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Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#91

Post by andy_ppp »

beggi wrote: post #83
randomstudent wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apparently at the current moment the best is to keep your PH value in the body neutral. It's particularly important to prevent "acidity" If you're talking about a neutral pH as in pH = 7.0 (the usual accepted definition of neutral), these claims are contradictory. The pH of the human blood is usually between 7.35 and 7.45. This is usually way less acicic than the neutral pH of 7.0. Furthermore, a pH of 7 is usually…

I second the fact that this is crackpot-level science - you can basically only change the acidity of your urine with dietary modifications - not your blood. Btw changing the PH value of your body thing is endorsed by various charlatans for all kinds of stuff - from curing the flu to cancer.

Hmmm, a brief search reveals this; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/

I'm not really equipped to review, but it does make some interesting points that while the body strongly maintains blood PH of between 7.35 and 7.45 the mechanisms of doing this can cause more stress on other systems in the body depending on your diet. It's also interesting that we used to have pre agriculture a 10:1 rather than a 1:3 K:Na balance.

Anyway, the article is an interesting read - maybe supply some counter evidence that Alkaline diets have zero supporting evidence.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#92

Post by micheljones »

philipps wrote: post #84
micheljones wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or alternatively, go on keto diet - 60-70% fat (mostly animal and milk fat), 20-30% protein, 5-10% carbs. Make sure to increase your electrolyte and fiber intake to account for lower intake of those through the diet.

A few colleagues at work recently started their keto diets (primarily in order to lose weight). I am interested in gut health and looked at some of the background materials I could find. It seems reasonable that the body can switch its energy source to fat, but the (long term) effects on overall health seem to be poorly studied/ understood.

I vouch for it based on my personal experience - I suffered from a serious and untreatable autoimmune disorder (of thyroid, not directly of gut), and the only 'treatment' proposed by doctors was to cut out my thyroid and make me dependant on taking thyroid hormones orally for the rest of my life.

I refused, did some research on my own, and went on keto. My thyroid bloodwork is back to normal and I have no symptoms. And I feel much 'healthier' and more 'energetic' than before all this as well.

I am not proposing keto diet as a magical cure-for-all, but as a possible venue that should be tried before being forced to undergo irreversible surgical procedures for example.

P.S. body does not 'switch' the energy source to fat, it increases the production of ketones as result of interrupted Krebs cycle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle ) because oxaloacetate gets rerouted for use in gluconeogenesis (creating glucose for brain's needs), because there's not enough glucose in diet. This interruption causes the buildup of the main source for Kreb's cycle, acetyl-COA, which is then converted to acetoacetate (a ketone), which is then also partially converted to acetone and beta-hydroxybutyrate (also ketones). Of these, body uses acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate as fuel. Body is always able to use them, it's just that there's not enough of them to use if you're not on carb-restricted diet, so body defaults to using glucose as fuel.

Like you say, long-term effects of keto are poorly studied, mostly because of two reasons: early keto hype as an effective seizure treatment died out once we got good enough chemical seizure treatments, and there was a lot of money poured into blaming fat intake for negative health effects of increased carb intake from the 50ies (starting with Ancel Keys), and picking up significantly in 70ies.

There are animal studies that demonstrate increased longevity of animals on keto diet, similar to calorie restriction and strict veganism. While the calorie restriction and strict veganism most likely work through lowered intake of methionine (an essential aminoacid which functions as START coding block for protein synthesis, meaning that with lowered methionine intake your body creates protein at lowered rate and renews itself more slowly), keto achieves that through effectively tricking the body to go into 'starvation mode' i.e. the mode of using own fat reserves while the actual fat source is the diet.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#94

Post by rocqua »

Mz wrote: post #21
rocqua wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked into both of those researchers. I could find nothing published by them with regards to MS. They do both seem to have published on Lyme disease. Can you provide any published research to back those youtube videos? Maybe I'm wrong here, but this feels like giving medical advice based on very little hard evidence. Considering I have a loved one with MS, I find such advice sickening. You see this with many termi…

Making such claims lightly is (excuse my language) being a fucking asshole. (I know, harsh words. But I needed to get this off my chest) Taking this out on someone with carefully worded suggestions that only advocate testing is also "being a fucking asshole." Because very frequently the people putting out such info are giving testimony from firsthand experience because they know firsthand what a fucking nightmare it…

I agree that I might be a fucking asshole here, but those sharing anecdotal 'it helped for me' stories aren't helping. They are the exception, their advice still isn't based on verified science and therefor unlikely to work someone else.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#95

Post by Gatsky »

_of wrote: post #89
Gatsky wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. My point is also that the tools are imperfect, particularly when it comes to generating useful insights, as opposed to just correlations.

If your tools don't generate useful insights, then you are not using them right. A properly designed study, employing high-dimensional genomics data, can for sure generate mechanistic insights, not just correlations. It's all about your study design.

Some tools will never give you useful insights because they have inherent limitations, or the model being studied doesn't lend itself to an informative study design. Results get published anyway. Which is fine. My point was that many high throughput studies do not materially contribute to the advancement of knowledge. This is entirely compatible with your point that well designed high throughput studies can contribute.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#96

Post by mhkool »

BrandiATMuhkuh wrote: post #71

My wife was recently diagnosed with MS. Luckily she studied biochemistry and is now a data scientists. She spoke immediately with a professional nutritionist at the hospital. Apparently at the current moment the best is to keep your PH value in the body neutral. It's particularly important to prevent "acidity". Which is not easy as a lot of food we eat is acidic. The reason why you want to not be acidic is: MS causes…

I suggest to research the Wahls protocol. Prof Terry Wahls was in a wheelchair with MS and cured herself. Now she is heading a department at a hospital where patients are cured of MS.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#97

Post by mhkool »

shanev wrote: post #39
colordrops wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small amounts of animal protein and lots of raw greens and vegetables, tubers and roots. Everything else is extra. Be careful though about making any specific recommendations here or else someone with a different idea will attack you for not backing it up with scientific data. Because you shouldn't try to figure out what to eat until you get a PhD.

What’s the value in raw vs cooked vegetables? I thought cooking makes their nutrients more bio-available. Do you really eat tubers raw? I can't imagine eating a potato raw. Our ancestors even always cooked them.

juicing makes nutrients in vegetables more bio-available. Cooking destroys vitamins.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#98

Post by _0w8t »

BurningFrog wrote: post #46
shanev wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the value in raw vs cooked vegetables? I thought cooking makes their nutrients more bio-available. Do you really eat tubers raw? I can't imagine eating a potato raw. Our ancestors even always cooked them.

Yeah, this books makes the case against raw diets very well: https://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/0... That's the thing with diets. There is a real well reasoned argument for and against most anything...

Does the book really present evidence that a raw diet is worse for human health than cooked food? From the table of content and introduction it seems to present a strong case that cooking affected human evolution. But that does not mean that it made humans healthier. For example, cooking could have made long-term health worse, but other benefits coming from increased food availability and shortening time to get it outweighed that.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#99

Post by randomstudent »

andy_ppp wrote: post #91
beggi wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the fact that this is crackpot-level science - you can basically only change the acidity of your urine with dietary modifications - not your blood. Btw changing the PH value of your body thing is endorsed by various charlatans for all kinds of stuff - from curing the flu to cancer.

Hmmm, a brief search reveals this; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195546/ I'm not really equipped to review, but it does make some interesting points that while the body strongly maintains blood PH of between 7.35 and 7.45 the mechanisms of doing this can cause more stress on other systems in the body depending on your diet. It's also interesting that we used to have pre agriculture a 10:1 rather than…

The K:Na balance is very interesting, especially because pre-agriculture societies usually have very low levels of hypertension, and this is probably the cause. Na+ and K+ balance does have something to do with acid-base regulation, because of urinary excretion of HCO3- and H+, but the benefits of a low sodium diet seem to be related to hypertension and not to acid-base regulation.

I haven't read the study, and I don't want to claim that Alkaline diets have zero supporting evidence. I just wanted to argue against the claim that your pH is "too acidic" or "too alkaline" or whatever. Any potential benefits of an alkaline diet are surely independent of the pH variation they induce, because the variation will be close to 0 in any case, if your body's working properly. The stress hypothesis is interesting (I'm not saying it's even remotely correct! only that it's an interesting twist on the crackpot claims I've heard elsewhere), but you'll never be able to gauge how stressed your regulation mechanisms are just by measuring the blood's pH. You'll have to find some upstream biomarker that measures "stress" directly.

Re: Gut Germs Appear to Play Role in Multiple Sclerosis

#100

Post by saiya-jin »

rednerrus wrote: post #14
jryan49 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of changes? I have a hard time searching google about gut health without feeling like none of it's scientific, and all a scam for advertising or selling products.

Get more fiber in your diet. Eat more vegetables. Eat less sugar and processed foods.

if all humans on earth heeded this advice, hospitals would be half-empty and health insurance systems would be in massive surpluses.
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