The Ability To Metabolize Glucose Is Impaired In CFS/ME Patients

[Tarmander]

@Tarmander what is Ray's marmalade?

I have been taking Healthnatura charcoal, about a scoop, in a tablespoon of plain yogurt as a vehicle, about every 2 or 3 days, and it seems to be ultra helpful in making me feel better somehow.

I'm using my bowel movements as a gauge and if they become messy, time for another charcoal. By which I mean I don't want to soil toilet paper. I think this is a good guide, and every 2 or 3 days seems enough. I also find it constipating if I don't take some extra magnesium or get lots and lots of fruit.

i kind of migrated to this from the carrot recently. It seems to make me feel better more than the carrot salad every day.

I do feel a lot like laying around after I do vigorous walking etc. and I have a thin frame and am carrying a good amount of fat (not really good) I kind of feel this CFS direction is where my body has always been although I can build muscle if I lift weights. I just get really more tired and want to lay around, compared to most other people.

And: thiamine in 1g or higher doses DEFINITELY raised my CO2 levels It was great, but it made me smell really bad so I stopped.

Thiamine raised my CO2 at first as well, but continuing it long term was eventually a disappointment. Maybe it would not be now though after doing charcoal. Dude try doing the charcoal everyday. I felt better taking it every few days, then I moved to every other day, then to everyday. It just keeps getting better. There is a point where you take too much and you should get sensitive teeth, or bad skin, or some indication that you are revving too much. Don't be surprised if you have to start cutting back the supplements. I did.

Here is Ray's marmalade: naringenin: inhibiting inflammation with marmalade | The Nutrition Coach

 

[Tarmander]

Greetings Tarmander,

Thank you for your most interesting replies, they have orientated a lot of jigsaw pieces for me. "Ideally nothing makes sense until it makes perfect sense" (paraphrased from Dr You Know Who), and for me, thanks to our discussion, this now does. I have seen exactly the same effects with charcoal and supplementation that you describe especially wrt b vitamins needing to be decreased*; for others, grated carrot also allows this 'reduction of load' (but now I am seeing that if someone still needs 300-600mg B1, it is not perhaps sufficient sweeping etc), and so endotoxin appears a key part in this mess. I have come to see teeth sensitivity/gum bleeding as indicative of a gut sensitivity/bleeding-tissue integrity issue and in many AI patients, nose bleeds can also be more common, makes sense, all connected, just showing that things aren't right down there. And like your good self, and Lisa, I knew all this theoretically but now perhaps I really KNOW it. We'll see.

It might make sense then that the excessive sweating that I see with this 'picture' is merely a shock inflammatory response to gut integrity being challenged further by even mild exercise as 'endotoxin et al' passes into the blood stream and alarm bells ring. In some way that response makes sense to the body but it is indicative perhaps of severe compromise and from that, to recover, the organism needs to be really stationary for a while. Perhaps in milder compromise, the water collects around the middle instead, as can be seen transiently with mal-digested starch for example, so cortisol and endotoxin involved here and no wonder, 'starvers' coming to Dr Peat's understandings put on a lot of truncal weight from more food - and endotoxin - than they have ever been used to. I am sure this has been stated before by many, but I had never associated more food with more endotoxin until Tarmander's post. Duh.

One other observation if I may. I suspect pH is involved in the above too - without the conditions to generate the correct pH, enzyme production and thereby digestion, will be impacted and/or impaired. This may be, for example, why the use of small amounts of apple cider vinegar before meals, or bitters, reduces truncal weight in some over time - whilst giving others nasty histamine reactions immediately or after a while instead. Things are never simplex! pH generation - like anything - takes energy and is tightly controlled (thus more energy needed, presuming one has that energy....). In my garden, my soil is mineral rich, but alkaline and my bore water is alkaline too. A few plants will get iron deficiency anaemia and I am encouraged - by those with products to sell - to use iron chelate "to sort that out". But my soil has plenty of iron, I protest (my current husband is a geochemist, such knowledge is most helpful) so that does not make sense to me. But I am urged to do it anyway (thinking they have a clue),(gosh this sounds like supplementation via blood test/hair test industry, but I digress). Accidentally using ex-epsom salt rich foot bath water on such plants (especially citrus) cures the 'iron anaemia' pretty quickly and also increases the colouration (depth and intensity, even flecks of a different colour entirely) of my extensive rose collection. I thought it was the extra mag - but wait (!), my soil is also very rich in mag. And it also happens when ex-distillation water (usually around pH 4) is applied also - and the mineralisation in there is no where near as strong. So, in the soil, the pH change, alters the chemistry of uptake into the plant - making what is present already (in my soil's case), actually available. I am sure you can see where I am going with this. Maybe charcoal has some buffering effect also that allows the same in the likely more complex human system. Having a valence of zero, it can both lose or gain 4 electrons, becoming either CO2 or CH4 down stream And we have heard about CO2 before. Again I am thinking out loud, but supporting salival mastication, then stomach acid production seems key to kicking the whole process off, even though I've never caught my roses doing either.

And thanks to you also Lisa, for your encouragement, your generosity of spirit always shines through.

I am sure that is quite enough.

Best regards,

Sheila

* and Tarmander, I will throw this out here - I really don't know - but just in case granular charcoal does have some irritation potential after a while: It has been my experience in very sensitive guts, the addition of b vitamins is often an epic fail, even at very low doses and the first thing to show this externally is psoriasic type of skin break outs. Yet again, merely an observation attached to an, as yet, homeless jigsaw piece. May not even be part of this jigsaw.

Thanks for the tips. B vitamins have been such an interesting thing to experiment with, but I am not sure if they have caused more harm or good. Niacinamide is a staple for me, in small doses.

The whole endotoxin thing with Peat's stuff has been tough for me. Sugar really gave me a new lease on life, but with it also came endotoxin and weight gain. So really for the last couple years I have been trying to figure out how to stop the slow and steady weight gain without compromising my health (metabolic boosters), losing muscle (low fat), or losing energy (sleep problem supplements like b2). Very difficult.

The conclusion I have come to is that the best solution is to never go down that path in the first place. Never cut sugar out of your diet, never diet in the first place, never restrict, never go on a veggie binge, never eat too much muscle meats or PUFA...just don't compromise yourself in the first place (starver). After you do compromise yourself, your gut seems to work against you...and supplements and drugs give temporary gains for longer term problems. But there are gains to be made...

Very interesting about the charcoal. I was not aware that it could turn into co2 in your gut. Your detailed posts are great. It is tough to make a detailed post that can also hold your attention, without getting repetitive. Nice job!

 

[Dante]

Sugar really gave me a new lease on life, but with it also came endotoxin and weight gain. !

How does simple sugar cause endotoxin(Just a doubt)? I thought sugar generally gets digested in the upper part of small intestine where not many bacteria reside

 

[Tarmander]

How does simple sugar cause endotoxin(Just a doubt)? I thought sugar generally gets digested in the upper part of small intestine where not many bacteria reside

I think it has to do with my diet before I got into Peat. It was high vegetable, high meat, and very low calorie. I think that changed my gut in ways that I do not understand. I still get stomach aches from juice that is too high in sugar.

Edit: a great quote: "“Oatmeal and potatoes do provide fiber, but they are good food for bacteria, and bacterial endotoxin is usually the basic problem causing hormone imbalance, by being a chronic burden for the liver, keeping it from storing enough sugar to process thyroid and the other hormones effectively.”"

 

[lollipop]

The conclusion I have come to is that the best solution is to never go down that path in the first place. Never cut sugar out of your diet, never diet in the first place, never restrict, never go on a veggie binge, never eat too much muscle meats or PUFA...just don't compromise yourself in the first place (starver). After you do compromise yourself, your gut seems to work against you...and supplements and drugs give temporary gains for longer term problems. But there are gains to be made...

+1 good wisdom here if anyone is reading this.

 

[ecstatichamster]

@Tarmander thanks. I'm trying one scoop a day to see how it goes...

 

[amethyst]

Thanks for the tips. B vitamins have been such an interesting thing to experiment with, but I am not sure if they have caused more harm or good. Niacinamide is a staple for me, in small doses.

The whole endotoxin thing with Peat's stuff has been tough for me. Sugar really gave me a new lease on life, but with it also came endotoxin and weight gain. So really for the last couple years I have been trying to figure out how to stop the slow and steady weight gain without compromising my health (metabolic boosters), losing muscle (low fat), or losing energy (sleep problem supplements like b2). Very difficult.

The conclusion I have come to is that the best solution is to never go down that path in the first place. Never cut sugar out of your diet, never diet in the first place, never restrict, never go on a veggie binge, never eat too much muscle meats or PUFA...just don't compromise yourself in the first place (starver). After you do compromise yourself, your gut seems to work against you...and supplements and drugs give temporary gains for longer term problems. But there are gains to be made...

Very interesting about the charcoal. I was not aware that it could turn into co2 in your gut. Your detailed posts are great. It is tough to make a detailed post that can also hold your attention, without getting repetitive. Nice job!

Don't cut sugar out, just get more from natural food sources like fruit, and lower your amounts a bit and you should lose weight, if it is too much sugar that is causing your weight gain in the first place. And eat from all the food groups- get enough fat, carbs and protein to balance out the sugar you are getting.

 

[Sheila]

My dear Tarmander,

from your post above: "The conclusion I have come to is that the best solution is to never go down that path in the first place. Never cut sugar out of your diet, never diet in the first place, never restrict, never go on a veggie binge, never eat too much muscle meats or PUFA...just don't compromise yourself in the first place (starver). After you do compromise yourself, your gut seems to work against you...and supplements and drugs give temporary gains for longer term problems."

Ah yes, sound advice and I have similar observations with hindsight. But without pain as a motivator, very few can understand this...although the inklings that something's not right are there which is why so many 'quick fixes' are leapt upon as the solution, so one can continue with all the other destructive things one is doing, but not get fat! So many women, so many young women today - the mothers of the future - are now functionally starvers, or should that be dyfunctionally.... This is an observation, not a criticism. I was one of those very successfully and would have listened politely, if restlessly to you, but not heard you at all if you had spoken to my younger self back then. Half-starved and half-mad has many merits, including a very flat stomach, just don't get older or suffer traumatic shock (whatever that resembles to each player) because actions have consequences.

"But there are gains to be made..."

Oh yes, I would never go back to half-starved and half-mad now, and so I eyed up the granular charcoal last night and we came to a peace deal that if I encapsulated the little critters, I could cope. One HN scoop is 2.4g = 5 x Size 0 gelatine capsules no less for those similarly afflicted, quick and easy to do. I know encapsulation makes no difference bar psychologically so we shall see what this form produces in terms of effects. I am well versed with the powder and will report in due course. In the experiments using charcoal with kidney patients, the charcoal was spherodised, but I can not find such a product. I am not actually sure it matters, spheres can still be abrasive. When I worked in research of energetic solids around the dawn of time, we used tiny spherodised glass balls to make this material more sensitive to impact. The havoc that simple friction can produce, has stuck in my mind since then and of course Dr Peat has spoken of the effect of silica in that regard also.

So my concerted War on Endotoxin, unfortunately TLA'd to WOE! doth begin. Thank you again for your insights, I will return in due course.

Sincerely
Sheila

 

[tomisonbottom]

I am really interested in this subject. Phoenix Rising was one of the first hardcore health forums I attended and learned from. In hindsight, I am glad I did not go down Freddd's protocol path, but I did learn a lot.

I have always had CFS like symptoms. Growing up I was always tired. The main experience I had after a certain age (after burning through a lot of youthful energy) was the inability to gain muscle and keep it. Basically...doing nothing at all is more protective of muscle then any exercise, or even movement for me. Very backwards. But this is a very common thing. Many people with CFS have very little tolerance for any kind of exercise. It sends them into a catabolic insomnia episode where all they can do is lay around.

My understanding through experimentation has brought me to the belief that it must be tackled through the digestion to have any efficacy at all. Trying to treat the liver alone seems to always give promising results that fall away quickly. Treating hormones does not seem to work very well, although I have not tried some of your very new stuff Haidut. Using vitamins to rev your metabolism can seem to help for a week or two, but then a crash.

I tried high doses of vitamin B1 for a long period of time, maybe a year, or nine months I think? Does not do enough. Does not treat CFS, or help you gain muscle. There is something in digestion that no matter what you do, it pulls your oxidative metabolism back down. I really wish B1 worked better then it did, and I love the research on it, but I think we need to put it out to pasture as a plausible treatment for anything but Parkinsons. It seems to do well there, but I have not seen a lot else. Would love to read more testimonials on it though if someone has some.

I have had success recently taking vitamin D and charcoal every day. Over the last three months or so, I have lost weight around my middle and lower back, and it has slowly migrated into muscle in my upper body. I had to move twice (!!) in a two week period, and instead of being completely dead, my muscles grew...I was literally flabbergasted. I think digestion is the route on CFS, and the wasting muscle issues that come with it.

How are you doing with fatigue now?

I agree with you that it always seems to come back to the gut, and vitamins only help so much

 

[Tarmander]

How are you doing with fatigue now?

I agree with you that it always seems to come back to the gut, and vitamins only help so much

Yeah much better these days. That was more then a year ago. I moved into a place that was low EMF and started sleeping well for the first time in awhile. This allowed me to take thyroid and not totally overheat. Since that time my energy has exploded. I have more muscle and less fat. I am doing better at work, better at my relationships. My diet is also on point, although that took awhile to zero in on. I do sea food and orange juice and coconut oil chips mostly, with some carrots and other things thrown in. So since that time I have made a lot of progress and am living better. Some things have been supplement changes, some have been with hormone changes like thyroid, but the big one was moving away from a bunch of smart meters that were right behind my apartment, and into a place with no cell towers in sight. You can read more in my log, just search Tarmanders long log

 

[Samurai Drive]

Yeah those healthnatura charcoal chunks are a bit scary huh? Whenever I get one stuck in my mouth and crunch down on it...well what might that be doing to my intestines? I will say I had a few bloody stools after eating large amounts of gluten that I do not usually have. Overall it seems my intestines can handle the charcoal and there are benefits.

You pointed out a couple things that I have found true. One thing I have noticed after starting to take charcoal everyday is how supplements affect me differently now. In the past, they all seemed to offer some benefit...but had a backlash at some point in the future. Not only that, I could take large amounts of them to test what they did. After charcoal, supplements seem to be much stronger, and their effects, if beneficial, do not have a backlash, which is kind of awesome. However I do not take large amounts of B vitamins anymore, or eat liver. They seem to rev me up too much and my teeth feel weak. Ray always recommends small amounts of things...I remember scoffing when he said 10mg of riboflavin could be helpful. I get that now.

I am not exactly sure what the vitamin D is doing, but I feel better and calmer on it, so I take a bit here and there. I do not take egg shell calcium.

What I want to emphasize is the importance for me in my lisuride experiment. There is such a difference in what some here would call youthful metabolism, and stressful metabolism, and lisuride really showed me that. I would not have been able to identify Vitamin D or Charcoal as helpful agents without the view lisuride gave me. As you get older, you learn consequences. You learn that a drink Sunday night will make Monday and Tuesday pretty intolerable at work. Or lack of a good nights rest will make you more snappy with your spouse. These things become your reality and with CFS, all you have is consequences to your actions. Anything other then laying around causes a worsening of health. I have not had clinical CFS, or ever really identified as someone with CFS, but I have noticed a sharing with some of those symptoms.

People with CFS cross a point where the food they eat, no longer nourishes them. I have gone through this. The more you eat, the more endotoxin you get, which lowers your blood sugar, which means you have to eat more...People like this eat huge amounts, and have no energy. God what a terrible place to be. Somehow, Charcoal sucks up this factor which makes food you eat anti-nourishment. Food works again, it's delightful, and simple. I have been experimenting lately with Ray's marmalade. It is awesome stuff, clears your mind, lightens your mood, tastes great.

Any updates, im in cfs situation, my food seems to make worse it seems too..

 

[Samurai Drive]

Forget that can see ur update