Genes Highlight Inflammation and Mast Cells in Fibromyalgia

[Issie]

Interesting that you chose to put these two articles in quotes and they are Medical journals --NOT from Blaylock. But they seem to be the most current info in a medical journal and for sure are finding issues with aspartame. The science is starting to come out. Believe it or not. There has been a big cover up.

Issie

 

[Issie]

Unfortunately, @Issie,

If that were true, people would be falling over with brain damage from juice and milk too and they simply aren't.

We can agree to disagree.

I see you changed your original comment. Glad to see you did read it.

As for this comment. Aspartame appears to have 3 chemicals in it. One that turns into formaldehyde. Phenylalanine is only one part of it. And as for me drinking milk - I don't. Juice is too concentrated in sugars - especially without pulp. I eat whole foods, am mostly Vegan and don't have chemicals if I can help it. The chemicals man has created and is feeding to us, our bodies can't process. I try to stay as clean as possible in what I ingest. Detox is essential. If I truly intend to "get well", I have to look as food as medicine or in this case poison. Doesn't matter, what my taste buds may like or what chemical my body may crave.. ...if it's not good for me.....it goes bye bye. Unless, it's a med with minimal risk that improves my quality of life. I prefer as natural as possible. But sometimes, meds are necessary.

I'm not for concentrated supplements either. But I take a hand full of them. They are medicines too. Our body has to process them. But as I do cleanses, I'm being able to taper off things and my body is more aware and sensitive to what is good and bad.

Issie

 

[Issie]

For what it's worth, my son lost bladder control the 2 times he had aspartame as a child. Nobody else in the family reacted in visible ways, but we choose to keep it out of our diets.

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you got his cause figured out.

Issie

 

[Issie]

I found a great source of info for those interested in a more Green direction. It's GreenMedinfo. He does lots of research on so many things. Even if you don't sign up, you can get a good bit of the info there and he does newsletters.

Issie

 

[Remy]

Interesting that you chose to put these two articles in quotes and they are Medical journals --NOT from Blaylock. But they seem to be the most current info in a medical journal and for sure are finding issues with aspartame. The science is starting to come out. Believe it or not. There has been a big cover up and Monsanto is at the helm.

Issie

I don't what you mean about quotes? I try not to comment on things I haven't actually read (or at least skimmed!) but I wonder if others do the same courtesy of reading links provided sometimes.

The thing about science is that when you have a massive body of literature saying there is zero association and one or two studies in a handful of random, obscure journals, it isn't assumed that the contradictory studies are actually correct and literally everything else is wrong. It's assumed that *those* studies are wrong until and unless they are able to be replicated by others. If I read more than just the abstract, I'm sure it would be very easy to find flaws with the study methodology as well in those studies. In fact, I'm sure others have already done so considering this is not a new debate.

That's why I don't find them to provide enough convincing evidence to overthrow the hundreds of studies that say there is no association.

There just is no conspiracy here, other than the one people want to make up. Mercola is one such grievous offender along with Blaylock. I hate to use the word "quack" but if it walks like a duck...

You can't eat clean enough to avoid glutamine. It's the most abundant amino acid. It's found in meat, cheese, eggs, vegetables. It all converts to glutamate through the same process. We would actually die without this ability. There's nothing inherently toxic about it.

Also it's problematic because removing aspartame and MSG is usually not an isolated effect of removing that one thing and keeping all else the same. There's a lot to be said for removing all processed foods in general and that is much more likely to be a cause for improvement in health.

 

[Cort]

You may find these interesting :

Affect of mast cell and CNS
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282993/

This person wrote a blog with research on connections to MTHFR mutations and mast cell issues
http://mthfrliving.com/health-conditions/mast-cell-activation-disorder-histamine-intolerance/

I have another article, I can't find. I'll keep looking.

I found the connection between glutamate and mast cells the hard way. I chewed way to much sugar free gum. It triggered a severe mast cell response that went into Kounis Syndrome that affected my heart. ICU in cardiac unit over night and lots of research later, connection made. You could say, I was the lab rat who got my own data - the hard way.

Issie

Whoa! Isn't that something....Had no idea that artificial sweeteners could do that have such an effect. I do know that they taste weird and make my body feel weird and so I stay away from them but I can get how they might not cause other people any problems at all.

 

[Cort]

Heatshock proteins being the most significant finding is interesting... There is a potential for more than a few interesting hypotheses there, I hope someone follows it up.

Yah - I thought that was interesting as well. They're generated in cells in response to cellular stress and have shown up in ME/CFS several times before.

 

[Issie]

http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/
Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer. He attended the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans and completed his general surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. During his residency he ran the neurology program for one year and did a fellowship in neurosurgery after his residency. For the past 25 years he has practiced neurosurgery in addition to having a nutritional practice. He recently retired from both practices to devote full time to nutritional studies and research.

There just is no conspiracy here, other than the one people want to make up. Mercola is one such grievous offender along with Blaylock. I hate to use the word "quack" but if it walks like a duck...

Really???????

Issie

 

[Remy]

http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/
Dr. Blaylock is a board certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer. He attended the LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans and completed his general surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina. During his residency he ran the neurology program for one year and did a fellowship in neurosurgery after his residency. For the past 25 years he has practiced neurosurgery in addition to having a nutritional practice. He recently retired from both practices to devote full time to nutritional studies and research.


Really???????

Issie

You know, Simon Wessely has some mighty prestigious qualifications on his CV too...but unfortunately qualifications fail to tell the whole story.

Dr Blaylock isn't a hero here. He's the very definition of anti-science. He has a hypothesis that has been tested yet debunked repeatedly yet he's managed to garner a cache of rabid followers that are willing to drink his (presumably aspartame free) Kool-Aid.

 

[Cecelia]

I have been using sugar free gum lately in the evening to be able to read and concentrate. It does indeed activate my brain somewhat. I can still go to sleep at a normal bedtime. However, I have ME/CFS rather than FM. I don't have that sympathetic nervous system arousal/activation/intensity which you with FM want to turn the volume down on to achieve your sense of balance. I also agree that sugar free gum or products aren't ideal substances! Processed foods, particularly those with artificial everything, feel a bit at odds with my body. But, being able to read in the evening, when I can do so little else, seems valuable enough to me, at least lately.

 

[Remy]

I have been using sugar free gum lately in the evening to be able to read and concentrate. It does indeed activate my brain somewhat. I can still go to sleep at a normal bedtime. However, I have ME/CFS rather than FM. I don't have that sympathetic nervous system arousal/activation/intensity which you with FM want to turn the volume down on to achieve your sense of balance. I also agree that sugar free gum or products aren't ideal substances! Processed foods, particularly those with artificial everything, feel a bit at odds with my body. But, being able to read in the evening, when I can do so little else, seems valuable enough to me, at least lately.

The act of chewing creates all sorts of metabolic changes in the body...two of the most applicable to our population are the increase of cortisol (and probably other neurotransmitters as well) and activation of the vagus nerve.

Someday, you might do a trial with something like xylitol gum (careful because it is extremely toxic to dogs!) and see if it's the chewing part or the sugar substitute part that is responsible for the positive changes you feel. My guess is that it's probably the chewing part!

 

[Issie]

Glad to see that there is a potential glutamate/mast cell connection.

That is a weird response to GABA - and interesting about the Tramadol. Maybe your ANS is responding to the drop in pain? I imagine that it could get set off pretty good by pain (?)

@Cort, I think the Tramadol helps mostly because of it moderating NMDA or the glutamare receptor. When there is too much glutamate it cause too much release of calcium. (This could also play into MCAS, because GastroCrom is a mild calcium channel blocker.) It doesn't help my pain as much as it calms the sympathetic nervous system response. I still have pain. Here is a really good article showing how glutamate and aspartate play into the NMDA receptor and some suggestions as to how to moderate it with supplements and some meds. Tramadol is one of those meds. It also works on all the other neurotransmitters and helps keep things in balance. This is a good article, worth a read.
http://smart-drugs.net/article-excitotoxins.htm

I also found another article in a book called Principles of Orthomolecularism by R.A.S. Hemat, that basically says the same thing.

Funny how when the pieces start coming into place you can make the connections with what seems to be another symptom. So this connection can be with MCAS and Glutamate and the sympathetic nervous system and POTS. Then there is my connection with too much calcium with soft tissue calcification and MCAS and glutamate. Interesting that magnesium can moderate this. I've started using magnesium oil transdermal.

Issie

 

[Issie]

I have been using sugar free gum lately in the evening to be able to read and concentrate. It does indeed activate my brain somewhat. I can still go to sleep at a normal bedtime. However, I have ME/CFS rather than FM. I don't have that sympathetic nervous system arousal/activation/intensity which you with FM want to turn the volume down on to achieve your sense of balance. I also agree that sugar free gum or products aren't ideal substances! Processed foods, particularly those with artificial everything, feel a bit at odds with my body. But, being able to read in the evening, when I can do so little else, seems valuable enough to me, at least lately.

@Cecelia
Aspartame can trigger issues with glutamate and the NMDA receptor. It can also up your NE (norepinephrine ) levels. This is an excitatory response. Glutamate and phenylalanine also helps learning. Too much and long term is where the problem can come in. I felt really good and was in the middle of writing a very technical medical review that required much research, over 3 weeks daily, and I was pulling it all together for the final article. Then a pack and a half later -of sugar free gum - crash. In England they call norepinephrine, noriadrenaline. Here is an article from an England medical journal on how it can affect the different Neurotransmitters in the brain and the body in general.

Issie

 

[Cecelia]

@Remy
Thank you for that information about the effect of chewing on cortisol and neurotransmitters. I have a friend who has always struggled with fatigue, but is undiagnosed. She has to work at home doing very precise, detailed computer work and says that the only thing sometimes which keeps her going is chewing! So she makes a lot of good, low fat cole slaw and chews away at that. The cabbage family, broccoli, etc., eaten raw require a lot of chewing. She said she feels like a cow but is able to concentrate on her tasks.

@Issie I think you are correct, that there is a backlash from too much of the sugar free gum. In my case, it isn't good for my teeth, soft tissue, or my gut. I also think it reduces my energy somewhat the next day. None of these are life threatening problems, but the gum chewing has become a habit which is taking me away from good health instead of towards it.

I think I will go with broccoli salad instead--

 

[Issie]

Sorry, I forgot to attach that article for @Cecelia

http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v62/n4/full/1602866a.html
(This is their conclusion. )
It was seen that aspartame disturbs amino acid metabolism, protein structure and metabolism, integrity of nucleic acids, neuronal function, endocrine balances and changes in the brain concentrations of catecholamines. It was also reported that aspartame and its breakdown products cause nerves to fire excessively, which indirectly causes a very high rate of neuron depolarization. The energy systems for certain required enzyme reactions become compromised, thus indirectly leading to the inability of enzymes to function optimally. The ATP stores in the cells are depleted, indicating that low concentrations of glucose are present in the cells, and this in turn will indirectly decrease the synthesis of acetylcholine, glutamate and GABA. The intracellular calcium uptake has been altered, thus the functioning of glutamate as an excitatory neurotransmitter is inhibited. Mitochondria are damaged, which could lead to apoptosis of cells and infertility in men and also a lowered rate of oxidative metabolism are present, thus lowering concentrations of the transmitters glutamate and production of GABA. The cellular walls are destroyed; thus, the cells (endothelium of the capillaries) are more permeable, leading to a compromised BBB. Thus, overall oxidative stress and neurodegeneration are present.

From all the adverse effects caused by this product, it is suggested that serious further testing and research be undertaken to eliminate any and all controversies surrounding this product.

 

[Cecelia]

My goodness @Issie what a report!

 

[Remy]

My goodness @Issie what a report!

The key word in that study is "excessive".

Fortunately, @Cecelia, there's just no compelling evidence that aspartame is harmful to humans in doses normally associated with human consumption.

Even in articles that are trying to prove a bias against aspartame, they are forced to admit that often there are simply no effects on neurotransmitters in the brain.

Of course, that doesn't make for such scary headlines though.

Bottom line is that aspartame has been exhaustively studied and found to be safe in the vast majority of studies at normal doses. If you are chewing some gum at night and feeling better, obviously you tolerate it just fine, as do the majority of people.

 

[Wally]

Any word with the advent of the new ME/CFS study by Maureen Hanson regarding diversity in probiotics and depth ( numbers) what probiotic or combination probiotic would be good
For someone w ME/ FM and MCAS ( what good bacteria to avoid that creates histamine in the gut?

 

[Remy]

Any word with the advent of the new ME/CFS study by Maureen Hanson regarding diversity in probiotics and depth ( numbers) what probiotic or combination probiotic would be good
For someone w ME/ FM and MCAS ( what good bacteria to avoid that creates histamine in the gut?

Here's a post I wrote a while back on histamine and probiotics:

Yesterday an email popped up in my inbox regarding probiotics and histamine. Since I've been taking abx for a while now for Lyme, I've always been very pro-probiotics. But I've also had issues with abdominal bloating especially after mealtimes and multiple chemical sensitivity due to high histamine.

So this article says that some strains of probiotics are histamine producing...and some are histamine degrading. And it apparently can really make a difference for some people in terms of weight, bloating and histamine reactions if they overconsume the histamine producing variety. PubMed has articles on this topic as well and there are blog posts galore when you search for probiotics and histamine. I don't know how I missed this for so long!
Yogurt falls into the histamine producing category as well and it is also insulinemic which is no good for those of us with insulin resistance.

The good news is that there are probiotics available that do not contain the histamine producing strains of probiotics.

So, sorry VSL #3. I'm switching to Xymogen...

From Chris Kresser:
One of my patients that has histamine intolerance discovered, I guess, a German study that was translated and posted in a Facebook group that talks about these issues, a fecal bacteria therapy group. And this study apparently looked at various microbial strains and broke them into three categories: one category that’s histamine producing; another category, which seems to be sort of neither histamine producing, nor histamine degrading; and then the third category would be histamine degrading. And so obviously you have histamine intolerance, you’d want to focus on the ones that are histamine degrading, and you’d want to avoid the ones that are histamine producing.

And the histamine-producing category is Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus reuteri, Lactobacillus plantarum (Ema added it may produce tyramine though), and Lactococcus lactis, Enterococcus faecalis, and various types of E. coli.

And then the ones that seem to degrade histamine and be beneficial are lots of bifidobacteria species, but particularly Bifidobacterium infantis and then Lactobacillus rhamnosus and salivarius and sporogenes and Lactobacillus gasser.

This is the tip of the iceberg because there are a lot more species, obviously, of probiotics out there, and I personally wonder about soil-based organisms. I just anecdotally in my practice have observed that soil-based organisms are much better tolerated by people with histamine intolerance and people with SIBO, so my suspicion is that those are not histamine builders and may even be histamine degraders, but I don’t have any evidence to back that up. It’s been interesting, though, to observe that, that the soil-based organisms are better. And in fact, pretty soon here I’m going to write an article about one of the products that I’m using a lot in my practice called Prescript-Assist that I really like. I’m using it actually myself personally and having some really good results, and I’ve been using it with my patients with good results, so stay tuned for an article about that.

(This is not a complete list unfortunately. I want to try to put a better list together from all the articles I've read.)

Below from http://thelowhistaminechef.com/these-probiotic-strains-lower-histamine-rather-than-raising-it/:

SO I’M LOOKING FOR A PROBIOTIC SUPPLEMENT WITH INFLAMMATION LOWERING…

(read the article below to understand the logic)
Bifidobacterium infantis
Bifidobacterium longum
Lactobacillus reuteri (raises histamine in the short term but elevates anti inflammatory cAMP levels)
But also Lactobacillus plantarum (lowers/inhibits tyramine and putrescine) (Ema added conflicting reports on this one. Study shows it actually produces tyramine which is also a biological amine that those on low histamine diets may want to avoid.)

POTENTIALLY…

Saccharomyces-Boulardii: I found a number of studies on its effectiveness in treating gastroenteritis, which some researchers have linked to high histamine/mast cell issues.

NEUTRAL STRAINS…

Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus Lactis, Lactococcus Lactis, and Lactobacillus plant arum which do not have any effect on biogenic amines like histamine and tyramine.

BUT NOT…

Lactobacillus casei (produces histamine and tyramine)
Lactobacillus Bulgaricus (increases histamine alone)

http://www.bulletproofexec.com/why-...tm_term=Click here to read the entire article
(I wouldn't buy an MLM product if I can help it but the info is good regardless).

 

[Veet]

For someone w ME/ FM and MCAS ( what good bacteria to avoid that creates histamine in the gut?

http://thelowhistaminechef.com/these-probiotic-strains-lower-histamine-rather-than-raising-it/