Hello

[jimmylegs]

my first link to that pyramid in this topic included a slide with a disclaimer. like the person who generated that slide, i'm not a fan of everything in the pyramid.

that said, i'm assuming, without digging right in, that this pyramid is meant to reflect an *overall* anti-inflamatory *balance*. ie if using IF scoring methods, target +50 each day , to maintain health. +100 each day to combat illness associated with inflammation. scrapping all pro-inflammatory foods, regardless of their potential contribution to essential nutrient requirements, is not the point.

healthy carbs are nutrient-dense complex carbs, and reasonable serving sizes thereof. for me, today's will include some home-made 4-veg brown & wild rice concoction, plus some 8-veg & kidney bean chili, both described earlier.

i mentioned above a couple of strategies re products made with flours (which i do not personally consume on even a weekly basis). here's one more: sometimes, it's important to consume animal protein with wheat products, to help dial back the impacts of gluten. i would have to spend time i don't have today, digging, to find the reference for that little tidbit. when i have been approached by vegetarians with GI troubles the first thing i put them on is a bread ration. it works.

healthy sweets is a bit of bs imho, to help make the pyramid a bit more palatable. 'sparingly' means nothing; could mean different things to different readers/users; to me it means maybe one bar of 70% dark chocolate, sugar and all, not even once a month. re daily sweets, i am in the habit of using a little maple syrup in tea and coffee (a sweetener that contains actual nutrients such as zinc). i also use maple syrup to dial back the tartness of my mixed local berries (the cherries help in that dept too). it's pro-inflammatory and i incorporate that into my total calculations for the day.

the most anti inflammatory dinner i make and eat is salmon, baked sweet potato, and swiss chard. do i eat it daily? no - i would have to review earlier posts but it gets a score closer to +1000 than +100. i'll space those out, and leave some salmon in the ocean!

[Zyklon]

I felt so good today as I walked 10000 steps again after 4 days. I started my day with good healty bread and walked some. Healty pizza and pasta at lunch. Walked more. Dinner some steam cooked meat, vegetables and 1 slice of good bread. Tomorrow professinal help time.

[jimmylegs]

nice no idea how many steps i walked in the last couple days :S just have the 275 nature photos lol
curious: what counts as good / healthy bread, pizza crust, and pasta in your books?
hope all goes well with appointments this coming week, and that you can schedule a serum zinc test as soon as the timing will work (serum copper will certainly be interesting to see whether it is high or low normal, but still best to have zinc done too, so you can calculate that ratio!)

[Zyklon]

Zinc level is 73 ug/dL, another good catch. I start supplement today.

[jimmylegs]

very good info. do try to boost zinc rich foods to help achieve daily zinc needs.

weekly oysters would help. on a daily basis, things like pumpkin seeds, lentils and chickpeas too, but for legume sources, remember that bit about multiplying the serving size by 1.3 to achieve the stated zinc content. at this link, some of the most zinc dense animal sources are omitted.
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tnam ... #foodchart

zinc in oysters and other shellfish
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-015 ... axCount=31
in game and lamb
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-017 ... xCount=178
and beef
http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-013 ... xCount=338

when my zinc level was 56 (ie 8.6 umol/L / 0.153), my doc said to take 100mg per day for one month. from personal xp, take zinc after food, otherwise it can (will) cause nausea. max 50mg at one time.

if copper ends up being low in an absolute sense, or relative to zinc, ensure the zinc product you take is blended with copper, in the ratio 50mg zinc to 2mg copper.

copper is more likely high, at very least in the relative sense, so taking just zinc citrate should be fine in the short term.

you can aim for serum zinc 120 (a mean level found repeatedly in healthy controls in the literature), as long as copper levels are okay. once you know your copper status you can figure things out in more detail

[Zyklon]

Free T3: 2,76 pg/mL
Free T4: 1,27 ng/mL
TSH: 0,753 µIU/mL
Hemoglobin A1c (NGSP): %6
Hemoglobin A1c (IFCC): 42 mmol/mol
Good catch of today is Iron: 46 ug/dL (range is 65-175)
%23 body fat and 70.2 kilograms body weight, target is %18 fat and 68-70 kilograms

Dietitian: Too much sugar from fruits, more carbohydrates, drinking more milk to increase phosphorus, less red meat, less animal fat, cholesterol level most likely high because of genetics or interferon+cortisol. She recommended to start weight training and less walking. Tests and checks again after 30 days.

I have no idea about pre-CIS levels. Either my levels were low before CIS or my body used plenty resources for repairs. Learning and optimizing. I must be in top condition for the next round and delay it as much as possible.

[jimmylegs]

re high sugar from fruit, makes sense - you had loads of detail where the blueberries were concerned, not so much on the veg.

definitely good catch on iron. do not supplement zinc or iron alone, when the other is low. you either supplement both and they come up slowly, or you supplement zinc and it suppresses iron AND VICE VERSA.

another good reason to emphasize dietary sources. consider a return to shellfish, if available.
clams provide a good counterpart to oysters if seeking to boost serum zinc and iron safely together. if using veg iron sources such as spinach, be sure to combine with a potent source of vit C such as red pepper.

80-100 is a low risk target area for serum ferritin. can you confirm that your 46 result is a serum ferritin level specifically?

re cholesterol, recall info posted previously re zinc status affecting lipid profile. will be interesting to see what cholesterol numbers are like once zinc is up in the 100-120 neighbourhood at least, even if not all the way to 120.

for your body weight, aim for 500-700 mg of dietary magnesium per day, emphasizing healthy food sources before supplements. if you do choose a supplement, make it high quality such as magnesium glycinate.

did you get a serum copper result yet?

[Zyklon]

Blood serum level.

I will visit a specialist for supplements after copper test. So far supplements are good for me with my doses. Now it is beyond my knowlegde.

My recommendation to everyone after CIS: Have all the mineral, vitamin blood level tests. I feel like recovery is very much effected by these levels. Purely feeling, nothing scientific. The miracles must be about those undiscovered details.

[jimmylegs]

hi to clarify i am asking if you mean "serum iron" or "serum ferritin". two different things. i had a serum iron test done once by mistake, because the doctor wrote exactly what i said on the requisition, when i asked to have iron levels tested. i had meant serum ferritin as an indicator of iron status, and didn't notice the issue before taking the paperwork to the lab, and having the test done.

i will be very interested to hear your copper result, and revised supplement regimen once you've visited a specialist. i was surprised that you had a zinc result so quickly, but are waiting for copper. when you said the lab only does zinc testing once per week, did you mean copper testing?

english language note possibly of interest:

as written "recovery is very much effected by these levels" would mean approximately "recovery is very much accomplished via these levels" - with this one i think it's not the levels on their own, but their management (assuming everything else is okay)
whereas
"recovery is very much affected by these levels" would mean approximately "recovery is very much dependent on these levels"

from my perspective, 'ability to recover is dependent on achieving optimal essential nutrient levels' sounds about right to me!

[Zyklon]

I will ask the detail. It is written only "Iron". Zinc is once a week. I need to get tested for copper at some other lab.

I completely agree with "Ability to recover is dependent on achieving optimal essential nutrient levels"

D3 early days helped me alot, made me feel better psychologically. I ate completely healthy, restored my levels and felt great again. If feeling great is connected to levels and recovery is dependent on feeling great then I can say "Recovery is very much dependent on these levels" is also true.

[jimmylegs]

ok hopefully that copper test happens some time in the near future then. it's even more important now that you know zinc and iron are both low. ack, now i am curious about selenium too!! :S

d3 has definite connections to mood, among other things (i mean both other nutrients and other symptoms).
glad to hear all your positive changes are having an... effect! ;)

[Zyklon]

Copper, selenium, anything else do you recommend?

[jimmylegs]

so far, you've done exceptionally well getting results for most of the 'usual suspects' - and then some. we're getting into tests i haven't had done myself!

to recap the essential nutrient tests you've had done so far (pls correct me if i am missing any) :
serum B9
serum B12
serum D3
serum sodium
serum potassium
serum phosphorus
serum calcium
serum magnesium
serum ferritin (we think)
serum zinc.

pending:
serum copper
serum selenium

re possible next steps, four options from a small yet relatively recent study:

Serum Levels of Antioxidant Vitamins and Lipid Peroxidation in Multiple Sclerosis
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1 ... 0290029205
"The levels of four antioxidant vitamins [retinol, beta carotene, ascorbic acid, alpha tocopherol] were significantly lower in MS patients compared to controls (p<0.05)."

you can find target levels from healthy control means on table 1, top right of p 217:
full text: http://www.ownmultiplesclerosis.com/wp- ... ler-02.pdf

from there you can decide if you wish to follow up on any of those.

these next two (uric acid, ammonia) are obviously not essential nutrients, but can be affected by alterations in essential nutrient status. they are 'nice to know', not necessarily 'need to know':

serum uric acid
serum ammonia.

low uric acid status has been associated with ms. while 'normal' is 140-360 umol/l, ms patients average ~190, 160s during relapse, 230s in remission. healthy control levels up closer to 290s. when i was first tested my level was bang on the ms average. it took a while to make the zinc connection and fix it.
high ammonia can be associated with brain lesions. while i have experienced cognitive issues in the past, i only ever actually physlcally *felt* active brain issues (in my case a sensation of straining behind one eye when processing rapid movement) when zinc deficient. the problem cleared up permanently after zinc repletion (to high normal serum levels). and my uric acid levels normalized too.

basically when zinc status is low, uric acid can drop and ammonia can increase. in your case, the rationale for testing these would be to monitor the efficacy of the zinc regimen, via testing all three of serum zinc, serum ua and serum ammonia.

older 'hypotheticals':

The possible role of gradual accumulation of copper, cadmium, lead and iron and gradual depletion of zinc, magnesium, selenium, vitamins B2, B6, D, and E and essential fatty acids in multiple sclerosis
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 770091051X

i think of these ^ if i had to pick any you don't already have done or at least on your list, it would be serum polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). that said now i have to go back over all your labs to make sure they are not actually there already! i would also have to follow up on latest research to identify any potential target healthy serum levels. that's that for now!

[jimmylegs]

@elliotB brief update on the complex carbs. had more of the veggie wild/brown rice mix this eve, as the foundation for a few ladles of homemade veggie and whole grain barley soup, made w beef bone broth. i also prepped a small batch of steel cut oats and thawed mixed berries for breakfasts in the week ahead. i had been out of my fave oats for weeks and recently had given up and tried making a batch of '3 minute' steel cut oats that were kicking around unopened. my fears about an extra element of processing were confirmed - first, on opening the box.. many many cuts, more surface area, easier to digest, not the point of complex carbs. second, upon attempting to cook up a batch - resulting stodgy lump looked nothing like the distinctly separate grains (okay half grains) that good old 10 minute steel cut oats are meant to be.

[Zyklon]

My temperature fluctuations maybe related to iron deficiency:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8989508