This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

it would be pretty interesting if there were a nutrition tracking project

i think the liver comes back into the discussion at this point. i posted some time ago on this thread with a possibly relevant hypothesis, and the research to back it up. when i was having a go at maternal zinc and birth defects.

research suggests to me that in some cases, chronic illness manifests at least in part due to nutritional depletion of liver nutrient stores.

there's high cell turnover in the liver, so lots of capacity for individual variation in daily intakes to affect what goes on in there. there are also *widely* variable hepatic stores of zinc in particular, at birth.

liver transplant has been known to 'cure' ms.

i think part of the need for long term supplementation is to replenish hepatic stores.

for myself, i have tended to view my slide into neurological illness as a 15 year process (ie, time from start of vegan diet to dx). i think of it as a hole 15 years deep and although i have had the experience of symptoms resolving within hours of taking a supplement, the idea of the 15-yr hole helps me not to expect quick fixes for deeper stuff.

whenever i have felt discouraged at the pace of progress i think about how long it could take to deal with daily needs PLUS complete the restoration of a liver that it took me over a decade to destroy.

imho we can't expect to stop supplementing at high levels without first replenishing various bone and tissue nutrient stockpiles, particularly the hepatic stores.

i completely and thoroughly agree about the need for monitoring. it's a key component of ANY restoration project (that's common sense on one hand, and the ecosystem science training coming out on the other hehe)

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my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

here's a great study i found on hepatic zinc stores in newborns. i think potentially speaks volumes re age of onset of illnesses

regimens-f22/topic2489-330.html#p191748 (may 2012)

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

also, given that we were just chatting about diffs in ms subtypes, i was browsing around and noticed i had previously run across a study of differences in dietary intakes across types. interesting that fat intakes are down. wonder if that speaks to absorption issues in fat soluble nutrients... perhaps some ms-ers overdo some of the low fat advice that is out there.

Dietary patterns in clinical subtypes of multiple sclerosis: an exploratory study
regimens-f22/topic2489-390.html#p195026
"Compared to the daily recommended allowance, the intake of folic acid, magnesium, zinc, copper and selenium were lower in our MS patients (Additional file 1.) and total energy intake (kcal) as well."

it cheeses me that they say there are 'no differences' in serum levels of nutrients but don't publish the serum values. yes, we know everyone's 'normal' MS or otherwise. need more specifics!! would be interesting to see if we could in fact characterize nutrition in ms types. at least the study does tell us that spms-ers have lower intakes of magnesium, calcium and iron...

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Does it really "cheese" you, jimmy? lol I do believe you meant to say it "chaps" you.

I was reading up on sources of choline and found a similar line of thinking (to your lowfat ponderings) on a webpage, not a study. The author seemed to think many of us are suffering choline deficiency because current "healthy diet" doctrine steers us away from eating sources of choline. I wonder if changes in dietary recommendations and the propensity of women to follow them and men to ignore them has anything to do with the rise in female to male ms ratio.

Also interesting is that vegetarians and vegans are at high risk of b vitamin deficiencies. I took a b-complex this am and I am thoroughly perplexed. It's re-inflating my fingers. Post clonidine, they usually deflate throughout the day. Odd that. Anyway, maybe that's why loading up on your b vitamins helped so much initially (did you do them all or just b12?).

I'm going to force myself to stomach a happy pastured chicken egg for lunch today for choline. I hope it doesn't kill me. I might barf to death.

yes it really cheeses me off!!! your slang homework: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... id=2531650

as for b-vits. yes, i did them all, roughly as per klenner except all oral no injections. fyi too much b6 (pyridoxine) can cause neuropathy. also, if you are missing cofactors, your body won't know what to do with the b-vits anyway. for ages i reacted badly to b9 (folic acid), but oddly, not since correcting zinc status. hard to imagine exactly what combinations of things ended up resulting in that better handling of folic acid in later times. but for sure zinc was a piece of the puzzle.

jeez i don't miss the puffy fingers. they did a little bit of that nonsense after my crash last wednesday but thankfully are now back to what passes for normal these days.

good luck with the egg adventure. it was quite the mental adjustment going back to animal foods :S i feel for ya!

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

I counter your def with def #15 http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... hap&page=3 The part that is missing from your definition is that only people from Wisconsin should use the term "cheese" in such a manner whilst those from horse/biker nations and skiing meccas are free to use the term "chap" with impunity.

I also wonder if these MS diets aren't successful because of the change in vitamin/mineral/fat intake and not because of elimination of food types. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to follow a regimen like yours and it renders equal success. The Jimmylegs Program. When are you going to publish?

I *want* my fingers to inflate! They've been looking like the fingers I should have in 2150, after I've been dead and buried for many years. Scary. I figured out I had only taken a half dose of b-complex this am so I took the other half a bit ago. Fingers look almost normal now. Thank goodness! Choline is supposed to help with cell-membrane stability. I wonder if that has something to do with it.

I managed the egg alright. When did they get so big?! Oh well, garlic, pepper, and good toast will make almost anything palatable...except meat. I don't know how you managed that one. I guess desperate times...

What's the knee prognosis??

wisconsin pfft. this phrase enjoys old world heritage http://dictionary.cambridge.org/diction ... ese-sb-off

anyway. i have said it before and i'll say it again, i think diets and blanket supplement recommendations are are problematic due to individual interpretation, preferences and habits. i think eliminating entire food categories eliminates potentially important nutrient sources. not sure i'm clear on your intent with that sentence re diet makeup vs food elimination.

i agree my regimen is easier, as long as you get your targets, it doesn't matter how. i will publish i already presented my findings informally in an academic setting and it was fun

okay wait your fingers were all withered or something? i must have got mixed up b/c of your earlier mention of hypersensitivity. when i used to have hypersensitivity it was accompanied by an irritating puffy feeling.

hey glad you got the egg down. don't know if you've read the klenner protocol but it features 'a high protein diet with 2-3 eggs for breakfast' ... i took it to heart!

as for meat. i learned to deal. had a lovely beef tenderloin at a fancy resto last night

and now for the knee. my gp reckons it's a torn MCL. she's sending me to the states for a quicker MRI. i'd be waiting 4-6 weeks for a cancellation appt at the local hospital but the border isn't far and for a few hundred bucks i can get it done in a couple days. my first xp with medical tourism fortunately i just received my passport .. happy coincidence :S !!!

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Oh yes. I do recall that Shakespearean line "Alas poor Yorick! He really cheesethed me off."

I meant the diets usually involve supplements or changes to food sources that are rich in nutrients we need. This might be the cause for improvement on the diets and the elimination of foods has little to do with improvement (unless you actually do have a sensitivity to said food).

In a perfect world we would all have our own labs to test our levels. However, since we don't, the inconvenience and cost of having our levels tested regularly probably makes testing too much of a pain for some. We should all monitor our levels. But surely some sort of attempt to manage the levels, even without testing, is better than doing nothing?

Perhaps with supplement and diet, changes should be done like the reintroduction phase of an elimination diet. Introduce one small change at a time to simply identify if its a good change, no change or bad change. Broad recommendations as to what may be deficient, what must be taken together, and what order to introduce the changes would be helpful in such a scenario.

Also, if we take just normal doses of a supplement, will we eventually rebuild our stores? Is it necessary to pile it on all at once (or during a short time period)?

The knee does not sound good. She beats ms only to be gimped by a skiing accident. Sigh. What are we gonna do with you?

Yes...fingers were shrivelly! Started to shrivel a bit again so just took another round of b50 complex. Weeee!

he cheeseth me exceedingly, ever and 'anon' ;P hehehe

ah yes. yes the good parts of diets increase nutrient dense foods. the elimination parts almost universally allow background zinc levels to rise. unfortunately sometimes dense food sources of zinc are also eliminated for fear of sat fats. throwing out the baby with the bathwater imho.

managing is okay without access to testing. but not ideal. since so many tests are run as part of the diagnostic process, i would argue hard for basic nutrients being included in the dx mix. armed with that knowledge i would make changes and for followup i would pay for basic testing once a year even if i couldn't get if for free. i think it's dangerous to high dose supplements without monitoring, especially over the long term. i think if testing is not available that it would be best to try to manage with dietary means.

usually when a situation is critical/acute, the patient is going to frantically throw everything at it and forget being scientific. that was my experience at least. the scientific aspects of my approach crept in later.

if by normal doses you mean basic diet, i'd say that would take ages possibly decades. if you mean one a day style multivitamins, that would take forever too. when you've spent ages draining resources you can't expect your body to fill up the tanks overnight. unfortunately grr

good thing i'm not a race horse huh.

hope the fingers come back nicely for ya

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

NICE

Dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids and composition of human aortic plaques
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lance ... 8/abstract
How long-term dietary intake of essential fatty acids affects the fatty-acid content of aortic plaques is not clear. We compared the fatty-acid composition of aortic plaques with that of post-mortem serum and adipose tissue, in which essential fatty-acid content reflects dietary intake. Positive associations were found between serum and plaque ω6 (r=0·75) and ω3 (r=0·93) polyunsaturated fatty acids, and monounsaturates (r=0·70), and also between adipose tissue and plaque ω6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (r=0·89). No associations were found with saturated fatty acids. These findings imply a direct influence of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids on aortic plaque formation and suggest that current trends favouring increased intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids should be reconsidered.

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

adding this to the pile on zinc depletion from imbalanced dairy intake (won't stop me enjoying cream in my coffee but it's good to know.. esp given the ice cream sundae bonanza i recently enjoyed to celebrate my bday.. extra zinc here i come!):

Binding of zinc to casein.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/35/5/981.short
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/35/5/981.full.pdf
"An investigation of the binding of zinc to cow's milk proteins has shown that zinc binds avidly in a pH-dependent manner to casein, but has little affinity for the total whey protein fraction. At slightly alkaline pH 1 mg casein binds 8.4 micrograms zinc. No zinc binds to casein at pH 2 and to dephosphorylated casein at pH 7.4. Bound zinc is released only by casein precipitation at pH 4.6 but not by casein precipitation using Ca2+-ions or rennin. It could also be shown that zinc binds to phosphopeptides derived from tryptic or chymotryptic casein digestion and that metal complexing agents, such as citrate or picolinic acid compete for zinc binding with these phosphopeptides and casein. Binding of zinc to casein and its tryptic or chymotryptic phosphopeptides may explain in part the comparatively low zinc availability from cow's milk and some milk-based infant formulas."

earlier thoughts...

post193259.html?hilit=dairy%20zinc#p193259 (2012)
"linking up zinc status and allergic/inflammatory reactions (dairy in this case). note the reference to retarded height and weight in these patients, measures which are well known to be positively associated with zinc status.
Follow-up of nutritional status and dietary survey in children with cow's milk allergy
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract ..."

regimens-f22/topic2489-285.html#p185224 (2012)
"Effect of foodstuffs on the absorption of zinc sulfate (1975)
Abstract
"Single doses of zinc sulfate were given to healthy young volunteers, either in the fasting state or with various types of meals. ... Coffee ... seems to inhibit zinc absorption"... "Dairy products (milk and cheese) and brown bread decreased zinc absorption, as indicated by a significant drop in peak serum zinc levels". ..."

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

thought i would spend a few minutes on safe dosages of vitamin a (retinol).

my pills contain 10,000 IU of retinol as vit a palmitate. i started looking for studies and ended up finding mg units instead of IU.

10,000 IU vit A palmitate converts to 5500 mcg retinol. that would be 5.5mg.

Water-miscible, emulsified, and solid forms of retinol supplements are more toxic than oil-based preparations (2003)
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/78/6/1152.short
"Chronic hypervitaminosis A is induced after daily doses of 2 mg retinol/kg in oil-based preparations for many months or years. In contrast, doses as low as 0.2 mg retinol · kg−1 · d−1 in water-miscible, emulsified, and solid preparations for only a few weeks caused chronic hypervitaminosis A. Thus, water-miscible, emulsified, and solid preparations of retinol are ≈10 times as toxic as are oil-based retinol preparations. The safe upper single dose of retinol in oil or liver seems to be ≈4–6 mg/kg body wt. These thresholds do not vary considerably with age."

The acute and chronic toxic effects of vitamin A
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/83/2/191.full
"Emerging evidence suggests that subtoxicity without clinical signs of toxicity may be a growing concern, because intake from preformed sources of vitamin A often exceeds the recommended dietary allowances (RDA) for adults, especially in developed countries. Osteoporosis and hip fracture are associated with preformed vitamin A intakes that are only twice the current RDA. Assessing vitamin A status in persons with subtoxicity or toxicity is complicated because serum retinol concentrations are nonsensitive indicators in this range of liver vitamin A reserves."

Vitamin A
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/v ... /vitaminA/
Generally, signs of toxicity are associated with long-term consumption of vitamin A in excess of ten times the RDA (8,000 to 10,000 mcg/day or 25,000 to 33,000 IU/day)... long-term intakes of preformed vitamin A in excess of 1,500 mcg/day (5,000 IU/day) are associated with increased risk of osteoporoticfracture and decreased BMD in older men and women (42-44). Although this level of intake is greater than the RDA of 700-900 mcg/day (2,300-3,000 IU/day), it is substantially lower than the UL of 3,000 mcg/day (10,000 IU/day). Only excess intakes of preformed vitamin A (retinol), not beta-carotene, were associated with adverse effects on bone health. Although these observational studies cannot provide the reason for the association between excess retinol intake and osteoporosis, limited experimental data suggest that excess retinol may stimulate bone resorption (45) or interfere with the ability of vitamin D to maintain calcium balance (46). In the U.S., retinol intakes in excess of 5,000 IU/day can be easily attained by those who regularly consume multivitamin supplements and/or fortified foods, including some breakfast cereals. At the other end of the spectrum, a significant number of elderly people have insufficient vitamin A intakes, which have also been associated with decreased BMD. One study of elderly men and women found that BMD was optimal at vitamin A intakes close to the RDA (43). Until supplements and fortified foods are reformulated to reflect the current RDA for vitamin A, it makes sense to look for multivitamin supplements that contain 2,500 IU of vitamin A or multivitamin supplements that contain 5,000 IU of vitamin A, of which at least 50% comes from beta-carotene (see example supplement label).

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

arg i want full text for this one

Determinants of serum copper, zinc and selenium in healthy subjects
http://acb.rsmjournals.com/content/42/5/364.short
Abstract
Background: We have investigated the association between serum copper, zinc and selenium concentrations, dietary intake, and demographic characteristics, including individual coronary risk factors, in healthy subjects.
Methods: Serum copper, zinc and selenium were measured by atomic absorption spectrometry in 189 healthy subjects. Serum glutathione peroxidase and caeruloplasmin were also determined for each subject. A previously validated food frequency questionnaire was used to estimate the dietary trace element intake.
Results: Male subjects had significantly lower serum copper (P<0.001) and caeruloplasmin (P<0.001), and higher serum zinc (P<0.05) and zinc:copper ratio (P<0.001) than female subjects. Significant differences were observed in serum copper and caeruloplasmin concentrations (P<0.01) with age. Weak but significant associations between dietary trace elements and their serum concentrations were observed for zinc (r=0.18, P=0.02), copper (r=0.17, P=0.03) and selenium (r=0.19, P=0.02). Obese subjects had significantly lower serum concentrations of zinc (P<0.05). In multifactorial analysis, dietary zinc (P<0.05), serum high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) (P<0.05), diastolic blood pressure (P<0.05) and age (P=0.05) emerged as major predictors of serum zinc concentrations. The corresponding predictors for serum copper were C-reactive protein (CRP) (P<0.001), serum HDL-C (P<0.001), gender (P=0.01), physical activity levels (P<0.05) and dietary copper (P<0.05). Serum selenium concentrations were predicted by serum total cholesterol (P<0.01), serum CRP concentrations (P<0.05) and dietary selenium (P<0.03).

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Hi Jimmy,

For Vitamin A, don't worry about using products off a shelf. Just take a large glass of freshly squeezed carrot juice and you will have all you need and it will be highly bioavailable. I've been doing this each morning for some time now and it makes a difference.

Regards

i also like to focus on nutrition from whole food, yum eg in the case of vit a, retinol from foods like eggs and liver, and beta-carotene from things like carrots and spinach. grated a carrot on last night's lettuce salad, and just finished a nice big plate of spinach salad topped with hard boiled egg. perhaps i shall go have a little liverwurst on some crackers too

still, i do take supplements and like to know what's safe in terms of dosage and form

_________________
my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com