[Daniel]

 curcumin is an ingredient in tumeric often extracted as a supplement. But since it is from tumeric, fresh ginger might be a better choice for now!

[Daniel]

 You are at the right path, but exploring all options (especially if they are mentioned in the result explanations of your OAT) isn’t a bad thing. Typically with genetic diseases showing up on the OAT, the OAT markers will be much more elevated. Most of the genetic diseases mentioned in the OAT explanations are also very rare and leave traces of symptoms during your life.

Your oxalate markers are elevated, but… Slightly. Not that it shouldn’t be addressed, but there are much higher oxalate elevations possible as well.

[Daniel]

Hey ,

Most of the lectins get inactivated by heat. I think it is more likely that your high histamine levels were caused by something else.

[Daniel]

Hey ,

Since Hyperoxaluria Type I (PH1) is a genetic condition, did you experience symptoms like kidney stones during your life? The majority of individuals with PH1 symptoms are present in childhood or early adolescence.

[Daniel]

 Creatine Monohydrate is the most effective form for most people. Is the challenge to get more protein in your diet because you aren’t eating meat? Or are there other challenges?

[Daniel]

Hey ,

I think like Bernadette is mentioning, that adding DAO enzymes would be worth a try. Vitamin C is also essential for the production of DAO enzymes. As mentioned above, you already produce more enzymes than on your previous Advanced Intestinal Barrier assessment. Your OAT however shows low vitamin C status.

Histamine Block does contain a little bit of vitamin C, but that might not be enough. Having more vitamin C might help the body optimize for DAO enzyme production as well.

Curcumin can help prevent mast cell activation (according to this article here). There is some evidence that compounds in ginger are just as effective as anti-histamine. You could try to add ginger or ginger tea as well if you can tolerate it.

[Daniel]

Hey ,

What a wonderful gift you are giving yourself! In terms of health benefits, I believe training is one of the most powerful tools you can give yourself!

I agree with Bernadette: food is the absolute king, supplements are queen, but together they can build a kingdom.

Let me explain to you how I do it with my clients. Different goals may have different approaches. With weight loss and building strength, I aim for a protein intake of around 2 grams/kg body weight. For example, if you way 60 kg, that would mean 120 grams of protein per day.

Traditionally most trainers will advise 1.8 grams/kg. This will work fine as well, but I have a few reasons to choose 2:
• It is easier in calculations for clients
• Protein saturates and is harder to burn, so it is a good choice for losing weight and building strength.
• Most people when they start won’t get their protein requirements initially. If they aim at 2x their body weight, they still will start higher than when they aim at 1.8 gram protein/kg body weight. It gets them faster on the right track.
• When we age, protein digestion becomes harder. Having a little more protein in the diet can compensate for that.

Of course, these are people with healthy kidneys. If you are experiencing kidney issues, a high protein intake isn’t a good choice.

When you don’t want to lose weight and your focus is on strength only, you can drop your protein requirement a bit. This sounds a bit weird, but in the case of fat loss, your body uses stored energy in not only fat but other tissues (like muscles) as well. Part of the reason for that is that blood sugars need to be stable at all times.

Since carbs & sugars are less available in the diet, the body needs to produce blood sugars in a different way. The stress hormone cortisol will become a little more elevated because cortisol signals the body to use amino acids and turn them into blood sugar. A higher intake of protein will preserve tissue since more dietary protein is available.

If your goal isn’t losing fat, but it is to build strength, a protein requirement of 1.6 g/kg body weight is what I personally aim for with clients.

Creatine
There are a lot of benefits to using creatine.  Even for brain health! You might have seen earlier posts about methylation. A lot of the end product of methylation is used to make creatine. Adding creatine means the body can focus on using methylation for other needs, like protecting nerves, DNA, helping detoxification, etc.

We used to believe that creatine should be used in cycles of a few weeks. These days we know creatine can be taken daily whole year long. Again: if you don’t have kidney problems,  It is a very safe supplement to use.

BCAAs
Personally, with building strength, I won’t advise them anymore. The exception might be when people don’t take enough protein. There is one particular amino acid that starts muscle synthesis: leucine. It is one of the Branched Changed Amino Acids (BCAAs): leucine, isoleucine and valine. Leucine is the most important one of all the BCAA. We like to get at least 5 grams of leucine daily to facilitate muscle synthesis.

When you are eating enough protein, all the BCAA’s are more than enough in your diet. Adding them as a supplement won’t give you extra benefits. I rather spend my money on different supplements like:

Magnesium
You probably are already using magnesium, but magnesium is essential in muscles. It helps to relax the muscles and it is needed to build the molecule that transports energy: ATP.

If you are exercising you might use a bit more of this mineral and you might lose more in your sweat as well

All the other supplements you mentioned are great as well. If sunlight is an issue, I would add vitamin D to the list as well!

[Daniel]

Hey ,

I feel your concern about your daughter’s blood test. Is this the daughter you are talking about in earlier posts and that your daughter’s age is 8 (or 9 by now)? Am I right to assume that ferritin’s reference range is in mcg/l? And could you tell us what the reference ranges are from ferritin and iron in your lab report – since this can vary a bit from lab to lab?

If you have the full blood test results, Bernadette and I could find some other clues into what might be at play as well. Especially having insight into liver and kidney health would be valuable. Values you might see on the test like ALAT (sometimes ALT), ASAT (sometimes AST), GGT and Alkaline Phosphatase provides us insight into liver health. Creatinine and the eGFR are usually measured to evaluate kidney health. 

But since in functional medicine, we see the body as a whole, we preferably evaluate all values together.

Other important clues are any possible symptoms that are present. If your kid was recently sick, that would help to know as well. Every symptom helps, but here are a few you can watch out for specifically:
• Fatigue. You could for example observe how she plays with other kids or how she plays sports.
• Abdominal pain
• She might have problems with eating
• Nausea
• Swelling caused by a buildup of fluids could also be something you might notice. 
• Another thing you could ask is if she experiences problems with breathing. Elevations in iron can sometimes cause inflammation in the lungs.
• High iron can cause skin color changes. The skin might look more grey, bronze or brown than usual. 
• With genetic conditions like Thalassemia, a pale color or a yellow color of the skin could present. With Thalassemia you might also see lower hemoglobin on the blood test since with Thalassemia the body struggles to produce hemoglobin. This can cause elevations in iron since around 70% of your body’s iron is used to create hemoglobin. 

With symptoms, please contact your doctor.

Elevations of iron and ferritin can be caused by a few things. Iron-containing supplements like iron-containing multivitamins could be a cause. 

Other sources of iron are of course foods. It is unusual to get high iron blood values from foods alone, but it happens. Iron-rich foods might be things you could avoid for the moment. Avoiding the use of Iron-cast pans can help as well since these pans can add to the diet.

If you believe that dietary iron isn’t the problem, there aren’t symptoms present, liver and kidney health turns out to be ok, but you are still worried, you could rule out genetic conditions that cause high iron by asking the help of your doctor.

I hope you have some tools to help you further!

[Daniel]

,

I’m so sorry to hear about the burning feelings you are suffering with. I do believe the opinion of your gastroenterologist is important to find out if the medication isn’t working. At the moment, what kind of dosages of femotidine are you taking?

Obviously foods influence the burning sensation as well, but right now, did anything change? For example is the burning sensation at the same place? Do you feel the burning sensation continuously? If the pain changed, in what kind of time frame did it change?

[Daniel]

Hey ,

There are several reasons why histamine can be elevated. The histamine can be produced by your body as a reaction from your immune system to antigens. Foods can be high in histamine and certain bacteria can produce histamine.

Since food can contribute to histamine it would be good to check if you were having by accident some high histamine foods before the test, so you can rule out that option. There is a handout here in the B Better library that can help you do that.

What is LPS?
LPS is short for lipopolysaccharide. When certain bacteria (gram-negative bacteria) in your microbiome die, they break down. LPS are found in the outer cell membrane of these bacteria. You can compare them with ‘bodyparts’ of dead bacteria.

When LPS are elevated in the blood, this means they passed through damaged parts of the gut lining (leaky gut as you called it).

New test vs old test
The good change on the new test is that your DAO enzymes went up, Are you using supplements containing DAO? If not, your body’s own production went up. Adding in B vitamins (B6 in particular) can have contributed to this. More DAO production can also be an indication that the mucosal integrity has been improved.

Also, your immune system seems to respond better. These changes are important to note as well.

What can you do?
• Remove histamine foods/foods that liberate histamine (see the mentioned handout) and food sensitivities. Quercetin supplements can help inhibit histamine from the immune system and help the gut lining (2x 500 mg daily is what I advise my clients often to start with). 
• Help repair the gut lining. Bone broth,  but also collagen which we recently talked about can help repair the gut lining.
• Omega 3’s (2-4 grams) and Extra Virgin Olive Oil high in polyphenols can help lower LPS and reduce inflammation.
• Vitamin C and copper are just like vitamin B6 cofactors for the production of the DAO enzyme. Getting these in can help you as well.
• Caprylic acid found in coconut oil and MCT oil can be helpful with yeast. There are more options here of course, but I would advise a gentle approach here since antimicrobials can potentially increase LPS.

I hope this helps!

[Daniel]

Hey ,

Good question! Often you will see on Magnesium L-threonate supplements the next ingredient on the bottle:

Magtein™ magnesium-l-threonate

Magtein™ is a registered trademark of Magceutics. This means that the magnesium in different supplements comes from the same producer. Here the quality of the supplement is determined by the additives the supplement brand uses.

Pure Encapsulations has a product called CogniMag (click here to find the supplement in fullscript). It has magnesium l-threonate in combination with some other plant extracts. The capsule contains cellulose and ascorbyl palmitate – a fat-soluble version of vitamin C. 

When it comes to supplements and the best brands, the B Better library also has a handout full of tips. You can find it in the Discount & resource folder (Or just click here!).

Is there a special reason why you would like to use it?

[Daniel]

Hey ,

I was just curious how things are right now. Did you made any progress with the numbing feelings & your spasm?

I would love to hear about your developments!

[Daniel]

Hey ,

To help you the best way we can I have a few follow-up questions for you. Do you know what kind of elevations we are talking about? Are they ‘slightly’ out of the reference range? Or much higher?

The diagnosis PCOS is given when two of these three criteria are met:

– irregular periods
– high androgens
– polycystic ovaries 

Do you know which criteria she meets? 

Do you know if she presents other symptoms? I am not only referring to symptoms of high prolactin here. 

And to get a feeling for how her hormones should be, can you provide us with her age?

[Daniel]

 

With the possibility of an altered absorption (because of dysbiosis/SIBO) I would like to rule out a dietary insufficiency.

Do you know how much selenium is in your diet? If you are using a multivitamin for example, you can know how much selenium is minimally in your diet. If you eat a few brazil nuts on a daily basis you can be sure you have sufficient dietary selenium

If you added the multivitamin/brazil nuts recently I wouldn’t go for an RBC test unless you have been doing that for 3 months. It takes 3 months to replace all red blood cells in your body. An RBC value is often more reflective of what nutrients you had in the past 3 months.

[Daniel]

Hey ,

Tryptophan
Tryptophan could in my opinion go two ways. It is a precursor for serotonin, which is one of the important neurotransmitters in the gut. Tryptophan also is used for communication and regulation between microbes and can stimulate gut motility.

In cases of chronic inflammation, tryptophan can be used by the immune system to cause more inflammation (via something called ‘the kynurenine pathway’ and the production of quinolinic acid which is made from tryptophan). In this study about intestinal inflammation and depression, it is described how elevated gut inflammation lowers serotonin production in the gut.

Because gut inflammation is probably present, I personally think this isn’t the best choice.

Hydrolysed Collagen powder
Collagen has been shown to improve digestive issues. It breaks down in glycine and proline. Hydrolysed collagen can help repair the gut lining and improve digestive complaints. For example in this study from 2022, they gave otherwise healthy females 2x 10 grams of collagen powder per day. It improved their digestive symptoms.

That being said, some people experience diarrhea with collagen powder

I have seen animal studies in which glycine helped with gastric ulcers. Hard to tell if it will work on humans, but it is worth a try. Collagen is easy to break down, but it still needs stomach acid. 

If collagen doesn’t give some relief, you could try glycine powder. It is an amino acid, which means it is acidic, but it is a weak acid. Glycine is also an amino acid that is needed for bile production. It also might increase detoxification, so if you are going to try collagen (or glycine) go slow and easy in the beginning.

I hope this helps you to make your choices!