merouleau intro

Newcomer introductions, personal anecdotes, caregiver issues, lab results, and n=1 experimentation.
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MarcR
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Re: merouleau intro

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RBK, thanks for the MCT/coconut oil blend suggestion. I lent my copy of Mary Newton's book to my mom so quickly that I didn't have time to read much of it. :-) It does sound like a good compromise, and having a healthful cooking oil in stable liquid form would be convenient.
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MarcR
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Re: merouleau intro

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The rest of the results are in. CRP (0.6) is good, and homocysteine (12.8) is not. DHEA-S (284.1) is back in the normal range. A couple of the standard metabolic profile items - creatinine (1.32) and albumin/globulin ratio (2.8) - are a touch high.

I think I'll limit coffee and add a B-complex to see if I can bring the homocysteine down.
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Julie G
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Re: merouleau intro

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Smart, Merouleau. A good substitution for that coffee might be matcha tea. I'm addicted. After 1-2 cups of joe in the AM, I move into that- very healthful- hot or cold. Another idea (if you haven't already done so) might be to conduct a methylation analysis to see if you carry a genetic defect that predisposes you to high homocysteine. If you've got access to to your raw dara through 23 and Me, you can run this program to see where you stand: https://geneticgenie.org/methylation-analysis/

I learned of multiple defects by running the program. I'm slowly addressing each and improving my health. Just an idea :idea:
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MarcR
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Re: merouleau intro

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Wow, I did not know about that site. What an eye opener! I have 6 homo and 8 hetero methylation mutations. All three of my AHCY's are red - I wonder if that explains why I always feel as though I have less gas in the tank athletically than guys who appear to be in worse physical condition.

After a cursory review, I can see that the interactions and the unknowns present a challenge. Can you recommend any information resources to help me sift through this area and develop a plan?

Thanks also for the matcha tea recommendation - I had not heard of that before and intend to try it out.
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Julie G
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Re: merouleau intro

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That's quite a few methylation defects...and 6 are homozygous :!: The methylation whisperer is a woman named Amy Yasko. You can google your defects and see what she recommends. Much of her work is available on the internet free of charge.

Quite a few folks here are also pretty knowledgeable. You may want to post your results and let them hack them for you :idea:
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MarcR
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Re: merouleau intro

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Thanks for the suggestions, Julie. I opened a new topic.
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Re: merouleau intro

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merouleau wrote:The NMR arrived this morning. LDL-P and LDL-C are way up. Trigs are up a bit but still fine. HDL-C is still very good, and Small LDL-P is still unmeasurable ("< 90"). HDL-P went up a lot and is now off the charts. LDL size continues to fall into the healthy large ("Pattern A") range.

So now I'm wondering how relevant the studies that use LDL-P as a CVD marker are to someone who is burning fat for fuel. Is high LDL-P unhealthy with high HDL-P and Pattern A LDL? Do I return to a high fat non-ketogenic diet to get my LDL-P back down and give up what I hope are the neuroprotective benefits of nutritional ketosis? Do I try to split the difference (as Juliegee does) with a more restrictive high-MUFA diet?
This morning I remembered reading a while back that Jimmy Moore had terrible LDL-P while on keto, so I visited his site to see how he has been doing. I found this article, in which he shares his 10 lipid test results from 2008-2013. Four of the tests, two of them full NMRs, occurred after he started keto in June 2012.

Jimmy's lipid profiles differ in degree from my most recent one but not in character - they have high LDL-P/C, high HDL-C, low small LDL-P, and low triglycerides. (I could find no online indication that he is ApoE4+, so I'm assuming that he's a 3/3.)

What he has that I lack is two CT heart scan results, one from 2009 and one from 2013 after 10 months of keto. In both instances, his coronary calcium scores were perfect zeros. Those zeros seem to me to be the most compelling elements of his argument that high LDL-P/C doesn't matter if the other lipid markers are good.

So one possible strategy would be to fix the elevated homocysteine, continue keto, and leverage my awful LDL-C number into an annual insurance-paid CT heart scan. Assuming (hoping) that the first one is good, I would know that something is actually rather than nominally wrong if the CT heart scan result worsens.

Does anyone have CT heart scan experiences to share?
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Re: merouleau intro

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My hubs and I have done the heart scans several years ago. My score was zero, but my husband's score sent him straight to the cardiologist. He had 7 partial blockages and has been on statins ever since.

The thing you want to remember about heart scan is that it does expose you like a chest x-ray, so you shouldn't do them too close together, and my husband's cardiologist said he doesn't really recommend more than one anyway. He said that even with treatment, changes in diet, etc, you might even still see a worsening in a scan done a year later. So, he uses them as a baseline, to plan a treatment and maybe would consider another well down the road. So, I wouldn't plan to use it as a yearly test - just too much radiation exposure.

Personally, I'm still waiting on the tricorder... ;)
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Julie G
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Re: merouleau intro

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Re: merouleau intro

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Another good one for you, Merouleau, about homocysteine. REALLY important to work on...
http://www.lifeextensionvitamins.com/homred.html
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