Decaf coffee, celeriac, shop bought beef
Ever since my partner came back from abroad he’s been waking me with a cup of decaf coffee in the morning. Sweet as it is, it hasn’t been doing my face any good. I’ve been having minor flare-ups in the morning which have confounded my vitamin experiments.
Decaf coffee is supposed to be allowed on the elimination diet, but when I looked it up in the salicylate list, it turns out it’s in the “moderate” column. I reacted to mango, which means it’s not surprising I’ve reacted to decaf coffee.
Shop bought beef is something else I definitely react to. I’m fine with the organic beef we buy from our local farm, but I’ve no idea how long the shop bought stuff has been hanging around in a vacuum pack. I react with a bit of a flare up of the skin, accompanied by a very hungry sensation in my stomach.
Speaking of which, we also tried some celeriac this week. There’s no information on the amine/salicylate content of celeriac. It’s a member of the celery family, which is allowed. I thought it would be worth a try. I reacted with serious hunger pangs a couple of hours after eating it. I already knew this: every time I’ve had it in the past I’ve reacted with abnormal hunger for the amount of carbs involved, and blamed it on “something in the celeriac”.
I’d be willing to bet money that the “something” in celeriac, shop bought beef, and bananas (bananas also make me abnormally hungry), is serotonin or histamine.
List of methyl donors
Here’s a list of methyl donors. There may be more I haven’t found yet.
- Methionine (amino acid)
- Taurine (amino acid containing methionine and cysteine)
- SAM or SAMe (s-adenosyl-l-methionine)
- TMG and DMG (trimethylglycine & dimethylglycine or betaine/choline) a methylated amino acid
- Methylcobalamin (Methyl-B12) a methylated form of vitamin B12
- Alcohol
- Acetic acid (vinegar)
- Acetone
- MSM (methyl sulfonyl methane)*
*Some say this “may” be a methyl donor. Looking at some of the stories of autism cases that have seen results, I’d say it absolutely is.
There are at least two separate pathways to methylation:
- B12/folic acid pathway
- TMG to choline pathway
How the other methyl donors work or affect these pathways is unknown to me as yet. If methylation helps, it seems wise to tackle from both pathways at once in case one is deficient. Tests to see which pathway is most effective should also be carried out.
Histamine intolerance and diamine oxidase deficiency
I’ve had another look through the Allergy Dietician site and found a couple of interesting references:
Diamine oxidase deficiency. DAO is responsible for the removal of histamine from the body. It requires sufficient vitamin B6, C intakes and can be inhibited by some food additives. Food Intolerance Reactions
Histamine and alcohol both share the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase at a stage of their metabolism. [...] Intestinal bacteria produce histamine and levels rise when excessive amounts of starchy foods and carbohydrates are consumed by people with low levels of diamine oxidase. Histamine Intolerance
Calculate your BMR/RMR and laugh
I calculated my BMR/RMR with this calculator and laughed at the results.
Sex: F
Age: 30
Height: 5′ 2″
Weight: 122 lbs
BMR 1,335
RMR 1,227
“As BMR and RMR only represent resting energy expenditure or calories burned during a day of rest, an adjustment must be made to reflect activity level. This can be done by multiplying your BMR and RMR by an activity factor:”
| Factor | Category | BMR | RMR |
| 1.2 | Bed Rest | 1,602 | 1,472 |
| 1.3 | Sedentary | 1,736 | 1,595 |
| 1.4 | Active | 1,869 | 1,718 |
| 1.5 | Very Active | 2,003 | 1,841 |
It bears very little relation to the figures I use to maintain and lose weight. My metabolism is like an elastic band: I maintain on 2,000 kcals a day, and only lose a pound a week on 1,000-1,200 kcals a day, despite being active.
Hangovers, asians and aldehyde dehydrogenase
OBJECTIVE: Hangovers are not experienced by all people and whether they contribute to the development of alcoholism is unclear. One population that might provide some insight into the role of hangover in the etiology of alcohol use disorders is that of individuals of Asian heritage. Certain Asians have lower rates of alcohol use and alcoholism, findings associated with a mutation in the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) gene. Asians with ALDH2*2 alleles drink less and are less likely to be alcoholic than Asians without this mutation. Following alcohol ingestion, they exhibit more intense reactions to alcohol and generate higher levels of the metabolite acetaldehyde. This study evaluated hangover symptoms in Asian Americans with variations in the ALDH2 gene. METHOD: Men and women of Chinese, Japanese and Korean heritage (N = 140) were asked about their drinking history and a blood sample was collected for genotyping at the ALDH2 locus. Subjects used a Likert-type scale to estimate their severity of hangover and completed a 13-item hangover scale assessing the frequency of hangover symptoms during the previous 6 months. RESULTS: With abstainers (n = 17) excluded and with the effects of gender and recent drinking history controlled, ALDH2 genotype accounted for a significant amount of additional variability in the estimated severity of hangover score with a similar, but nonsignificant, trend for a five-item subscale score derived from the hangover scale. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that Asian Americans with ALDH2*2 alleles may experience more severe hangovers that may contribute, in part, to protection against the development of excessive or problematic drinking in this population. Hangover symptoms in Asian Americans with variations in the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH2) gene.
Could a genetic defect like the one described above be of importance to the failsafers who appear to who have inborn food chemical intolerances, particularly those who react to sulphites? This is a brief listing for all three sulphite enzymes. A sulphite oxidase deficiency is an extremely rare, fatal condition. But what about variations in genes that cause only a reduced capacity to detoxify sulphites? Some people may simply be molybdenum deficient, whereas others may have a polymorphism in their sulphite enzymes.
People genetically predisposed to gout make too much xanthine oxidase. If one makes too much of this stuff, perhaps these people might also make too little aldehyde oxidase or sulphite oxidase, due to limited molybdenum resources?
Calcium magnesium balance and epsom salts
I’m a bit behind on my record of what I’ve eaten. No big deal. I’ve had a couple of transgressions in the last couple of days (cranberry juice one day, half a mango the next). Joan Breakey allows mango in her initial trial diet, but says you should cut it out if you’re extra food sensitive. Today I feel a bit tired, but better after resorting to the bicarb. I’ve also been eating a few red potatoes here and there, which aren’t as clean as white.
I learned a valuable lesson the other day. I’ve been all twitchy and haven’t been eating recently. I have a history of panic attacks late at night. They happen during times of extreme stress or anxiety. There are some things that trigger them. Hypoglycaemia, drinking, caffeine, amines/glutamates etc. If I feel suffocated or I am not getting enough oxygen, it usually leads to panic. They’re also triggered by mineral imbalances. I remember being in a complete state on a couple of previous occasions after either supplementing with magnesium, or suffering mineral loss during the flu. One of my rules was: don’t supplement with calcium or magnesium in isolation because it does bad things. In fact, before I knew about food chemicals, I worked out a connection between feeling downright awful and taking a bath in bath salts or dead sea salts, and I stopped doing it altogether.
Why do I always forget the important stuff? It’s taken me almost a week to catch on to the fact that I’ve been having palpitations, anxiety and twitching ever since I started taking epsom salts and increasing methyl donors last Friday!
I gave my epileptic friend some epsom salts and methylation supplements and then he complained of having a tight chest, pounding heart, and “feeling twitchy,” which really made me freak out. When I eventually realised the connection, I took a hefty dose of calcium, and within an hour my pounding heart had gone away and I got to sleep really easily. It’s funny, because so far every time one of these attacks has occurred, my final resort has been a glass of warm milk, which has worked every time.
Epsom salts (MgSO4) are about 16.6% magnesium and the rest is the sulphate (SO4) molecule, which is only different from sulphite (SO3) by one oxygen atom. I was supplementing by about half a teaspoon a day. The body contains a total of around 25 grams of magnesium. The RDA for magnesium is about 320mg, and I was probably getting more. I suspect epsom salts also contain sulphites as well as sulphate, and sulphites usually give me asthma. I think I have probably thrown my blood-mineral balance out of whack.
When you throw out the mineral balance of your blood, your body compensates by leaching minerals from your bone. Calcium is leached, but this takes time. One clue to a mineral imbalance is painful teeth or a sign of new decay. I have a tiny cavity in one of my back teeth that I’ve been fighting with my high-dairy diet – it goes through bouts of getting better and worse. During the last week, I’ve noticed that it’s started to hurt again.
Calcium and magnesium are regulators and are required in the correct ratios of 2:1 calcium:magnesium. Above around 350mg people can start to experience the effects of excess magnesium, which include relaxation, hypothyroidism, slowing down of the body’s systems, shallow, slow breathing, lethargy, and a weird sleepy/alert state.
I haven’t been supplementing any calcium. I’ve found that I can’t supplement calcium for any length of time because soon enough it starts to hurt the site of my former DVT, and the symptoms are calf swelling and venous pain all up my leg. Calcium is involved in the clotting process. I’m actually perfectly fine even getting my RDA from milk, it seems to be supplementation in isolation from some essential factor (not vitamin A or D but perhaps the Price factor or another factor, maybe vitamin K*) that causes this.
On top of this I haven’t been eating properly as I’ve been very stressed about my epileptic friend. When you don’t eat properly, you increase your GABA levels. GABA is not inflammatory, but it is an amine and one of its effects is to depress respiration and cause shallow breathing, sometimes dangerously so. In large doses it causes anxiety, drowsiness and tingling in the extremities. It is also involved in the production of stomach acid.
I’ve experienced a loss of appetite, without the benefits of any weight loss. I’ve experienced drowsiness and have napped a few times in the day to catch up on what has been missed at night. I’ve experienced some very shallow breathing and feeling like I can’t get enough oxygen. Shallow breathing leads to a lack of oxygen, at which point the body starts to crank up the adrenalin and go into panic mode. Hypnic jerks occur when the body misinterprets extreme relaxation for falling or impending mortality and tries to right itself. No wonder I couldn’t sleep, I was anxious enough in the first place!
Speaking of my epileptic friend, he seems to be doing quite well so far.
* LOL. I wrote this a year before WAPF published their hypothesis that vitamin K is activator X.
Optimal diet ratios and human breast milk
Optimal diet macronutrients ratios are P : F : C = 1 : 3 : 0.8. In one of his books Dr Jan Kwasniewski makes a bizarre comment about how the Optimal Diet ratios match human breast milk and are therefore the ideal ratios for human adults. This has been refuted by numerous somewhat mocking sources who point out that the ratios for human breast milk are quite different to the Optimal Diet ratios.
Everyone has a different ratio for the amount of fat in breast milk. They appear to vary widely between people: the Weston A. Price Foundation quote the stats:
P : F : C = 1 : 9.2 : 6.5
This translates as 4% protein, 82.8% fat, 26% carbohydrate. That’s certainly an optimal amount of fat!
I don’t think Dr K got the message across very well, or perhaps the translation fell down a bit. He talks about the lactose part of the milk as being a “body building” component.
Lactose is composed of glucose and galactose. Galactose is actually an essential sugar that is not used for energy but goes towards building myelin to protect nerves and neurons. This is 13% of the energy in the baby’s diet, leaving 13% as glucose for fuel.
WAPF say: “Human milk contains higher levels of lactose than that of other mammals because of higher requirements for galactose in the development of the more advanced human nervous system and brain.”
Galactose is clearly something that babies need in large quantities, but that adults only need in small quantities.
On top of this, babies have very large brains in comparison with their body size. The brain is one of the few organs that requires glucose, in fact it runs largely on glucose given the choice, so a baby’s glucose need is proportionately higher than an adult’s.
According to this site, a baby’s brain is 13% of its body weight, but by the time the child is a teenager, this has fallen to about 3%, and will fall to 2% as an adult.
This page, says the brain consumes 10x more energy weight for weight than the rest of the body, or 20% of total energy.
If the brain ran solely on glucose, it would consume 100-125 grams of glucose per day in an adult, which is about right because below 100 grams ketones begin to rise significantly in the blood order to fuel the brain. Fortunately the brain runs more efficiently on ketones than glucose!
A growing baby needs around 49 calories per pound of body weight, so a 7 pound baby would need about 350 calories per day. 45.5 kcal of this would come from glucose.
If we were dealing with adult proportions, 20% of total energy (the proportion used by the brain) would equal 70 kcals.
A baby’s brain is 13% of its weight instead of 2%, but only 13% of the baby’s energy comes from glucose compared to the 20% an adult would use if the adults’s brain ran on glucose. It is surprising that the baby does not need more glucose. Either the baby’s brain does not consume disproportionately more energy than its body (it must not, or it would need 130% of its energy to come from glucose!), or the brain is running at least partially on galactose and/or ketones.
In other words, the ratios differ for babies, but they’re still optimal for its size and shape. Its increased need for carbohydrates comes from its disproportionately large brain.
Contradictory information from Pfeiffer
Pfeiffer Treatment Center is a small alternative health clinic in Illinois. The Pfeiffer Treatment Center information casts doubt on clear-cut connections between methylation and food chemical intolerance. I had been puzzling over this since reading it, because their information seems contradictory and doesn’t make biochemical sense:
Undermethylation: This condition is innate & is characterized by low levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, high whole blood histamine and elevated absolute basophils. This population has a high incidence of seasonal allergies, OCD tendencies, perfectionism, high libido, sparse body hair, and several other characteristics. They usually respond well to methionine, SAMe, calcium, magnesium, omega-3 essential oils (DHA & EPA), B-6, inositol, and vitamins A, C, and E. They should avoid supplements containing folic acid. In severe cases involving psychosis, the dominant symptom is usually delusional thinking rather than hallucinations. They tend to speak very little & may sit motionless for extended periods. They may appear outwardly calm, but suffer from extreme internal anxiety.
Overmethylation: This condition is the biochemical opposite of undermethylation. It is characterized by elevated levels of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, low whole blood histamine, and low absolute basophils. This population is characterized by the following typical symptoms: Absence of seasonal, inhalent allergies, but a multitude of chemical or food sensitivities, high anxiety which is evident to all, low libido, obsessions but not compulsions, tendency for paranoia and auditory hallucinations, underachievement as a child, heavy body hair, hyperactivity, “nervous” legs, and grandiosity. They usually respond well to folic acid, B-12, niacinamide, DMAE, choline, manganese, zinc, omega-3 essential oils (DHA and EPA) and vitamins C and E, but should avoid supplements of methionine, SAMe, inositol, TMG and DMG. Dr. Bob
High-histamine depressives overproduce and retain excessive levels of histamine, an important neurotransmitter which affects human behavior. They are under-methylated resulting in generalized low levels of important neurotransmitters such as serotonin. This syndrome often involves seasonal variations in depression, obsessive-compulsive behavior, inhalant allergies, and frequent headaches. Biochemical treatment revolves around antifolates, especially calcium and methionine. Three to six month of nutrient therapy are usually needed to correct this chemical imbalance. As in most biochemical therapies, the symptoms usually return if treatment is stopped.
Low-histamine depressives are usually nervous, anxious individuals who are prone to paranoia and despair. They are over-methylated which results in elevated dopamine and norepinephrine levels. Although free of seasonal allergies, they often report a multitude of food and chemical sensitivities. Many have a history of hyperactivity, learning disabilities, and underachievement. Treatment focuses on use of folic acid together with niacinamide and vitamin B-12, with about 2-4 months required for correction of the imbalance. PTC
So according to PTC, undermethylation i.e. low neurotransmitters correlates with high histamine levels, and vice versa.
Withdrawing folate for people who have low neurotransmitters? I don’t get it. Where is the scientific reasoning for this? All other sources of scientific information on the subject point to the fact that people with low folate and/or B12 levels tend to have lower neurotransmitter levels, and vice versa.
Both B12 and folate are required to remethylate methionine. The folate methylates B12 to methylcobalamin, and this then converts homocysteine back to methionine. The methionine is then converted to SAMe. SAMe is required to methylate monoamine neurotransmitters, being involved in both their production and destruction. This system works for histamine too, it is not in oppositon to histamine. Histamine is a diamine, but has the same sort of methyltransferases for its production and destruction as monoamines do. When you raise histamine levels you also raise other neurotransmitter levels.
PTC make assumptions made about the nature of methylation on monoamine neurotransmitters. PTC assume that neurotransmitters are low in the undermethylated and are high in the overmethylated, when in fact the evidence is different. All of these monoamines require methylation for their manufacture, and again for their correct functioning during transmission within the brain, and again for their destruction. What we actually know is that all neurotransmitters are low with folate deficiency.
Feeding both B12 and folate to people who are ‘overmethylated’ i.e. theoretically have high levels of neurotransmitters and low levels of histamine would surely raise their levels of both monoamine neurotransmitters AND histamine. This is a PubMed paper describing how folate helps to raise levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in people who are depressed and have high homocysteine.
Inositol and niacin only have very secondary supportive roles in the methylation cycle (in fact from what I can find out, inositol is so far removed as not to be concerned with it). Omega-3 oils have been next to useless for me. But niacin in conjunction with folate has been found to raise histamine levels. And fish oils are full of histamine.
Study after study has found folate deficiency is closely connected to high homocysteine and poor methylation. Based on this I just don’t understand the vitamin formulas recommended. The undermethylated aren’t given many actual methyl donors compared to the ones the overmethylated are told to avoid. Choline is a methyl donor so why is it being given to the overmethylated? Choline is used as a methyl group donor to spare folate. Calcium and methionine are not ‘antifolates’, they actually help folate do its work in the methylation cycle.
Supplementing with a formula including methyl donors, B12, folate, B6, and molybdenum has an effect on me in days, not months. I’ve known this since long before I even knew I had food chemical intolerances, and I’ve tested the formula quite heavily. Because of my prior experimentation with this formula and my reaction to methyl donors, I know full well that my food chemical induced brain fog and hangover symptoms clear up with the use of methylation supplements, but gives me other unpleasant symptoms instead, and too much of this formula seems to send me high as a kite – so I am going from being an undermethylator to an overmethylator all of the time.
If I have chemical sensitivities I am supposed to be an overmethylator, yet I also have seasonal allergies which means I am simultaneously an undermethylator. I have nasty reactions to histamine in foods. I also have nasty reactions to chemicals including smells. If I need methyl donors to deal with brain fog, I would fall into the undermethylation category. I don’t get it. I have the following undermethylation symptoms: “OCD tendencies, perfectionism, speaks very little & may sit motionless for extended periods, appears outwardly calm, but suffers from extreme internal anxiety,” and the following overmethylation symptoms; “a multitude of chemical or food sensitivities, low libido, obsessions, tendency for paranoia, underachievement as a child, heavy body hair, ‘nervous’ legs, and grandiosity.”
Many people with salicylate sensitivity are also sensitive to histamine. People with food chemical intolerances are MORE prone to allergies and rashes. Like most other food chemical intolerant people, I have food chemical intolerances, AND allergies. Allergies are worsened by a HIGH level of histamine. So where do I fit into PTC’s scheme?
Having read every failsafe testimonial and keeping half an eye on the failsafe and autism yahoo groups, no one’s experiences match what Dr. Walsh says.
I just don’t like these over simplistic personality-type diagnoses, i.e. you are either one, the other, or this third weird ‘copper toxic’ type we don’t know what to do with. The silly personality traits prescribed to either group are almost a form of astrology. I think it sounds good if you don’t know anything about methylation. There’s no sense of looking for a particular jam at a traffic light in what they say, such as MFTHR, MAO or other genetic polymorphisms at
points in the cycle. Creating artificial dichotomies like under- or overmethylation smacks of popularism and pseudoscience.
I don’t think a dichotomy exists between two definite states – rather it’s like a big one way system around a city, with numerous side roads, cul-de-sacs, bypasses, etc., and there could
be a traffic jam at any one set of lights, with a build up of cars in that area, causing other areas further down to be empty. Methylation of neurotransmitters itself is only one part of the methylation cycle, and there is a difference between the effects of methylation on the brain and
methylation which is one of six phase II liver detox pathways – and not necessarily one of primary importance in detoxing food chemicals.
Also, histamine can be a red herring in itself because histamine is only one inflammatory amine – benzoates at least appear to cause whealing and flaring through serotonin degranulation which isn’t blocked by antihistamines. To suggest that people either have high serotonin OR high histamine is rather annoying when one has reactions caused by both.
The only correct statement they make is that high histamine levels use up methyl donors. There are two ways to metabolise (get rid of) histamine: by methylation or by oxidation. Salicylic acid inhibits an enzyme on the oxidation pathway, causing additional methyl donors to be used up in order to control histamine levels. Hence histamine levels are impacted by an inability to excrete salicylates, which the PTC claims is an opposite condition from undermethylation!
PTC aren’t food chemical intolerance specialists. They attribute a number of symptoms such as PMS and tinnitus to high copper levels. They are also symptoms of food chemical intolerance. I have these symptoms, but I react quite negatively to zinc, which is supposed to ease copper toxicity! The truth is that the symptoms of food chemical intolerance vary widely from individual to individual and are dependent on a huge number of genetic, nutritional, and environmental factors.
Why, if PTC have identified individuals who over- and undermethylate, do they never mention homocysteine on their site? Why have they not connected undermethylation and high homocysteine to the numerous conditions (such as epilepsy, fibromyalgia, dementia and heart disease) that are listed in the PubMed database?
I believe they are determining their populations based on the histamine levels in the blood, and then describing these populations as ‘overmethylators’ and ‘undermethylators’ without actual proof of what is going on in the brain and body. Methylation is influenced by histamine levels, certainly, but methylation and histamine are also influenced by a great many other factors. PTC are simply describing histadelia and histapenia, not methylation. Histadelia is sometimes a symptom of food chemical intolerance due to the inability to get rid of the histamine that you eat, but food chemical intolerance is not the only cause: pathogens, nutritional deficiencies, IgE and IgG antibodies, excessive histamine consumption, and genuine allergies are also causes of high histamine, none of which correlate with PTC’s theory.
There are too many flaws in PTC’s arbitrary and contradictory divisions of symptoms and in their treatment plan for me to trust what they say. Karen DeFelice addresses some of these in her article on methylation. She says everything that Pfeiffer says about methylation is contradicted by other sources, which are in concensus against Pfeiffer. Carl Pfeiffer came up with his ideas some twenty years or so ago before anyone really knew much about the biochemistry.
So much of this stuff is circular. For example, methyl groups raising monoamine and diamine levels – yet methyl groups also being used to detox monoamines and diamines from the body. You can guarantee 100% that whatever supplements you take will have at least two completely contradictory effects on the body – because the body is designed as a complex set of self-regulatory feedback loops – and you don’t know which effect will dominate unless you figure out all the other cofactors involved. I’m more and more inclined to believe it’s not something you can safely influence with vitamins.
The proteinaceous period
Foods eaten: Eggs, Jersey cow milk, Cream, Chicken, Cashews.
Kcals: 2238, Protein: 64g, Fat: 207g, Carbs: 30g.
Still off my food, despite the calorie count. I’m so stressed about my epileptic friend. I had ketones on my breath earlier. All I can eat is creamy milk. Much less stressed today though. I’ll try and eat a bit better tomorrow. I don’t normally allow myself such a vast quantity of dairy.
Health: I feel marvellous at the moment. Perhaps rather overstimulated by methyl donors though. I’ve been running at at least 90% for most of the time during the last three weeks, with the occasional one or two day dip after exposures. After my grain trial that induced body rashes, I’ve been off grains since Sunday, and today I’m craving hot bread. I have a big spot on my jaw line. Interesting. Grains or supplements? I am starting to wonder if the supplements caused my hypnic jerks though.
I was extremely amused by this website, and this thread on lowcarber.org. The website is a fruitarian inspired denigration of all plant foods apart from fruit and nuts. Presumably the authors think we scurried around the Palaeolithic era foraging like squirrels. The website goes into great detail listing all the various nasty substances in plants, vegetables, beans, etc. But doesn’t have a clue that fruit and nuts are extremely high in amines and salicylates and just as toxic if not more than some of the other foods! So perhaps we should eat nothing but animal foods and be damned with it?
Except I’ve really developed a taste for pears.
Can’t eat
Foods eaten: Eggs, Jersey cow milk, Cream.
Kcals: 1629, Protein: 39g, Fat: 155g, Carbs: 20g.
Weight: 8st 10.4
Body fat: 26.4%
I can’t seem to eat today. Maybe I’ll get hungry in the night and add it onto tomorrow’s counts. I feel fine, I’m just very stressed and I could really do with some company. On a positive note, the blotchy rash on my breasts and tops of my legs has practically vanished today. It could have been down to grains, but I won’t commit to that for another couple of days. We’ll see.
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