Maximizing Methylation with Diet and Lifestyle

A report from just 9 days ago points to hypermethylation to help with ALS and talks about developing drugs for this, as if ALS patients have time to wait for drugs.  The link to the report follows for anyone that wants to review it.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150321/Hypermethylation-serves-as-protective-barrier-inhibiting-development-of-ALS-FTD.aspx

So, what can be done to improve methylation now?  I did a search and one of my favorite pro-health doctors came up, Dr Mark Hyman, with his post "Maximizing Methylation: the key to healthy aging," so this is good advice for everyone, but it is especially something to consider how this might be implemented if you need to improve methylation now.

Right from the post, Dr Hyman has these suggestions to measure you own methylation,

Measuring Your Own Methylation Process

To find out if your methylation process is optimal, ask your doctor for the following tests:

• Complete blood count – Like our friend Mr. Roberts, large red blood cells or anemia can be a sign of poor methylation. Red blood cells with a mean corpuscular volume (MCV) greater than 95 can signal a methylation problem
• Homocysteine – This is one of the most important tests you can ask for. The normal level is less than 13, but the ideal level is likely between 6 and 8
• Serum or urinary methylmalonic acid – This is a more specific test for vitamin B12 insufficiency. Your levels may be elevated even if you have a normal serum vitamin B12 or homocysteine level
• Specific urinary amino acids – These can be used to look for unusual metabolism disorders involving vitamins B6 or B12 or folate, which may not show up just by checking methylmalonic acid or homocysteine

But, if dealing with ASL my feeling is just do what you can to implement the advice on how to increase your methylation.

1. Eat more dark, leafy greens – Dr Hyman says eat 1 cup a day of vegetables like bok choy, escarole, Swiss chard, kale, watercress, spinach, or dandelion, mustard, collard, or beet greens. Dr Terry Wahls from "Minding your Mitochondria says each 3 cups per day of leafy greens.
2. Get more Bs in your diet 
3. Minimize animal protein, sugar, and saturated fat – Animal protein directly increases homocysteine. 
4. Avoid processed foods and canned foods 
5. Avoid caffeine 
6. Limit alcohol to 3 drinks a week
7. Don’t smoke – Smoking inactivates vitamin B6 (and folic acid.)
8. Avoid medications that interfere with methylation – Drugs like acid blockers, methotrexate (for cancer and arthritis and other autoimmune diseases), oral contraceptives, HCTZ (for high blood pressure), and Dilantin (for seizures) can all affect levels of B vitamins
9. Keep the bacteria in your gut healthy – Take probiotic supplements.
10. Improve stomach acid – Use herbal digestives (bitters) or taking supplemental HCl
11. Take supplements that prevent damage from homocysteine – Antioxidants protect you from homocysteine damage. Also make sure you support methylation with supplements like magnesium and zinc
12. Supplement to help support proper homocysteine metabolism – 
    Folate (folic acid)
    Vitamin B6
    Vitamin B12
    Betaine

I had to further look at "bitters," and it seems we evolved to have bitters in our diet and they've practically disappeared.  Too much bitters can be toxic, but have them regularly improves our immune system.

Bitter greens like radicchio, dandelion greens, rapini, endive, kale, daikon and arugula contain phytonutrients that support the liver as it manages cholesterol, balances hormones, detoxifies the blood and metabolizes fats.

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Time to learn about ALS

Blogging did a world of wonder for me when I was heavily involved in investments and now I have urgent need to understand ALS quickly, and figure out what to do about it other than reading the crap on the internet that 80% only live 3-5 years, blab, blab, blab, no worth while medical treatments, blab, blab, blab...

 That crap just doesn't work for me and to be honest, with just starting my research into this devastating disease just this week, I find it appalling that more isn't being said on what can be done naturally to pump up the immune system. So, to start, I've been looking at a lot of information, and I've combined what I am learning with what I know and what I've heard about in the past. So, some things that I am taking as "truth,:"

1. Stress is an underlying cause of many diseases.  When our bodies are in constant fight or flight mode everything is directed to extremities and to be ready for battle; it was designed for defending against life threatening situations, not the paper work, artificial hoop jumping of modern society, traffic jams, and wasting one's life waiting in lines, and that kind of thing that keeps our body in a state of stress.  The body does not heal when in a state of stress.
2. Our food supply is damaged.  Modern farming practices have created nutrient deficient soils, reduce healthy bacteria that further reduces nutritional value of food.  Modifications to food have been to make it have a longer shelf life, not for nutrition.  There is a gross lack of diversity in our food supply, like just 4 kind of potatoes when there used to be thousands, and that sort of thing.
3. Lorenzo's oil is an amazing story.
4. Magnesium is a very important mineral and anyone with muscle problems should be taking it.  Indeed, it is probably the most depleted nutrient because of our changed food supply.
5. We don't know how we've changed cellular interactions with how we've changed the food supply.
6. There are tons of pieces of information that is not well organized and the answer is probably already there.  It is just a matter of finding the pieces and applying existing knowledge.
7. The solution will be a whole body, mind and spirit solution.

So, where to start?  Well, for me it is to put the information that I've been reading in one place so it doesn't get lost and I can refer back to it.

Possible supplements:

1) Spiruline 2) moringa powder 3) super mushroom in a dropper 4) pure black, but it has another name and I can't read the fine print. 5) Ashwagandha

6) Cellgevity, prod.max.com/cellgevity/full/us/en and it's product sheet, d9acaac42d8edbb4ac64-d05705ef8345115d726b514c70667fa9.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/462.pdf

Supplement and nutritional information:

www.feedlife.ca

www.harmonicarts.ca

www.realrawfood.com

www.omfoods.com

For daily info

www.mindbodygreen.com www.youngandraw.com

My searching results:

http://draxe.com/als-natural-treatment/ - things to put into one's diet

http://web.stanford.edu/group/hopes/cgi-bin/hopes_test/about-glutamate-toxicity/ - It seems glutamate is present in neuron firing and ALS patients tend to show an excess. So, there is information about how to deal with this. How have dietary changes contributed to this imbalance and what can be done to help restore the balance?

http://www.earthclinic.com/cures/excitotoxicity.html - Excitotoxicity, well, well, well, magnesium deficiency is showing up here. So is the guy who claims he cured/halted his ALS with coconut oil and magnesium chloride really a quack? This is too important, so here's important information to keep front and center:

Magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids and selenium assist the normal bodily functions and maintain effective levels of glutamate receptors. Likewise, red clover, zinc, milk thistle, curcumin, taurine, vitamins B1 and B6, vitamin C and vitamin E eliminate toxins in the body and support overall health, also supporting the appropriate production of glutamates. Avoiding aspartame and MSG is also important for maintaining appropriate levels of glutamate and avoiding excitotoxicity.

http://www.ericiswinning.com/book.html - If heavy metal toxicity is part of this disease, well, chelation therapy is necessary.

http://neurotransporter.org/glutamate.html - Seeing how glutamate is implicated in this disease, learning more about glutamate is essential.

http://www.foodinsight.org/Everything_You_Need_To_Know_About_Glutamate_And_Monosodium_Glutamate - This one is complicated to understand.  Glutamate is part of the building blocks of our DNA so our body has tons of it.  Tomatoes are high in glutamates, so for now they should be avoided, but what comes to question is whether that makes a difference when you consider the body manufactures glutamate, far more then we get from diet.  Something else has to be affecting this balance.

http://www.cancertutor.com/budwig/ - Oils keep showing up so this flaxseed and cottage cheese is something to try.

http://www.drperlmutter.com/study/a-ketogenic-diet-as-a-potential-novel-therapeutic-intervention-in-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis/ -  This is simply important.  More information is needed on ketogenic diet.  Mitochondria activity is important and mitochondria are becoming more and more implicated in deficiencies in them in terms of disease.  Terry Wahls "Minding your Mitochondria" is a must watch for anyone with a neurological disease issue.

http://naturalcuresnotmedicine.com/man-reversed-als-lou-gehrigs-disease-symptoms-coconut-oil%e2%80%8f/ - What did they say about coconut oil?  Smear the body with it, it smells good and makes your skin soft.

http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/deanna-protocol-offers-nutritional-program-to-slow-or-stop-als/ - The Deanna Protocol, nutrition to slow it down, point of note, Ginkgo Biloba 120 mg daily Protects against glutamate excitotoxicity.

http://www.baar.com/atk_rept.htm - claims for cures, this needs to be reviewed more closely for information.

http://in5d.com/the-causes-of-illness-according-to-edgar-cayce/ - This is about raising the body's energy to heal itself, it needs to be read, and applied.

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/03/25/why-were-all-deficient-in-magnesium-the-many-signs-what-to-do/ - Magnesium is just a no brainer, supplementing twice per day with this one is a must.

http://prod.max.com/cellgevity/full/us/en - glyconutrients could be important, here's a link to a supplement which is supposed to be healing at the cellular level, and then this is one about getting those supplements more cost effectively, http://www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=1781126

Then there's the forums, people's experiences and advice is important to consider:

http://www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=2015252 - chetlation again...

http://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1903226#i - acupuncture?  I know nothing about this.

http://www.winningthefight.org/t/History - well, seek and you will learn more, this is history of the Deanna Protocol, it certainly raises its profile for me.

http://www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=1891833&s=1#i1 - the NP001 trial, a drug to watch.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304818404577345953943484054 - news on NP001

http://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=2142503#i - sodium chlorite is short lived, causes other problems.

http://www.curezone.org/forums/am.asp?i=2054842 - Advice on what to do based on losing a loved one.

Ok, so next step is to look at what the plan should be for now.  So far coconut oil, flaxseed and cottage cheese and magnesium are starting points.  I know I saw something somewhere that indicated jucing carrots and sweet potatoes would be a good thing but I didn't notice that information in my quick review of these links and I really want the "why" of that advice, so I will need to seek that information out again as I think juicing these and somehow getting them in the diet daily would also be a good thing.

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