Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

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lyndacarol
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by lyndacarol »

Adiponectin was mentioned on The Dr. Oz Show this week as being the prime ingredient in raspberry ketones:

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/miracle- ... ner-bottle

Recommended dosage: 200 mg daily (start with 100 mg at breakfast, then 100 mg at lunch)

In addition to the video link above, I will add the link for the written article here:

http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/rasberry ... ience-says
Last edited by lyndacarol on Thu Sep 13, 2012 6:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Leonard
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by Leonard »

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19209185

MS is a multi-facetted disease.
One factor is the glucose metabolism.
The link above refers to Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet.

From the conclusion: Even short-term consumption of a paleolithic type diet improves BP and glucose tolerance, decreases insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid profiles ..

Many years of ccsvi have significantly weakened glucose transport across the BBB. see for instance: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... 15188.html

Under these conditions, optimizing insulin sensitivity would seem an absolute necessity. High peaks of insulin then are devastating while low levels will increase insulin sensitivity of the cells.

The working mechanism of Metformin is not well understood, many effects have been suggested.
But most important in this particular context is the fact that Metformin keeps the blood sugar level down and -I guess- insulin levels will be kept much lower as well.
And this will help maintain or improve the sensitivity of your cells to insulin.
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CaveMan »

Firstly thank Lyndacarol for starting this thread and also for replying to my Intro, checked out the links and then followed your sneaky hint to this thread.
Sorry about the post length, hope there is some value in it.
I am still trying to work my way through the mountain of info, have been trying to read all the dietary threads, this is a primary interest for me, had a quick look at the treatment section & meds, felt like a stranger in a strange land trying to comprehend a strange language, hasty retreat to safer teritory, diet & general discussion.
I have read this thread from start to end, well did scan over some bits, and haven't followed all links either, great info, my input may be a bit scattered as I am a latecomer to the discussion, but here are some things, in point form.

The insulin issue, definetly a critical part of the equation, but like all the manifested symptoms & effects, hard to know what came first.

I had done quite a bit of reading before I got onto this site and even though their was no definitive claim I could put my finger on, I just had this strong feeling that Dairy was closely involved with the primary causes of the antibody response, so seeing Nicks response half way through, and the other day reading through the BB diet thread, think it was a reference to the Jelenik protocol adding dairy to their banned list (probably old info for most of you) just rang true. Not to say that dairy consumption had to be excessive as I believe the body is weakened by other factors and the dairy just provides the appropriate protein for the autoimmune response. So from that, although I think Swank needs credit for the work he did, I feel the interpretation of the original data needs to be reconsidered, I don't think saturated animal fats are necesarily the culprit, think that may be a "Red Herring", there is more smoke at the Dairy farm than the Beef ranch.

The discussion on the Inuit is not alone, there have been a number of other studies done on the excessive rate of Type 2 Diabetes through indegenous populations, when these individuals were returned to a more traditional diet, some had complete remission & most others could go to a significantly reduced dose, the time duration in most cases was about 6 months I believe, it has been done with the Inuit, Australian Aborigines & others that I can't recall. the other more relevant Indigineous population is the Sami, indegenous inhabitants of Norway, they have virtually no incidence of MS at all, but the rest of the population shows a north/south as well as an inland (Dairy) / coastal(Fish) gradient. The Sami's traditional diet was either Reindeer & berries or Fish & Berries, they lived alongside the later Imigrants (Norwegians for want of a better word) for many centuries, but never took up their farming, dairy or diatary habits.

Another thing that may be related is in utero exposure, this may possibly add to the causal variety of symptomatic expression, I believe it has been documented a number of times, but the one I'm most familiar with was the "Dutch starvation babies". The children that were concieved during the starvation period in the later part of WW2 had something like 6 times the incidence of Diabetes 2 & associated issues, yet those born just before, of concieved just after that period had the same incidence as normal populations around the world. This particular factor may not be related to MS, but there may also be similar issues at play with MS.

The whole Hypothalmus Pituitary "other vital organ" axis, my studies have usually seen the thyroid as the third organ, in that case the Thyroid does not have any self regulation ability, the regulation occurs from the Pituitary and Hypothalmic response. Hypothalmus secretes the Thyrotropin Release Hormone (TRH) into the Pituitary, which in turn releases Thyrotropin aka Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), this then acts on the thyroid TSH receptors which produces thyroid hormones. The Pituitary also has TSH receptors which act in a closed loop regulation system, later in my shearching I also found out that the body is riddled with TSH receptors, brain, bone, muscle & most major organs, but their function is unknown. When the thyroid autoimmune antibodies are activated the primary symptom is the thyroid, overactivity, underactivity it is related to the Antibodies attaching to the Thyroid receptors, hence preventing TSH reaching the receptor and breaking the regulation loop, often they also attach in the pituitary and prevent TSH production as well. So I wondered what the role of TSH was elswhere in the body, and some individuals, particularly the Hypo can go for years with no TSH, their Thyroid hormone levels are maintained by suplimentation, but even though they are "kind of ok" they go on with a multitude of nagging symptoms.
I wonder what else happens in the pituitary or other vital control functions with MS or other autoimmune diseases, how many are being blocked, BTW my partners Endo doesn't really consider the pituitary as important in considerations of thyroid disease, yet a quick google puts it at the centre of the story. I did see some references to the Growth hormone in the threads, don't understand that fully, need to go back and do some re reading.

The other thing I would like to raise is Acetyl L Carnitine, we included it in my partners program for a variety of reasons, fatigue, brain fog, thyroid hormone modulation and others, she and others we know benefited from using it. In relation to the discussion here, no please correct me if I am wrong, but in simplistic terms:
The body basically has two major energy pathways, glucose & fat, the glucose provides the instant power, emergency power, but baseload power, which is the majority, comes from fatty acids. When we swing to a majority carbohydrate diet, that does two things, it swings us to the glucose side more and also deprives us of the amino acids to produce carnitine which is essential to transport fatty acids across cell membranes to the mitochondria, essentially "someone stole the wheelbarrow to take coal to the boiler". This added demand on the insulin/glucose system is ok for an emergency, but not on a long term basis as it was never designed for it, so eventually other systems also begin to suffer. One of the key factors in obesity are carbs & sugars, the insulin system can put glucose into storage by conversion to fat, but the Carnitine side has been weakened so we are not effective at drawing on those fat stores, hence as soon as blood sugar levels fall starvation hits even though we may be carrying 50kg of pure energy, we don't have the key to get it out. So at least for the early stages of a diet change, or even if you aren't changing diet Carnitine supplimentation may be beneficial for some individuals, the other point being if your body is purely relient on the "emergency" supply of energy what kinds of emergency measures does it put in place for a survival plan? As an individual or society the first thing would be rationing, limit non emergency maintenance, eventually the entire body starts to fall into disrepair, so is it a case that by being on a high carb diet our body is always teetering on the fight/flight position? The body is a wonderful instrument and has multiple back up systems, but we have lost the ability to hear when a system is failing and we are going to emergency power, so we just go on our merry way till one day.
I have often used the "castle siege" analogy in Graves disease discussions where you have a large castle with multiple defenses besieged by an enemy, every time a defense is breached a messenger is sent to the great hall where the almighty emperror (Ego) is feasting and entertaining his/her court of tales of past glories and future conquests, completely self indulgent, dismisses the messenger, can't you see I am dealing with very important business here, this happens repeatedly over the years, until finally the enemy has broken through and runs amok in the great hall and the Ego now full of self pity, still completly self indulgent asks how could this happen to me.
I do recognise that a certain portion of this family of diseases is due to genetic predisposition, but the rest is environment and that is something that can be changed, not just diet, but attitude, habits etc.
A lot of individuals argue why deprive yourself if nothing has been scientifically proven, well modern medicine is practicing the research of 50 years ago, most of us will be dead when current research has been fully proven and is applied daily in medicine, so if you don't try to understand how to listen to your body, don't expect your doctor to do any better and in addition to that I also believe that attitude plays a vital role, the difference between running toward something vs running away from something, same physical expenditure of energy, but one is a positive expression with a target and the other is a negative expression that is aimless.

Congrats if you got this far.
I am just an interested individual trying to crack the autoimmune nut.
Partner has Graves Disease, 5 years, showing good test results, looking forward to potential remission in the near future.
3 friends have MS, 1 just recently diagnosed, severity 7/10.
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Leonard
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by Leonard »

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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CaveMan »

I think the Gut Microbiota definately plays a major role, just on a side line I had a quick google the other day on Human Bacteria symbiosis, Each of us has 10 trillion bacteria on/in our bodies, they outnumber our cells 10:1, there are so many types researchers have given up trying to name them, we do not all share the same mix, they communicate with our own cells via chemical signals and it goes on, question being are we an organism with benevolant bacteria or a living ecosystem. So with the Gut Biota, yes a vital part of the equation, how to address this, researchers have no idea, so my approach is what is the environment that both ourselves and our bacterial friends find favourable.
I have read this thread and Leonards and a number of others and been searching for other information, I have a paleo bent, but am not fanatical, I see these issues much like a recipe thet people have modified by substitution and process change then ask why it went wrong. The only way to determine if the recipe is ok is to go back to the core ingredients, use the right procedure and see if it works properly. Currently the closest match I can find for the modern man recipe gone wrong is to go back to the Paleo ingredients and process and see if it works.
I have become interested in the role of Leptin in the body and the issues of Lectins (gluten & assoc.) will start another thread on this, but I think it may add more to the key.
I am just an interested individual trying to crack the autoimmune nut.
Partner has Graves Disease, 5 years, showing good test results, looking forward to potential remission in the near future.
3 friends have MS, 1 just recently diagnosed, severity 7/10.
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CureOrBust »

Sorry if this has been covered before. But, if we were to suppose that insulin resistance is a causative factor for MS, would treatment with drugs used to reverse Insulin Resistance be measurably beneficial to MS? eg metformin, thiazolidinediones or exenatide (marketed as Byetta)

ie could someone simply try these drugs and see if their MS improves?
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by Leonard »

I try to minimize my consumption of sugar and fructose (drinks).
This article that I found on the other thread that Lyndacarol recently started on the 'fat switch' is not without its merits:
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fitnes ... artTest_A1

And I take metformin and glimperide.
I am convinced that they have synergetic effects, and work via the gut.
I consider it as an alternative for feces transplantation (which I see as a last resort..).

Since I stopped sugar intake and started medication, I lost 8 kg of weight, 10% of my weight.
And guess what: the fatty belly is gone :)
I did not expect this, this was not the intent, but it just happened..
And the feces improved strongly; it already had somewhat improved when I started with a low fat diet several years ago but now the improvement was remarkable, in particular after I started with the glimperide..

And some other things did improve: I am dreaming a lot, just like was the case when I was just liberated from my neck venous insufficiency, but now it lasts...; and I am sweating again, you won't believe... it demonstrates changes to the metabolism... and I feel generally good...

But the short-term effect on the motor function is not directly positive.
My explanation for this is: The supply of easy glucose to the cells will be slowed; and so the charging of the ion pump.
I know that if I would drink a few bottles of coke, the motor function would improve fast but that it would have a reverse effect on my disease in the long run (as it would increase insulin resistance).

But I remain convinced about the long term effects, i.e. that the course set will enhance my insulin sensitivity (and with that probably also improve the functioning of other receptors).
And that in the long term, the motor functions will stabilise and improve.
Perhaps my believe in this is so strong that the 'placebo' effect takes control here - I am kidding :)

But you have to bear with me for a little longer, probably another half year to a year...
For diabetes 2, it works - I have seen it with my dad, so I see no reason why it would not work for me (as I consider my MS to be fully diabetes 2 related).

Further information on metformin, glimperide and insulin sensitivity and the role of the gut can be found on this thread, in particular the last 4-5 pages.
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... 15188.html
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by lyndacarol »

CureOrBust wrote:Sorry if this has been covered before. But, if we were to suppose that insulin resistance is a causative factor for MS, would treatment with drugs used to reverse Insulin Resistance be measurably beneficial to MS? eg metformin, thiazolidinediones or exenatide (marketed as Byetta)

ie could someone simply try these drugs and see if their MS improves?
Here are my thoughts: I do believe that insulin resistance (hyperinsulinemia) is a causative factor for MS. I do not know of any drugs that will reverse insulin resistance; I am given to understand that diet is the only treatment. It is also my understanding that metformin works with a different mechanism from thiazolidinediones (TZD's) or Byetta – metformin improves insulin sensitivity; TZD's and exenatide reduce blood glucose by forcing the pancreas to produce MORE insulin (More insulin is NOT what we want, in my opinion.).

I think the first step would be to find out if you have an elevated insulin level by having a fasting blood insulin test. If a glucose test was also performed and found to be high (At the 126 level, diabetes would be diagnosed.), you could probably persuade a physician to prescribe metformin – I am unsure if MS symptoms would improve in a short time, but I am all for experimentation if it will cause no harm. Metformin (commercially sold as Glucophage) is the generic and has been around for YEARS; I think it would be safe, especially under a doctor's supervision.

By the way, Avandia (rosiglitazone – withdrawn because of heart problems) and most recently Actos (pioglitazone, another one of the TZD's – suspected of causing bladder cancer) are currently the targets of MANY lawsuits. I think the excess insulin they stimulate is causing both heart problems and bladder cancer.

Edited later – Now I have found additional information: http://www.dovepress.com/clinical-utili ... mendation1

I was surprised by this sentence: "Complementary combination therapy with sitagliptin–metformin lowers glucose via enhancement of insulin secretion, suppression of glucagon secretion, and insulin sensitization." Since metformin does not enhance insulin secretion, but does improves sensitivity, the sitagliptin must be responsible for the action of enhanced secretion.
Last edited by lyndacarol on Fri Sep 21, 2012 5:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by Mizbhavin34 »

I am highly inclined to buy into the insulin theory because in 2003 I was diagnosed with PCOS which one of the issues with that is an increased insulin production. And here we are in 2012 and now I have a doctors appointment in a week for multiple sclerosis symptoms that I'm convinced are trying to drive me crazy. Thank you lyndacarol for your post because that's the first thing I've come across during my research that has made sense to me. Idk if one has to do with the other, but it certainly gives me something to check out.
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CureOrBust »

not exactly about Insulin Resistance, but the drug is commonly used.

Metformin and Neurogenesis with Freda Miller
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CureOrBust »

http://www.livestrong.com/article/25937 ... l-choline/
INOSITOL AND NEUROPATHY
Inositol was at one time considered a B-complex vitamin. In nature, it is found in the form of myo-inositol and is present in all living cells. If you are diabetic, increased dietary inositol may help prevent or even improve diabetic nerve disorders as well as the neuropathies due to chronic kidney failure. These potential benefits to the nervous system were reported in a 1980 study by Clements and colleagues in "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition." Fresh fruits, beans, nuts and grains are the best sources of myo-inositol.
http://www.mrsupplement.com.au/inositol
Inositol Benefits for Insulin
Another benefit of inositol is that it exhibits insulin-like effects, which ultimately causes an increase in insulin sensitivity (Genazzani et al, 2008; Giordano et al, 2011). This is great news for diabetics, but it may also have applications to bodybuilding. Insulin is highly anabolic and an increase in insulin response can also help improve creatine absorption.
All unpublished advertising, but may be worth a look for someone interested in this link.
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lyndacarol
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by lyndacarol »

I think this article (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... _SNL_Art_1) has important information on two issues:
1. "If you opt for oral vitamin D, you need to also consume in your food or take supplemental vitamin K2.… Because when you take vitamin D, your body creates more vitamin K2-dependent proteins – the proteins that help move the calcium around in your body. But you need vitamin K2 to activate those proteins. If they're not activated, the calcium in your body will not be properly distributed and can lead to weaker bones and hardened arteries."

2. According to Dr. Chris Masterjohn: "Insulin helps us make more thyroid hormone, and it helps activate T4 into T3. This helps increase LDL receptor activity and turn over these LDL particles. The problem is that a huge portion of our population is insulin-resistant. The insulin is there (maybe even more insulin than usual is there), but it's not carrying out its function properly.

I think correcting insulin resistance is probably a major factor in normalizing thyroid function, which in turn could normalize cholesterol metabolism," he says.

I've long stated that insulin resistance is at the root of virtually every chronic disease known to man, and this again strengthens my position that normalizing your insulin sensitivity should be your top priority if you seek to stop or reverse the progression of any disease process, or to optimize your health and prevent disease in the first place.
Hyperinsulinemia (excess insulin) leads to insulin resistance; one could consider excess insulin and insulin resistance to be synonymous. Results of a "fasting blood insulin test" can indicate an elevated insulin level, and one could assume insulin resistance if the level is elevated (i.e., above 3 UU/ML).
My hypothesis: excess insulin (hyperinsulinemia) plays a major role in MS, as developed in my initial post: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-discussion-f1/topic1878.html "Insulin – Could This Be the Key?"
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by Anonymoose »

Lyndacarol,

I'm glad this thread got bumped up. In the works since 2005, wow! It was an interesting and enlightening read. I now know why my ms has been irksome for the past week...I guess eating a ton of holiday sweets has sent my insulin-related inflammation through the roof (and my muffin top over my waistband 8O ). Sigh. I guess I'll have to remember the word "moderation" come next Christmas.

Also interesting is the apparent change in the way tims'ers participate. Here's to getting our hands back on the elephant in 2013...it all fits together (well...'cept those DMDs lol)!
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by blossom »

sounds like this badgered little plant just might come into play to help control insulin and help circulation.

www.letfreedomgrow.com/cmu/diabetes_5.htm
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Re: Insulin--Could This Be the Key?

Post by CureOrBust »

Curcumnin is used by many; including me. One of the side effects appear to lower blood sugar levels.

Its a "magazine" article.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/52121 ... sclerosis/
Curcumin supplements may also interfere with diabetes medications and excessively lower the blood sugar levels.
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