Pyroluria

Has anyone heard of pyroluria or the methylation cycle. People who have this disorder are unable to make serotonin efficently due to issues with their methylation cycle. Are these people, then the lucky ones?

 

A friend of mine has a daughter with pyroluria. A supplement of zinc and B6 and her symptoms are gone (anxiety, panic attacks, lack of confidence) whilst her GP wanted her on SSRIs. They are not lucky. Excess serotonin is not good but a small amount of it is still needed. This is the same for all 'stress' hormones, even oestrogen.

 

As a side note, that's an issue I've noticed, the "negative" "stress" hormones are needed, balance is the keyword.

 

How can one be lucky if one cannot synthesize dopamine, GABA, norephinphrine and melatonin?

 

I assumed that being unable to efficently manufacture serotonin through the methylation cycle that this could work to their advantage. This is considering RP's stance against serotonin.

 

Doesn't serotonin allow you to down-regulate your bodily functions to match available nutrition? This would mean that being deficient in serotonin would increase bodily depletion and make things worse, unless you're really getting proper adequate nutrition to begin with!

Essentially make deficiencies even worse.

 

Interesting Kiran. Do you have any evidence supporting this?

 

Ray Peat: http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/se ... sion.shtml

"Serotonin and its derivative, melatonin, are both involved in the biology of torpor and hibernation. Serotonin inhibits mitochondrial respiration. Excitoxic death of nerve cells involves both the limitation of energy production, and increased cellular activation. Serotonin has both of these actions.

In hibernating animals, the stress of a declining food supply causes increased serotonin production. In humans and animals that don’t hibernate, the stress of winter causes very similar changes. Serotonin lowers temperature by decreasing the metabolic rate. Tryptophan and melatonin are also hypothermic. In the winter, more thyroid is needed to maintain a normal rate of metabolism."

That's true, kiran. If you are a hibernating animal and your serotonin is suddenly decreased - you might die. If you are a human being and you don't get the necessary nutrition, increasing serotonin will 'down-regulate your bodily functions to match available nutrition' - there is another word for it: degeneration. The completion of the process of 'down-regulating the bodily functions' would be death.

 

That's a good point. Thanks for completing the thought. No doubt the way out is to increase nutrition, not increase serotonin!

 

There is a closed Pyroluria FB group where I have learned a lot. Never diagnosed, but sure do have a lot of the symptoms. Cannot take a lot of B6, which some pyrolurics cannot. The right kind of zinc knocks me out - zinc picolinate. In _Nutrition for Women_ I think Peat says something about pyrolurics also having increased copper and estrogen....go figure....

 

I just found this article about methylation as an autism theory:
http://www.autismcoach.com/Articles.asp?ID=256

It says "approximately 45%-85% of individuals or more within the autism spectrum are believed to be under-methylators (do no have enough methyl groups) and 10-15% are believed to be over-methylators (have too many methyl groups)."
http://www.autismcoach.com/Articles.asp?ID=256

So, according to the article the undermethylators, who comprise the majority of autism cases, have low serotonin:
According to Pfeiffer, under-methylators tend to produce lower levels of the following neurotransmitters: seratonin, melatonin, dopamine, norpinephrine.

Conditions that can be associated with undermethylation (but not always) include: low-energy, internal anxiety, depression, and anorexia.

Seems like all roads lead back to low serotonin as the cause of all mental illness.

 

Hmmm...I hope no one minds me picking up on this older thread, but I found this while searching to help me reconcile Dr. Peat's convincing arguments about the negative effects of excess serotonin, my own experience a few years back experimenting with an LSD-like psychedelic, and the diet of Dr. Peat himself.

I'm in my early 40's and have had depression and mood issues from early adulthood on. I have always struggled (despite what I believe is a decent level of innate intelligence) with consolidation of learning, concentration, what I would call a lack of mental or intellectual energy, and perhaps relatedly, learned helplessness--a term I was unfamiliar with until reading Dr. Peat's work. I also certainly have quite a few characteristics that would fall on the autism spectrum, though never diagnosed.

A couple years ago, I drank a traditional psychedelic plant medicine called ayahuasca six times or so over the course of a three week period while I was in the Amazon. Despite the actual periods of "intoxication" being quite miserable, the periods in between drinkings found me with the greatest sense of well-being of my life. I felt at peace with myself and the world and completely comfortable in my own skin for the first time. My mind was clear and alert, yet calm. My self-consciousness around people was greatly, greatly reduced and I was able to be a good listener and fully engaged in human interaction. People gravitated to me. This effect lasted (though constantly diminishing) for a month or more even after returning to the states.

Anyway, the plant compounds in the ayahuasca brew are both an MAOI and SRI. I'm not exactly sure how this translates, however, to the neurotransmitter activity. My thinking is that the amount and activity of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine would all be increased, perhaps with the serotonin kept somewhat in check? Can anyone more scientific-minded then I clear this up?

My concern I guess is if I follow a low tryptophan diet won't I also be decreasing (or atleast certainly not increasing) dopamine and norepinephrine...and is that really what I want/need? I was thinking along the lines of avoiding meat, getting just enough dairy to meet my calcium needs and then making up the rest of my protein demands in gelatin and potato juice. Perhaps that misses the point/mark?

After all, as much as Dr. Peat says and writes about the dangers/impacts of excess serotonin and his caveats about eating meat (coffee, gelatin), he still eats meat every day. I know he always recommends cuts like oxtail and shanks, but from what he's said he doesn't shy away from steak. We all know he's a heavy coffee drinker and can cover himself easily on the iron front, but I just wonder if he is (and can afford to be--in terms of convenience) as meticulous on the gelatin. That's alot of gelatin he recommends going along with a steak...

Or, maybe he doesn't have inherently low(er) levels of dopamine and/or norepinephrine and blocking that too with the gelatin isn't an issue for him. Perhaps for someone like me, muscle meat without (or without so much) gelatin makes more sense. Perhaps a serotonin antagonist of some sort is more in order.

Sorry for the long post. Hope it makes some sense. Anyone care to comment or set my thinking/confusion straight?

 

The active ingredient (psychedelic) in Ayahuasca is DMT which is a structural analog of serotonin, and the monoamine oxidase enzyme in your gut/liver would normally oxidize it. So a MAO-I is needed to inhibit the enzyme and thus allow you to take it orally. DMT might otherwise be injected/smoked.

I believe it's an anti-serotonergic.

 

Thanks for the reply Kiran. The thing is though that I had virtually zero psychedelic impact with ayahuasca. A few fleeting bright colors for a few seconds, a few times. Nothing really visual at all. My experience was of physical discomfort (sometimes extreme) and strange sensations. The more unpleasant the experience was during the drinking ceremony, however, the better the afterglow would be. I'm really struggling to understand what this means in terms of what was at work with my neurotransmitters so I can try and replicate it more benignly and easily with diet or more available and affordable supplementation.

I've thought about emailing Dr. Peat. It might be a subject that interests him, since he seems to have studied LSD pretty extensively.

 

@Dean: milk is high in trypto, yet safe according to RP due to compensating nutrients.

I might be wrong but I thought meat everyday would be a lot of iron (and need for gelatin) even with coffee and milk to reduce absorption. That said, with regular blood donation to reduce iron maybe its ok...

 

he said the calcium to phosphate balance is important for whether or not tryptophan is converted to serotonin.

coffee increases the storage of serotonin, right? so it's good too

you can eat some cheese instead of milk to help limit tryptophan

eating a lot of gelatin, and limiting muscle meat, can make a big difference

i think if you play around with calcium, and increasing gelatin, and decreasing meats, to different extents,

along with limiting starches, and whatever aggravates your gut , you will find it very helpful

please let me know what happens if you find anything

thanks

 

realized i didn't answer your question,

but yes if peat's hormones are more in balance , or anyone's, then occasional steak isn't going to cause suspicion, withdraw, etc.

just from experience i wouldn't worry about not getting dopamine etc.

there was a good paper that showed that high dose glycine had very good effects on people who fit the descriptions you're talking about, socializing difficulties etc

if you digest gelatin i say go for some large amounts and see if you can get back to those feelings after dosing

the world should be a source of infinite interest and beauty , and we can arrange our immediate environment so that we can perceive the rest accurately

 

Thanks for the replies, Pepsi. Well, we are going to find out about the gelatin. I finally received my sack of Now gelatin and am going to try to work my way up on gelatin intake. Hopefully I will tolerate it well. Though, strangely enough, the first few days I've taken it I've had aching in my susceptible ankles. Strange because gelatin, of course, is supposed to help with joints. I had this effect to with pork gelatin sheets I experimented with breifly in the past. They also upset my stomach so I didn't last long with them and am hoping for better results with beef gelatin powder that I not only dissolve, but gel.

I'm not eating any meat at all right now, so I guess I'll just stick with following the Peat program as closely as possible and hope it draws me closer to the sense of well-being and glimpse of what kind of person I'm capable of being I experienced post-ayahuasca. I don't understand science well enough to try to figure out all the neurotransmitter stuff.

Since I'm going to limit myself to a quart to a third of a gallon of milk, taken as milk jello for now, I am still wondering if I need to limit phosphorus. I'm going to give dark chocolate a break and perhaps the Pepsi Throwback's/Mexi-cokes too? Heartburn troubles are also leaving me in a position that I am going to have to take a break from either coffee or oj. I don't seem to be able to do both even if I break it up as coffee early in the day and oj later.

Anyway, how much gelatin would I need to consume to get a "high dose" of glycine?

 

here's a paper , http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC282565 ... 3am60aP.34

"After consultation with physicians, O decided to initiate a trial of glycine at 0.8grams/kilogram of body weight/day, the dose used with apparent safety in schizophrenia trials [45]."

so if 70kg, around 60 g glycine?, i don't know what percentage of gelatin is glycine, but if it were' 20%, you could change the gelatin amount accordingly, even though there are the other good amino acids. i don't know, i'm just poorly riffing off peat's gelatin article.

digesting it, )))))i was wondering how this kid ate so much glycine (he drank it in water i think) without getting sick.

i definitely think it's worth playing around with, and for some reason there's something beneficial about adding gelatin, rather than just restricting tryptophan , at least for me

 

Thanks I'll read the paper and research it more...In the meantime all systems are go on ratcheting up gelatin consumption. I've got milk jello, oj jello, and oj gummies in the fridge and, using an electric hand mixer for the first time ever, have homemade marshmallows on the counter.