorthand for doing a different calculation with that number. It's a mistake I've made, but maybe you did something entirely different.
 

Goobz

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Lol about the "how many teaspoons in a teaspoon" :):. But just FYI, 1/8th teaspoon is not a tiny amount. Depending on age and joint issues you may need that much, but even a tenth of that might be enough. You want to stick with least amount necessary because higher doses can induce tremor.

Haha. But yeah, I knew the amounts, but was having trouble with the measuring. So I was actually meaning the amount was a tiny amount in physical terms, i.e. that was hard to measure accurately with an actual teaspoon. Not a "tiny amount" in terms of boron. The "me stupid" moment came after I was reminded of the existence of measuring spoons for this purpose, haha....

Thanks for the advice. I am indeed starting low and building up. About 1/16th of a tsp, in water, drank throughout the day.

I'd never heard of the tremor side effect. I will have to look into the mechanism behind that. Doesn't sound like a good thing.
 

Nokoni

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Haha. But yeah, I knew the amounts, but was having trouble with the measuring. So I was actually meaning the amount was a tiny amount in physical terms, i.e. that was hard to measure accurately with an actual teaspoon. Not a "tiny amount" in terms of boron. The "me stupid" moment came after I was reminded of the existence of measuring spoons for this purpose, haha....
Got it :thumbsup::):.
 

Goobz

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Will report back any changes if they surface in the next little while. So far, my joints feel better and they seemed to pop a lot yesterday, in a pleasant way, and I'm possibly experiencing positive changes in an unstable shoulder. Feel like im getting some skin changes (i have seb derm in places) but we'll see how that plays out...
 

Nokoni

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The Australian scientist who discovered the benefit of boron for arthritis
Looked it up again. Guy's name was Rex Newnham (d. 2010). Below are excerpts from a paper he wrote in 2004. The full paper is also attached because the only link to it I found was paywalled.

"Arthritis could be described as a poor use of calcium around the joints. The literature showed that about 50 grams of borax is a dangerous dose that could cause death. Borax is the commonest compound of boron. I took 30 mg twice a day, that is the amount of borax that would adhere to a wet finger tip. In a week the pain was less and in ten days the swelling was getting less. In two weeks all pain, swelling and stiffness had gone, so I stopped taking the borax. A year later the pain and swelling returned, and I was still eating food grown on the boron deficient soil. I then took more of the borax and soon got better."

So Newnham was taking about 7 mg of boron daily (not 3 mg, as I mistakenly wrote in the above post), to very good effect.

"On these travels I found out that where the soil is seriously worn out as in the sugar producing countries of Jamaica, Mauritius and Fiji, there is very much arthritis in up to 70% of the population. Fruits and vegetables in the markets of Kingston, Jamaica were deficient in many minerals, and plants growing on farms even more so, showing symptoms such as yellow streaks on leaves, dark sunken areas on fruits, stems without leaves and black areas on root vegetables. Other minerals are also deficient in these soils and that is why the people have so many other diseases, and not just arthritis."

So food grown in played-out soil is deficient in minerals and causes many diseases. My personal belief is that lithium is among those critical mineral deficiencies that result.

"Dr. Forrest Nielsen of the Human Nutrition Research Center in North Dakota has been able to do much needed work showing how the parathyroid gland requires boron, and secretes parathormone which enables bones to grow properly. He and others at that research station showed that boron would help certain brain functions. They showed how boron would work with vitamin E towards proper growth of leg bones in chickens. They also showed how boron influenced the use by the animal body of magnesium, calcium and vitamin E, so that lack of sufficient boron suppressed growth. Then in 1986 an experiment was done with postmenopausal women aged 48 to 82. Boron supplementation markedly reduced the urinary secretion of calcium, magnesium and phosphorus. It also increased the amount of oestrogen and testosterone. These hormones were the only known way of reducing calcium loss which occurs after menopause. They found that boron was able to prevent calcium loss and bone demineralization, and this is the way to prevent osteoporosis. Dr. Nielsen concluded his paper in 1986 by saying that regardless of the uncertainty about the specific biochemical mechanisms through which it acts, there is overwhelming circumstantial evidence indicating that boron is of nutritional importance. If boron is not essential in the classical sense, it certainly could be considered beneficial in humans exposed to certain nutritional stressors such as vitamin D, copper and magnesium deficiency. Thus it seems appropriate to recommend that people eat a diet which provides luxuriant amounts of boron. In 1997 he showed how boron is a dynamic trace element which affects the metabolism of the substances involved in life processes, and so affects many body systems including the brain, skeleton and the immune system in a beneficial manner. We need between one and 13 mg of boron a day and the best dietary sources are fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes."

"It has been found that broken bones heal faster and better when the patient takes a boron supplement. This also applies to animals such as dogs, cattle and horses. It was the work of Dr. Forrest Nielsen and the Human Nutrition Research Institute in North Dakota that established that boron would help and even arrest osteoporosis. It was almost by accident that they found out that the calcium content of bone was increased when the people had a boron supplement."
 

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Goobz

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I’m having what looks to be some very positive early response to my borax supplementation, but I want to give it a little longer before making any claims.

@Nokoni apologies if you’ve already covered this, but have you ever stopped your borax supplementation? Does your arthritis return?
 

Spartan300

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Also posted in the Estrogen is Critical for Men thread:

I have tried to be consistent for a few weeks with boron supplementation at 3 - 6mg/day.

I have definitely been struggling to tolerate stress and that may have improved a little as I have managed to put some stuff behind me that had been causing problems for some time. Sleep and libido also a little improved. Waking temps maybe marginally improved.

Skin still dry, particularly forehead close to hairline. That only started after adopting Peaty diet principals/supps.
 

Nokoni

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I’m having what looks to be some very positive early response to my borax supplementation, but I want to give it a little longer before making any claims.

@Nokoni apologies if you’ve already covered this, but have you ever stopped your borax supplementation? Does your arthritis return?
Well my view is that boron is an essential mineral like magnesium, potassium and the rest (likewise for lithium), and that there are negligible amounts in my diet, so yeah I still take it. I continue to experiment with dosage, currently taking about 35 mg boron (or about 300 mg Borax) daily, in divided doses.
 

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