Getting started on the anti-pathogen approach to ALS

The cluster data from Guam on ALS shows the disease is linked to toxic cyanobacteria.  Mounting other evidence links the disease to viral response.  Additionally, there are links to fungal infections where they don't belong with ALS.  Even Lyme disease has strong links with ALS.

Both the cyanobacteria and Lyme disease play out with the same kind progressive loss of motor function it leaves the question as to whether the high levels of viral and fungal infections found in ALS patients are also producing toxins that follow the same disease pathway.  Additionally, it is known with ALS that the immune system appears to working overtime.

So, given these common links in ALS patients, it makes sense to fight back against this disease with an anti-pathogen approach, help the immune system that is working overtime to fight back.  This is the approach my sister has taken to fighting ALS and in 4 weeks she noticed feeling at the back of her mouth and in 8 weeks she was able to clear food from the top of her mouth with her tongue for the first time in 8 months.

Alternate energy

By the time ALS symptoms show up mitochondria and ATP production is damaged, so the first life extending move is to secure alternate energy through ketosis, which is oil metabolism.  Coconut oil has medium chain triglycerides that are also anti-bacterial making them an idea source of alternate energy that also help to fight pathogens.  Coconut oil sometimes requires time to adjust to consuming it.  Start with just a teaspoon.  If there is intestinal distress, wait until the next day to consume more, other wise have a teaspoon at each meal.  It may only take 2-3 days to work up to 3-6 tablespoons per day, and it may take up to two weeks for the body to adjust.

Coconut oil is also good to rub into skin to help with muscle cramping and spasms and the MCT are also absorbed through the skin.

Reduce inflammation

Processed and refined oils are inflammatory so they need to be avoided.  Processed foods tend to be inflammatory, so they need to be avoided.  Inflammation in the gut is linked to poor nutrient absorption and this is an extremely serious problem with ALS.

Glutamate toxicity

Glutamate is involved in the process that leads to neuron death.  The body releases glutamate as a protective mechanism to keep neurons firing, however, food additives have increase the concentration of glutamate in the blood to the range to 20-50 times of what we evolved with.  The blood brain barrier offers considerable protection in controlling all of this excess glutamate from reaching the brain, however, once the brain is diseased or injured, the blood brain barrier fails to regulate glutamate and over excitation of neurons is believed to be a mechanism in neuron death.  Glutamate and other compounds that over excite neurons to the point of death are called excitotoxins.  With ALS excitotoxins are about 100 times more damaging than when the blood brain barrier was doing its job.  Excitotoxins are found in almost all store bought dressings and salad dressing, HP sauce, barbecue sauce, etc., low fat foods, and most processed foods.  Excitotoxins need to be removed from the diet.

Anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal foods and herbs

Ginger is has anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties, but it is also anti-inflammatory, which is extremely good for the digestive track.  ALS patients have huge problems with inflammation in the digestive track, which is related to poor absorption of nutrients.  Have a piece of ginger the size of your thumb twice per day.  It can go into a smoothie, or it can be grated and served with half of a fresh squeezed lemon in water.

Turmeric has anti-bacterial, anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.  It can be used as seasoning for vegetables or added to salad dressing or get the actual turmeric root and add some to a smoothie, but first time users be aware that it stains.

Garlic is anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and rich in selenium, which is important for liver function.  Garlic can be crushed into homemade salad dressing, with 1 tbs cold pressed olive oil, 1 tbs cold pressed flax seed oil and apple cider vinegar.  Use herbs like parsley and rosemary to further up your food choices with healing properties.  Healing properties are lost with cooking.  It can also be mixed in hummus.

Other foods/herbs with healing properties to choose from:

• onions
• cabbage
• rosemary
• cilantro (extremely good for liver as well)
• cloves
• cinnamon
• oregano
• marjoram
• sage
• thyme

Usnea is a very powerful herb and is made into a tincture for use.  It has strong anti-microbe and anti-inflammatory properties.  It has precautions for the liver if taken orally.  My sister takes it orally despite the liver concerns.  She was told to take 1 ml 3 times per day but she takes 1/2 ml 2x per day.

Raw honey is anti-bacterial as well, but sugars should be avoided as much as possible.  Never heat the raw honey or the anti-bacterial properties are destroyed.  Use raw honey sparingly if sweetening is needed but try and limit to no more than a tablespoon per day.

Balance Omega 6:3 Ratio

Eliminate all refined oils, soybean, corn, canola, sunflower, safflower and especially cottonseed oil.  Eliminating these oils goes a long way towards balancing your omega 6:3 ratio.  Mixing equal amounts of olive oil with flax seed oil keeps these oils relatively balanced.  Add a supplement of krill oil to up the omega 3 oils and they are balanced.

Supplements

Magnesium is involved in thousands of processes in the body and a deficiency starts to show up with muscle cramping.  The ReMag pico magnesium is absorbed the best.

Probiotics are essential at every meal.  The gut if full of bacteria and you want to constantly encourage and protect the growth of good bacteria in your gut.  The anti-microbe foods and herbs can also reduce the population of good microbes, so they need to be replaced and over crowd the bad microbes.  Fermented foods contain large amounts of probiotics, but you can kill off bad pathogens too fast and they release toxins as they are killed off.  Fermented foods can be added after a couple weeks of taking probiotics.  Fermented foods include things like live culture sourkraut or kefir.

GABA has a calming effect in the brain and foods that are good precursors for GABA include cabbage, raw spinach, kale, parsley, beans, beets, carrots, brussels sprouts, and wild salmon.  Eating precursor foods ensures a continuous supply of GABA.

There are many recommendations for vitamins, D3, C, E, B complex.  There is also a very good write up on an approach to ALS that lists the "pile of pills."  These need to be evaluated on an individual basis.

Eat According to the Wahls Protocol

Dr Terry Wahls was fully in a wheel chair for MS and she reversed her MS to become an active person again through the diet she developed by looking at the what the mitochondria need to work properly.  With ALS the mitochondria are very broken, so the diet has the proper nutrition to fix the mitochondria.

Summary

1. Consume 3-6 tablespoons of coconut oil per day.  Avoid all processed oils.
2. Remove MSG and hidden forms of MSG.
3. Have thumb sized piece of ginger 2x per day.
4. Have 750 mg of turmeric per day.
5. Have garlic 1-3 cloves of garlic 2x per day.
6. Take usnea 2x per day (liver precaution)
7. Avoid sugars and processed foods.
8. Take 500 mg Krill oil/day
9. Take 500 mg of Magnesium 2x per day, or 1 tsp 2x day of ReMag
10. Take probiotics with every meal
11. GABA 250 mg 2x/day
12. Take vitamins, 5000 IU vitamin D3
13. 1000 mg Vitamin C
14. 1000 mg Vitamin E
15. Take B vitamins
16. Watch "Minding your Mitochondria," for an overview of how to eat.

For the next step, in order to get doctors to assist you, you need to work on a complete medical history.

March 10, 2016: Urgent edit -- Avoid anything and everything fortified with iron.

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Adaptogens - Stress Reducers

Adaptogens help stress, are immune-stimulating and increase a sense of well-being.  In Russia the study of adaptogens is a field of biomedical research.  Adaptogens for improving immune response are astragalus, echinacea, ashwagandha and milk thistle, which is also good for the liver.

Medicine Hunter describes adaptogens as non-toxic with broad uses for health that reduce stress.  Other adaptogens described are eleuthero, holy basil, maca, panax ginseng, rhodiola rosea and schisandra.

Adaptogens have been used in Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. http://www.drfranklipman.com/adaptogens-natures-miracle-anti-stress-and-fatigue-fighters/

http://www.chiro.org/nutrition/FULL/Adaptogenic_Herbs.shtml

Ashwagandha has claim to a very wide range of health benefits, including:

• immunity
• aphrodisiac
• adaptogen
• for insomnia
• heart health
• stress reliever
• regeneration of axons and dendrites of nerve cells
• anxiety
• antioxidants
• anti-inflammatory
• cancer inhibitation
• antibacterial and antifungal
• blood sugar regulation
• food poisoning protection
• strength and vigor
• fight aging
• heals wounds
• treats dry skin
• reduces cortisol
• stimulates collagen
• can be used as skin toner
• fights inflammation of the skin
• promotes hair health
• prevents premature greying
• activates hair follicles

It has been found to be useful for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease and things that help those disease are also more likely to be helpful for ALS.

Heating releases more of its healing power so having it as a tea is better than as a smoothie.

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Oils in Diet

Oils are calorie-dense and as such can rapidly increase the calorie content for any food. So which oils have properties that are helpful and properties that aren't helpful?  And then, what is helpful and what isn't?

Oils that cause inflammation are not helpful.  Inflammation is the body's natural response to help it heal, so what is the body healing from when we consume an oil that causes inflammation?  No idea, but if we are consuming oils that cause inflammation daily we can be putting the body into a chronically inflamed state.  If the gut is inflamed absorption of nutrients is affected and ALS patients have huge, huge, huge nutrient absorption issues.  The body's ability to get rid of toxins through the liver is compromised, and toxic overload in the liver compromises mitochondria function and in ALS there's a problem with the mitochondria.

This article, http://authoritynutrition.com/6-reasons-why-vegetable-oils-are-toxic/, gives 6 reasons to not consume processed seed oils like soybean oil, sunflower oil, corn oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil, and safflower oil, and inflammation is one of them.  The six reasons are: 1) unnatural in large amounts, 2) mess up fatty acid composition of the body, 3) inflammation, 4) loaded with trans fat, 5) increased risk of cardivascular disease, 6) associated with other diseases.

The omega 6/omega 3 ratio is also affected by oil choices.  The importance of the omega6/omega 3 ratio, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12442909, can not be understated.  ALS is an autoimmune disease and a high ratio helps to promote autoimmune diseases.  Inflammation compromises nutrient absorption, and there is inflammation with a high omega 6/omega 3 ratio.  An omega6/omega3 ratio of 2/1 or 3/1 suppresses inflammation.  Dig deeper, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2835780/, and you can find that inflammation is also associated with protein catabolism, which is muscle tissue breakdown, another huge problem with ALS.

Coconut oil has a high concentration of medium-chain triglycerides.  With ALS, the mitochondria are not working properly and are not properly delivering energy to the cells, a part of the process that is leading to cell death.  These medium-length triglycerides provide energy that cells can use through the ketosis process.  Coconut oil also has other benefits (http://www.antiaginganswers.net/healthyfats.html):

Approximately 50% of the fatty acids in coconut fat are lauric acide. Lauric acid is a medium-chain fatty acid, which has the additional beneficial function of being formed into monolaurin in the human or animal body. Monolaurin is the anti-viral, antibacterial, and antiprotozoal monoglyceride used by the muman or animal to destroy lipid coated viruses such as HIV, herpes, cytomegalovirus, influenza, various pathogenic bacteria including Listeria monocytogenes and Heliobacter pylori, and protozoa such as Giaradia lambia. Some studies have also shown some antimicrobial effects of the free lauric acid.

Immunity boosting is an added benefit of coconut oil.

Olive oil's omega 6/omega3 ratio is an unfavourable 13:1, but it actually has anti-inflammatory properties because of other components in it. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21443487.  You need both kinds of fatty acids, it is just the more 6s you have the more 3s you need to balance them.

Oils to avoid - omega 6:3

• soybean oil  - 6:1 
• sunflower oil - no omega 3
• corn oil - no omega 3
• canola oil - 2.5:1
• cottonseed oil - no omega 3
• safflower oil - no omega 3

Oils to consider

• coconut oil - no omega 3
• flaxseed oil - 0.3:1
• olive oil - 13:1

Walnuts are the highest omega 3 nut, and krill is the best source of omega 3.

All articles are a work in progress and are advisory for the reasons given.  Everyone should do their own research to verify or refute and make their own decisions about whether they think it is helpful or not.

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Glutathione System

Glutathione is your body's strongest anti-oxidant.  It is also your strongest detoxification molecule and your protein repair.  It is very import to protect your proteins from oxidative attack.

There are 3 phases to the human detoxification system:

1. activation
2. conjugation
3. transport

Transport has only recently been understood.  These are active transporters that discard the toxin that was changed through the activation and conjugation process.

Glutathione S-transferases have low expression in people with high methylmercury and sensitive to ethylmercury, compromising the ability to remove the toxin metals from the body.

All of your toxin leave the body through the same "door."  So, if your "doors" aren't working properly the body holds onto mercury, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons, pcps, etc., and a huge toxin problem.

The biggest reason the transport system breaks down is inflammation, especially in the gut.

Some ways the system breaks:

• Not enough glutathione (can't make it or don't eat of it)
• A methylation disfunction
• Environmental exposures that cause oxidative consumption (use it up faster that you restore it)
• Environmental inflammation which turns down your synthesis

Genetic disorders can cause increased anemia, cognitive impairment, bladder cancer.  Genetics determine why some people are very debilitated by mercury and some people aren't.

Challenge Tests for measuring body burden for exposure to mercury do not really do that.

Liver is so important, it is worth the time to watch the 3 hours of videos in this post on how to detoxify for mercury.  The pathways to detoxifying are the same for biological toxins.


Food sources of glutathione says:

Milk thistle is an excellent source of the antioxidant compound silymarin. Silyarmin helps to prevent the depletion of glutathione in the liver. Glutathione is necessary for the liver to detoxify harmful substances. If the liver is damaged, glutathione concentrations are substantially reduced. In turn, the liver becomes more susceptible to further damage, making glutathione a vital element in the health of the liver. Cumin also has the ability to increase glutathione tissue levels. Cumin acts as a binding agent, elevating glutamate-cysteine complexes during gene expression.

Processing and cooking fruits and vegetables destroys glutathione.  The best sources are asparagus, potatoes, peppers, carrots, onion, broccoli, avocados, squash, spinach, garlic, tomatoes, grapefruit, apples, oranges, peaches bananas and melon.

Selenium is an important co-factor for the enzyme form of glutathione. Cereals, oats, Brazil nuts, walnuts, legumes, tuna, beef, poultry, cheese, eggs will help promote the production of glutathione.

Alpha lipoic acid, or ALA, promotes the synthesis of glutathione. Foods rich in alpha lipoic acid include: spinach, tomatoes, peas, Brussels sprouts, rice bran and mayonnaise. Eating these foods increases the bioavailability of this important antioxidant.

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Viral response problem in ALS - holistic whole body approach

This study, Mount Sinai Researchers establish link between ALS and the body's response to viral infection, is showing a faulty response to a viral infection which they say:

Findings from this new research study indicate that specific genetic alterations make senataxin less capable of moderating the inflammatory response to particular pathogens, which can lead to persistent inflammation and disease progression.

This is fitting with my theory of the disease, which is that it is a pathogen that sets it off.

So, a holistic whole body approach would need to include a diet that does the following:

Heals mitochondria

Detoxifies the liver

Contains foods with anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties

Reduces inflammation

At the same time, excitotoxins need to be removed from the diet. When the brain is injured it is 100 times more sensitive to excitotoxins, so it is especially important to remove excitotoxins.  Foods with excitotoxins include:

• Glutamic Acid
• MSG
• Anything glutmate (Monopotassium glutamate, magnesium diglutamate, etc)
• Hydrolyzed anything, (Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed soy protein, etc)
• Vegetable protein
• Textured protein
• Plant protein
• Autolyzed anything (Autolyzed plant protein, autolyzed yeast extract, etc)
• Yeast extract
• Malt extract
• Soy Sauce Extract
• Yeast nutrient
• Caseinate
• Carrageenan
• Aspartame
• Sodium Cyclamate
• Nutrasweet
• Broth
• Stock

Exceptionally high excitotoxin foods are:

• gravies, salad dressings (especially diet)
• soups (Campbell's is the worst)
• diet foods and drinks
• liquid amino acid preparations 

Foods with anti-bacterial properties can be found here.  Foods with anti-viral properties can be found here.  Finally, anti-inflammatory foods can be found here.

Then there are supplements to help.

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The Complexity of ALS

Mechanisms need to be reviewed.

According to Russell in clinical pharmacology the most common

The most common disease-causing mutation occurs in the superoxide dismutase (SOD1) gene, although other mutations have been identified^[6]. The dysfunctional SOD1 enzyme forms a complex with copper and zinc ions within the mitochondria, leading to protein unfolding and aggregation. This accumulation disrupts the mitochondrial membrane potential and acts as a catalyst for further mitochondrial dysfunction. Cellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) production is decreased and calcium homeostasis is disturbed, triggering apoptosis and leading to cell death^[7].

So, the calcium/zinc balance need to be looked at.  How does diet affect those.  Is it better to increase calcium and reduce zinc, or the opposite.  Something as simple as this is probably not monitored at all, is probably easy to have huge ranges in various patients and can probably change outcomes dramatically.  So, a patient could be trying something that worked for someone else and another finds it makes no difference.

There are so many different checks and balances taking changing that place in this disease.

My thoughts on the best treatment option at this point is to have a team and that team needs to include a biochemist, a pharmacist, an ALS neurologist, a dietitian, a homeopath, a herbalist, a botanist, a heptologist, a nephrologist, a hematologist, a cytologist, immuologist, someone with expertise in histamines and maybe a few others with expertise.  This is just what comes to mind thinking about this based on the research that I've done in the past 10 days.

What I see happening in the literature is one piece being studied at a time, and I think a bigger and broader view of all of the mechanisms and inter-relations need to be worked on.  These mechanisms are broken and so diet is critical and can dramatically change perceptions of what is working.  I had a thought, which I forgot, but where that thought led me is to Dr Joneja, and her site, the low histamine chef, and that particular link has something about cell methylation, which I've already blogged about.  There is also references to DAO all over this site, which I've come across in my reading to learn about ALS, so that mechanism needs to be looked at in diet as well.

Even comments on some of these sites are useful, for example:

"folic acid, which is synthetic, and can block methylation. Methylfolate (Metafolin, Folapro) or Folinic acid," and methylation is important here."

There are even links in a discussion about depression.  This article links to this guest editorial about Decreased Mitochondrial Function and Increased Brain Inflammation in BipolarDisorder and Other Neuropsychiatric Diseases.  It makes reference to the lack of understand as to how various brain inflammation disorders show up in a whole range of problems, from speech impairments to MS, etc., and the cruncher:

0 In fact, mitochondrial DNA was shown to be secreted from neuroblastoma cells inside membrane-enclosed exosomes.21 All these findings, taken together, may constitute a ‘‘triple jeopardy’’ for the brain: (a) decreased mitochondrial ATP production, (b) further reduction by diversion of ATP to support proinflammatory, and (c) extracellular ATP and mitochondrial DNA release, which can stimulate autoimmune/autoinflammatory reactions

This study, Gliotoxicity of the cyanotoxin, β-methyl-amino-alanine (BMAA), looks at a number of the mechanisms from BMAA, and has huge supporting evidence of the mechanism of ALS.

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