Category Archives: Conditions

Unknown's avatar lassesen 8:42 pm on November 27, 2013  

Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale on Piracetam

I just got this via one of my regular suppliers. Piracetam is often hard to find.

Piracetam 800 mg 120 capsules (MSRP $34.99) $15.39
[Click here for a direct link:
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?CognitiveNutritionIn/98f757b7a6/db3f9b3f5f/0b026d451d/dispatch=products.view&product_id=60&utm_content=ken%40lassesen.com&utm_source=VerticalResponse&utm_medium=Email&utm_term=Text%20Version%20-%20Link%202&utm_campaign=Black%20Friday%20Nootropic%20Sale]

This is cheaper then the $25 for 60 capsules I paid back in 1999 from the Czech republic.

 

Unknown's avatar lassesen 1:06 am on November 25, 2013  

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: Model of What it is, and treatment experience

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity has been an unwelcomed visitor at our house for 15+ years. During those years we have reviewed most of the literature and tried various treatments. This post summarizes our model of what it is and some possible ways of treating.

Bogus chemical signals of pending infection

Often CFS has been described as an unregulated immune system; an immune system on heighten alert. We assume that this is correct and that the chemicals being reacted to are mistaken as chemicals being produced by attacking infections. The body goes into defensive mode which includes trying to contain the infection until it can prepare appropriate antibodies. Containment means preventing the infection circulating — restricting blood vessels (often by inflammation)  and producing coagulation. These responses will typically produce headaches, nausea.

It has often been said that many CFS patients are sensitive or allergic to alcohol. My own experience with willing CFSers has been that alcohols with complex aromas (beer, wine, whisky) produce a reaction while others being favored pure alcohols (vodka, gin, ouzo) did not. In fact, the CFS could drink them without apparent ill effect. This appears to confirm the above model.

Our own personal experience of MCS causing coagulation came from full coagulation panels before and two weeks after a MCS exposure — the measure of the amount of active coagulation (a measure with a half life of 45 minutes) went from normal range to 6 standard deviations above normal.

We have also observed that the duration depends on whether the chemical is water soluble or fat soluble. A water soluble chemical typically flushes thru the system in a few hours. Many fat soluble chemical may persist for days or weeks!   Fat soluble chemicals are often preferred in perfumes because the scents will persist for the entire day or longer. This latter type is very nasty for MCS suffers.

The problem for recovery is getting the fat soluble chemicals out of the system. Fortunately, modern medicine has looked at removing some fat soluble chemicals from humans — typically PCBs. Items like oral activated charcoal have not been proven effective.   “Cholestyramine therapy, sauna bathing, and fasting have all been attempted and have proven unsuccessful (AAP 1999). In fact, PCBs stored in fat can be mobilized by the patients crash dieting.”[CDC]

I would never do this if there was an alternative…

” Now olestra may be set to take on a new role: as a way to rid the body of toxicants such as dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).” [2005] Which is echoed in a variety of articles:

Getting Olestra is a bit tricky, you will never find it in a health conscious food store. In fact you will find pages on the web stating “Do not eat these products” – which fortunately tell you what products have it — like this one! Today, we depend on Walmart to have Olestra chips reliably available.

Our experience has been that Olestra chips greatly reduces the duration of a MCS reaction. It is nasty stuff — but it is the only thing available with proven benefits.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 6:04 am on November 24, 2013  

Phosphatidlylserine: A review and alternatives for cognitive improvement

Phosphatidlylserine is commonly used to help with cognitive issues in Alzheimer’s Disease and other memory issues. According to Mayo clinic “improvements in memory lasted only a few months and were seen in people with the least severe symptoms.” Because chronic fatigue syndrome often manifest with memory issues, some MD’s may speculate that it could help with CFS. I encountered memory issues last time around with CFS and my SPECT scan was read as early Alzheimer’s disease by the radiologist (neurologist that I subsequently saw disagreed about Alzheimer’s).

So, a CFS MD suggesting that as an experiment seems reasonable. A check of pubmed found the following:

  • Phosphatidylserine – 13700+ hits
  • Phosphatidylserine chronic fatigue syndrome – NO hits
  • Phosphatidylserine fibromyalgia  – NO hits
  • Phosphatidylserine Parkinson – 22 hits
  • Phosphatidylserine Alzheimer – 78 hits
  • Phosphatidylserine brain trauma – 17 hits, none examined the impact of phosphatidlylserine supplementation.
  • Phosphatidlylserine supplementation – 136 hits

The most relevant article that I could find was Fish oil supplementation alters the plasma lipidomic profile and increases long-chain PUFAs of phospholipids and triglycerides in healthy subjects [2012]. It implies that taking fish oil may be as good as phosphatidlylserine. Since there has been no published studies that found that phosphatdylserine is low in CFS or FM, IMHO, the prescription of such to CFS patients is highly speculative.

My own experience

Taking Neem and Tulsi (6 – 00 capsules of each per day) causes a dramatic change of cognitive functions after 7 days.   The choice of those two was based on the overgrowth of certain families of bacteria reported from Australia and the effectiveness of Neem and Tulsi as good or better than conventional prescription antibiotics reported in Indian studies on PubMed.

Before I went on disability last time around, I found that I could moderate cognitive issues with the following items (until the anticoagulant impact resulted in easy bruising).

  • Piracetam (and other Racetams)
  • Grape Seed Extract
  • Fibrinolytics (dissolves fibrin): Nattokinease, Serrapetase, Lumbrokinease
  • Anti-inflammatories: Boswellia(Frankincense) , Myrrh
  • Turmeric

Recent Experience

I’m working at present as a Principal Software Engineer for a pre-IPO company with 40% growth/year. This last week has been — well — hectic and stressful, with four deployments schedules that were messy and with complications.  I was actually surprised on how well I handled this week with no cognitive fade out and actually awesome focus compared to several prior weeks. What I took everyday was actually a pretty simple and a short list.

  • Multivitamin with Mineral
  • Double dosage of Lactobacillus Reuteri (at bed time)
  • Ashwagandha (2 – 00 capsules per day) – morning
  • Piracetam (2 x 800 mg) –
  • 500 mg of Niacin (flushing variety)

I know that Ashwagandha acts as an antibiotic against some gut bacteria, although the original reason that I took it was as an adaptogen to moderate the stress response. The Reuteri is the most common lactobacillus in health mammals. I do not know how others may respond to this mixture. For me, after a week, I still find that cognitive function appear to be improving more — in small ways,  but detectable.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 12:55 am on November 20, 2013  

Gluten Sensitivities and Bacteria

Science news has a recent article entitled “Microbiome Changed by Gluten Increases Incidences of Type 1 Diabetes“, since gluten sensitivities is common with CFS and there are similarities to Type-3  diabetes, I thought that I should drill down on this via PubMed.

First, it looks like there may be a probiotic to help in the works [2013]. For celiac disease, we appear to have lower Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species/ volume [2012] — which suggests that Lactobacillus Reuteri and Align (Bifidobacterium infantis 35624) has the potential to be helpful. Another 2013 studies suggests that high Bacteroidetes (phyla) and Parabacteriodes (genus) may be a factor. The likely missing bacteria are Rothia bacteria according to this [2011] study (there is already a patent filed on such use), however there appear to be no commercially available probiotics.

I also found a most interesting article indicating the the pH of drinking water impacts gut bacteria — yes drinking water! [5 Nov 2013] This has implication on what you drink — soda pop pH may be a factor for diabetes (beyond the usual sugar issue). There is a chart of pH for some foods here. You may wish to shift the food and drink you consume to higher pH (less acid values). There are various sites that will give lists of acid and alkaline foods – WARNING: sites may disagree – for example one site says orange juice is low ph (acid) and another site say it is alkaline.

The safest approach may be adding ½ a teaspoon of baking soda to a gallon of water. Also, we are not talking about alkalizing blood (which is often an alternative medicine approach), but about drinking alkalize water to alter gut bacteria. Often the alkalizing blood techniques does do by acidifying the stomach (exact opposite of this intent).

Unknown's avatar lassesen 4:00 pm on November 19, 2013  

Gut Bacteria causing Irritable Bowel Syndrome / CFS

While researching my last post I came across an article describing the differences of bacteria seen with IBS. We know that two commercially probiotics are effective for treating IBS, so it is nice to know which bacteria they appear to push out. IBS and CFS are co-morbid, so these results likely applies to most CFS patients.

Real-time PCR analysis of enteric pathogens from fecal samples of irritable bowel syndrome subjects Teemu Rinttilä12, Anna Lyra13, Lotta Krogius-Kurikka1 and Airi Palva1* 

“According to the results, the studied clostridial groups (Clostridium histolyticum, Clostridium coccoides-Eubacterium rectale, Clostridium lituseburense and Clostridium leptum) represented the dominant faecal microbiota of most of the studied subjects, comprising altogether 29-87% of the total bacteria” [2006]

These author and other studies reports high levels of:

  • Staphylococcus aureus [2011]
  • Clostridium perfringens [2011]
  • Veillonella species (if constipation) [2005]
  • Low Lactobacillus sp (if diarrhea) [2005]
  • Clostridium coccoides [2005] (30 -50% of all bacteria [2006] )
  • Bifidobacterium catenulatum [2005]
  • Pseudomonas aeruginosa [2011]
  • Differences in  Coprococcus, Collinsella, and Coprobacillus [2007]

The detection was done by looking at RNA sequences. It should be noted that they tested only for 12 species. There may be other species involved. The likely reality is well expressed in this 2010 article, “data available from a .. do not reveal pronounced and reproducible IBS-related deviations of entire phylogenetic or functional microbial groups, but rather support the concept that IBS patients have alterations in the proportions of commensals with interrelated changes in the metabolic output and overall microbial ecology. ”

” The present study suggests that instability of intestinal microbiota may be involved in IBS.”[2005]. This matches my thinking that it is not a specific bacteria but a collection of cross-supporting bacteria from different species. If you kill one of them, another one that is willing to cooperate with this bad bacteria co-op will move in. You have to destroy the co-op. The coop may account for “the overall gene diversity was 15 % higher in the IBS samples than in the non-IBS samples”[2011]

For new comers to this blog, the two effective probiotics are: