This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Knowledge & Support Community

no worries, thought you might have.

you know how skeptical i am of 'normal range' though... most ms patients' zinc level probably falls in the normal range, and so does their uric acid level.

ms zinc and uric acid levels are far from optimal though.

i'd be very interested to know the zinc number with units if you have it, and if you don't feel like posting there's always pm.

if you don't want to say, just know that 18.2 umol/L is what i have read as being average zinc in healthy controls, in study after study after study.

jeff's zinc could be 11 umol/L and they would tell you it's normal.

JL

i see i missed responding to some input here, sorry my bad

viper: ever had your zinc tested? or your PUFAs?

peek: in addition to being a critical nutrient for liver function, zinc also helps the adrenals battle cortisol.

catfreak: i have psoriasis too and some of it cleared up when i fixed the zinc issue. the only other time i have gotten rid of it is by basically being in the sun ALL THE TIME which i have not been able to do since high school.
it's a kidney thing to some extent and i have found it REALLY HARD to research (therefore i spend less time on it) so i'm still using a topical prescription of corticosteroid mixed with 1,25dihydroxyvitd3 (what good kidneys make on their own, stupid lazy kidneys - maternal grandpa died young from kidney cancer)

turtle: you just ask for a requisition for a zinc test. a plasma zinc level. the ontario health insurance plan simply calls it "zinc", but the lab i use offers both plasma and urine tests so wherever you are you may want to specify.
alternatively, you can try this home testing method: the Zinc Taste Test
http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... pageid=653

cheer: so is jeff's zinc low normal, mid, or near optimal? did the lab ever give you a specific number?

ran across another study, on livers both ratty and fatty, and thought i'd tack it on here:

J Nutr. 1994 Oct;124(10):1917-26.
Dietary fat influences the effect of zinc deficiency on liver lipids and fatty acids in rats force-fed equal quantities of diet.

Previous studies showed that zinc deficiency influences the fatty acid composition of rat tissues, but the influence of dietary fat on the effects of zinc deficiency was not considered at that time. The present study was therefore conducted to investigate the effect of zinc deficiency on lipid concentrations in the liver and on fatty acid composition of liver phospholipids in rats fed diets containing coconut oil or fish oil, using a bifactorial experimental design. To ensure an adequate food intake all rats were force-fed. The zinc-deficient rats fed the coconut oil diet developed fatty livers, whereas zinc-deficient animals fed the fish oil diet did not. The zinc-deficient rats in both dietary fat groups had lower levels of linoleic acid, arachidonic acid and total (n-6) fatty acids in the liver phospholipids, especially in the phosphatidylcholine, but greater concentrations of (n-3) fatty acids compared with zinc-adequate controls. We conjecture that zinc deficiency influences incorporation of polyunsaturated fatty acids into phosphatidylcholine. The lower levels of arachidonic acid are replaced in the zinc-deficient animals fed a coconut oil diet by docosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids and in the zinc-deficient animals fed a fish oil diet by eicosapentaenoic acid. The replacement of arachidonic acid by other fatty acids in the phospholipids is likely to have implications for prostaglandin synthesis. The study shows that the type of dietary fat influences the effects of zinc deficiency on fatty acid composition and especially on lipid concentrations in the liver.

from wikipedia:

There are currently ten known prostaglandin receptors on various cell types.
The diversity of receptors means that prostaglandins act on an array of cells and have a wide variety of effects:

-cause constriction or dilation in vascular smooth muscle cells
-cause aggregation or disaggregation of platelets
-sensitize spinal neurons to pain
-decrease intraocular pressure
-regulate inflammatory mediation
-regulate calcium movement
-control hormone regulation
-control cell growth

still more to think about this liver issue.
i recently went for my 5 year checkup on the liver issues, and they found that my FNH (wow it has a name) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_nodular_hyperplasia
has grown from 4 cm to 7 cm in 6 years..
then, I found out that FNH is most common for women aged 20-50 (isn't that somehow familiar?), and is usually found by coincidence, when looking at something else.

so it typically is benign thing, and does not produce pains or something that you would find, so perhaps quite many people have it. many people with MS? i keep finding hepatic veins in different articles, could there be something causing vein disorders here and there.. (just my imagination here)

mine is growing, which is not normal perhaps, i hope for the best.. this would be quite a good reason for high ALAT and ASAT (and gamma-GT), since I have tried also being without alcohol and the pill, and those liver enzymes just have a life of their own, sometimes very high, sometimes low.. doctors are not able to help in that.

this article was quite interesting http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm?fuseact ... ageid=1775 but i'm not sure of the results, have they examined the patients only after taking medications.

hi again t, i never heard of FNH til reading this post. did you ever happen to get a zinc test?

found an interesting article ... i know in med hypotheses they talk about gradually accumulating copper and gradually depleted zinc etc in ms, but is it possible that copper and zinc are both depleted in certain illnesses, and then it can get even worse when the ratio is out of whack, with one element is significantly higher or lower than the other? even while both would be considered low?

A role for low hepatic copper concentrations in nonalcoholic Fatty liver disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20407430

"Hepatic copper concentrations in patients with NAFLD were lower than in control subjects (17.9+/-8.4 vs. 31.4+/-8.2 microg/g; P<0.001) ... Patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH; n=31) had lower hepatic copper concentrations than those with simple steatosis (n=93; P=0.038). Restriction of dietary copper in rats induced hepatic steatosis and insulin resistance (IR)."

I also never had any liver problems. The only things that came back positive were my spinal tap and MRI. My neurologist always draws my blood when I have an appointment and does the full blood panel.

It may be a case of viral hepatitis. Acute hepatitis symptoms can be mistaken for the flu and are resolved without much complications (if they're not, then your hepatitis is considered chronic). In fact, many people with certain types of hepatitis do not have symptoms when they are first infected and so don't even know that they are infected until they develop liver failure later. And obviously if you add another illness on top of MS, it makes your symptoms worse.

As for haemochromatosis, there are two kinds: Primary and secondary. Primary haemochromatosis is genetic. Secondary haemochromatosis is caused be excessive blood transfusions or excessive iron supplementation. The recommended treatment for both are regular blood draws. Both men and women can be diagnosed with primary haemochromatosis, but men are diagnosed earlier in life than women.

And yes, the optic nerve is covered with myelin.

I think the problem starts in the gut, with low zinc absorbtion..

Low zinc causes poor insulin binding, higher insulin peaks...

This reduces insulin sensitivity and causes the metabolic syndrome..

This in turn causes problems with micro-cellular cellular feeding..

which ultimately will lead to progressive motorfunction impairment..

agree. when you eat too much bread etc, it causes a drain on zinc resources. one of the things that is affected is the structural integrity of the intestine, and once you have a leaky gut situation, absorption suffers across the board. plus, all this material entering the blood without being handled correctly leads to inflammation, etc etc.

selected previous chats along these lines...

feb 2009
Zinc Deficiency Induces Membrane Barrier Damage...
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... tml#p52188

may 2009
Supplementing with zinc could contribute significantly to healing a leaky gut in about eight weeks
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... tml#p39801

i think it was about a year ago i finally managed to nail down the gluten-zinc connection
may 2011
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/post16445 ... ac#p164457

all the research i'd found previously was about how GI illness causes zinc deficiency, among other deficiencies, with cascading effects, but i was sure the structural integrity problem had to come first. took me a while to find it but was successful in the end. didn't actually post the link to research until recently:

feb 2012
NUTRITIONAL STATUS AND MICRONUTRIENT LEVELS OF CHILDREN WITH CELIAC DISEASE BEFORE AND AFTER GLUTEN FREE DIET
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ml#p186387

(notice how in the abstract, they say "Control group did not show any significant change in their trace mineral levels". but, i used to have full text access and when i did, i went in and saw that the controls group's nutrient levels did improve on average, but in a non-significant way. i think that is just because they had not been eating in a way that depleted zinc previously, ie not breadaholics. and that would be why they got to be the control group vs the patients).

and a few weeks ago...
Zinc and vitamin A deficiency in gastrointestinal diseases
http://www.thisisms.com/forum/regimens- ... ml#p188304

i was just talking to a classic leaky gut case today. he's a vegetarian, eats all kinds of bread, drinks beer, and has horrible GI symptoms. we'll be starting him on zinc balanced with copper very soon. i gave him some homework for the meantime - if you won't eat red meat for its bioavailable zinc, then go figure out how to get reduce that gluten intake, find something with whole grain sprouted flour, cut down on the amounts, etc. (if a study existed that showed dietary sprouted flour breads and impact on zinc status, i would post that sucker right here, but it does not seem to have made it onto the research agenda just yet).

ooh, but this is interesting, sprouting grains increase in vitro soluble zinc in the grain itself!

Evaluation of the Simultaneous Effects of Processing Parameters on the Iron and Zinc Solubility...
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf0530493
"modifications were accompanied by a significant increase in % IVS Zn after 24 h of sprouting".

that sort of looks like a nice little QED

I thought there might be some information of interest to the readers here in this very old thread – especially the report of MS symptom improvement after a liver transplant:

http://www.thisisms.com/forum/general-d ... c6044.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15595263

hey lc, i love that one. infusion of a fresh, nutrient-packed happy liver

Determination of copper, manganese and zinc in human liver
http://www.springerlink.com/content/h4l52g7703671346/
Hepatic zinc levels averaged 118.3 ± 44.4 g/g and ranged from 38.5 to 231.3 g/g.

Zinc content and distribution in the newborn liver
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8856577
The mean zinc concentration in the newborn liver was 639 micrograms/g of dry tissue (dt). A striking interindividual variability in zinc liver stores was observed; the hepatic concentration of the metal ranged from 300 to 1,400 micrograms/g dt.

i think that last tidbit could likely be correlated with maternal zinc status

you know i was thinking this info about widely variable hepatic zinc stores in newborns could link us up to age of onset for various diseases.

absolutely 100% yes the liver!!!!
It is also my belief that all these illnesses, scizophrenia, MS, autism etc all start in the liver and are all different manifestations of "exitotoxicity" which is caused by hypoglycemia. this is also linked in with copper toxicity and zinc deficiency. Look up "cytochrome p 450s" AKA our "xenobiotic metabolism". This is how we process our environment and if we have a genetic impairment in the CYP450 sythesis then we have a genetic predisposition to environmental vulnerability. this is the junction between genetics and environment, nature and nurture. what happens is that CYP450s have a Heme cofactor (thus the word Chrome in cytochrome) (heme is part of hemoglobin, myoglobin, cytoglobin, cytochrome, neuroglobin) there are 8 steps in the sythesis of heme in one of the steps if there is an enzyme deficiency. most of the time we have enough of this enzyme to cover normal daily function. when we are exposed to infections or chemicals or stress, the deficiency gets overwhelmed. it starts out at first in acute bouts but as more and more damage acrues, remisssion is less and less possible as the body functions less efficiently, the deficiency is overwhelmed more and more often. also the unincorporated heme product binds to zinc and causes copper toxicity this is all very agitating to the nervous system.

and guess what you need cyp450s for, the sythesis of cortisol, vitamin D and other fat soluable vitamins, cholesterol which is a precurser to horomones

so what do I need cortisol for ( this is why some of you do well with prednisone). To drive down insulin, without it you may have problems with hypoglycemia and exitotoxicity.

one also may have problems with digestion, low blood pressure, inflamation and immune problems, electrolyte imbalences

So what I am really saying is that MS is a combination of two disease processes, Hepatic Porphyria and then secondary addisons or adrenal insufficiency. The liver and the adrenals. later ill go into BBB permiability.

omg i did this maaajor post and now it's all gone, timed out. awesome.

jimmylegs wrote:omg i did this maaajor post and now it's all gone, timed out. awesome.

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NHE

my liver enzymes have always been 'normal'.. and yet my body was not absorbing d3 properly or producing uric acid properly. i think my b12 absorption was poor too. zinc helped a lot!