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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What about the winners?

There are people out there that say they have cured, slowed down, and/or reversed some of their ALS.  So, time to have a look.

Kim Cherry tells his story of how he reversed his ALS.  He had/has the bulbar ALS.  This is where he says his first break in the disease came,

Doctor Jared Nielsen specializes in neurological issues, and had really helped a niece’s husband after a severe head injury. Doctor Nielsen determined I had a gluten sensitivity, mercury poisoning, and some issues with fungus. He recommended a protocol that included a gluten free diet, and supplements.  Much of the protocol included in the theories of Dr. David Perlmutter, a neurologist out of Florida.

He did not immediately notice a benefit, but was noticing improvements roughly 6 weeks later.

I looked at the site further and found a checklist of where to start, http://www.alswinners.com/start-up-check-list.html.

Then there is the supplement list.  Kim Cherry's story is worth following and learning about.

Then there is Eric Edney who developed the simple strategy of where Cherry started:

Step1:  Stop the progression of the disease by eliminating toxins and clearing toxins from the body, and
Step 2: Restore the body through proper nutrition and exercise.

Eric's plan is here.

Cherry feels that he got better results with his program which also included oxygen therapy.  The oxygen therapy is something I am not familiar with.  Cherry believed in the therapy enough to invest $25k in it.  His results are impressive.

I love this guy's story, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh8k32VsxLA

And there there is Steven Shackel and he has been putting together information for years.

And then Dr Craig Oster graduated from hospice in 2008 and he's been rebuilding muscle and strength.  He has an incredible team of advisers on his site.

Others are listed in the healing chronicles.

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Reading a courageous woman's blog, learned about Spirochetes.

I have been reading Stacy Neild's blog.  She started it right before she found out she had a motor neuron disease.

So, what I've been reading in the literature is that there is liver disease that tends to go with ALS, and reading Stacy's blog, this is what was found in her journey.

The first few days of our treatment focused on detoxification of Stacy's body, with extra attention on her liver. It was also a time of testing - blood, excretions and lung function.Some results from this time are:-Stacy's Liver is not able to keep up with its filtering job, so her red blood cells and her plasma have accumulated various imperfections.-She has some small tube like bacteria in her blood called spirochetes. These are linked to a range of diseases - fire up google if you are keen. -Her immune system is not functioning effectively. In some aspects it is not reacting to destroy antigens as it should, and in other situation it is hyper sensitive to some antigens and is over reacting and wearing itself out creating a response.

So, then I looked up spirochetes and I found:

Spirochetes disease: Infection with a type of bacteria which is often found in mud, sewage and polluted water. Symptoms are determined by the species involved. Diseases caused by this bacteria include Treponema infection and borreliosis. More detailed information about thesymptoms, causes, and treatments of Spirochetes disease is available below.

Last year at the lake house the water tower broke and there was also a problem with the sewage that Norma and Jay were working on.  We were up the July long weekend helping to raise the new water tower, but Norma and Jay were dealing with issues around that for a while before that.  Another connection?

Apr 5 Update:

More on microbes as a source.  Was Lou Gehrig's disease caused by tap water?  There is a lot of information about beta-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), which is a toxin causes by these algea blooms. 

Wiki is also a great source of information, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta-Methylamino-L-alanine.

This is a huge discussion about cyanobacterias.

Trying to measure this stuff.

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