need for help about lab results

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filiz
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need for help about lab results

Post by filiz »

Hi,

I can't understand from below values if my father is low in Vit B6.
These numbers are normal according to the standards in Turkish labs. But the required level in Dr. Bredessen's book seems in a different measurement and I can't find out any related conversion. I would appreciate your help regarding that.

VITAMIN B6
PRIDOKSAL-5-FOSFAT (PLP), Plazma 8.50 µg/L
PRIDOKSAL(PRIDOKSIK ASİT,PA),Plazma 10.80 µg/L

Thank you,
Filiz
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by NF52 »

filiz wrote:Hi,

I can't understand from below values if my father is low in Vit B6.
These numbers are normal according to the standards in Turkish labs. But the required level in Dr. Bredessen's book seems in a different measurement and I can't find out any related conversion. I would appreciate your help regarding that.

VITAMIN B6
PRIDOKSAL-5-FOSFAT (PLP), Plazma 8.50 µg/L
PRIDOKSAL(PRIDOKSIK ASİT,PA),Plazma 10.80 µg/L

Thank you,
Filiz
Hi Filiz,

We can't offer medical advice, and you would not want it from a former English teacher, but we can try to answer your question about how to convert your father's lab numbers. The unit of 8.50 µg/L is the same as mcg/L, which is sometimes used in this country because it's easier on a standard keyboard. Dt. Bredesen used both mcg/L and nanomoles/L, which is a different measurement, in his book. On p.121 of The End of Alzheimer's in the "Cognoscopy" chapter, he discusses Vitamin B-6 and recommends a value of between 60-100. (Although the book includes the measurement of mcg/L, it appears far more likely that he meant nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), since he notes that a level of 30-50 nmol/L is "at the low end", while a level of >110 nmol/L is "over the top...[and] can be toxic to a subset of your peripheral nerves."

Your father's level of 8.50 µg/L on the PLP test converts to 34.39 nmol/L on this Vitamin B-6 conversion calculator: http://unitslab.com/node/214. I can't vouch for its accuracy, but your father's doctors may be able to confirm that. That would put him at the low end of Dr. Bredesen's recommendations, while a score on the same test of 14.8286 would be the equivalent of 60 nmol/L, within his recommended range.
Here's a reference sheet on sources of Vitamin B-6:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Vitam ... sional/#h3.

We would always recommend that you talk with your father's doctors, and you may also wish to consult with health coaches who have a background in nutrition to get ideas for how to help your father's diet.

Best of luck, Filiz!
4/4 and still an optimist!
filiz
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by filiz »

Thank you so much. Your message made it clear for me. I’m grateful for your help :)
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Re: need for help about lab results

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[quote="filiz"]
VITAMIN B6
PRIDOKSAL-5-FOSFAT (PLP), Plazma 8.50 µg/L
PRIDOKSAL(PRIDOKSIK ASİT,PA),Plazma 10.80 µg/L
[quote]

Hi filiz;

I used Google Translate to learn that PRIDOKSAL-5-FOSFAT translates into Pyridoxal 5 Phosphate in English. This is abbreviated as PLP or P5P. PRIDOKSA translates into Pridoxal or Pridoxic Acid, abbreviated PA. You can learn more about conventional normal ranges of these two B6 related measurements in this Mayo Clinic link. They kindly use µg/L units. I'm not sure why they have this lab discussion their pediatric section. A second resource is Labcorp, a US national lab company. They equate the the serum Vit B6 with the PLP active co-enzyme.

On a personal note, I had my B6 level checked in 2016. My results were 97.3 µg/L with a normal range of 2-32.8 µg/L. Interestingly, this has not been discussed or rechecked by my functional medicine MD! Perhaps Dr Bredesen would be happy with this level. :D I am currently supplementing with a multi vitamin, and suspect I am probably getting too much B6.
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Re: need for help about lab results - B6

Post by Richard McG »

Happy Tuesday :)


So still waiting for my Recode results......been about 3 weeks now. I do note my basic Canadian tests though shows I'm high on Homocysteine levels (10). Pg 176 indicates I need an active form of P5P which brand do you recommend guys?


https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pyridoxal+5+ ... nb_sb_noss - USA

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=pyridoxal+5+p ... nb_sb_noss - Canada - Less Choice <sigh>


Is there an active all in one B vitamin I could just take? That also includes B6, 12 and Folate or do I have to buy them separately?

Thanks so much
52 years of age, 4/4, BMI ~19, Omad, No cognitive decline as of yet ;)
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Re: need for help about lab results - B6

Post by circular »

Richard McG wrote: Is there an active all in one B vitamin I could just take? That also includes B6, 12 and Folate or do I have to buy them separately?

Thanks so much
If you can manage 1 tbs of nutritional yeast daily you'll get:

- Folic acid 40% RDA (plus dietary sources)

- B12 40% (plus dietary sources)

- B6 140% (I heard Chris Masterjohn in a podcast say this is the right form. It says "pyridoxine" on the label. I think it was this podcast: Why You're Probably Nutrient Deficient)

- Other nutrients.

I stopped my methylated Bs and folate to see if the nutritional yeast with diet keeps my homocysteine low. I think I also eat a fair amount of choline and supplement some phosphatidylcholine and a small amount of betaine. (I have three homozygous SNPs that could be affecting my choline status.)
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by Julie G »

If you can manage 1 tbs of nutritional yeast daily you'll get:

- Folic acid 40% RDA (plus dietary sources)

- B12 40% (plus dietary sources)

- B6 140% (I heard Chris Masterjohn in a podcast say this is the right form. It says "pyridoxine" on the label. I think it was this podcast: Why You're Probably Nutrient Deficient)

- Other nutrients.

I stopped my methylated Bs and folate to see if the nutritional yeast with diet keeps my homocysteine low. I think I also eat a fair amount of choline and supplement some phosphatidylcholine and a small amount of betaine. (I have three homozygous SNPs that could be affecting my choline status.)
Is this what Chris Masterjohn recommends? :shock: From what I understand, nutritional yeast has zero B vitamins naturally. It's vitamin fortified. Also, folic acid (as opposed to naturally occurring folate) is associated with cancer.
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by BrianR »

Julie G wrote:
From what I understand, nutritional yeast has zero B vitamins naturally. It's vitamin fortified. Also, folic acid (as opposed to naturally occurring folate) is associated with cancer.
There are non-supplemented nutritional yeasts available. Sari claims some reasonable amount of Thiamin, Niacin, B6, Biotin and B5 per serving. (Their standard serving size is really, large, IMO, but the 4-6 grams I usually take still helps fill out daily allocations for the B vitamins they contain.)
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by Julie G »

There are non-supplemented nutritional yeasts available. Sari claims some reasonable amount of Thiamin, Niacin, B6, Biotin and B5 per serving. (Their standard serving size is really, large, IMO, but the 4-6 grams I usually take still helps fill out daily allocations for the B vitamins they contain.)
Thanks! this stuff looks much better than what I'm currently using- Bragg. I like to season with nutritional yeast and will move onto this next. :D It's worth noting that this product would not be appropriate to address elevated homocysteine as there is no B12 or folate and (as you mentioned) it would require a pretty hefty dose to get your B6.
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Re: need for help about lab results

Post by circular »

Julie G wrote:
If you can manage 1 tbs of nutritional yeast daily you'll get:

- Folic acid 40% RDA (plus dietary sources)

- B12 40% (plus dietary sources)

- B6 140% (I heard Chris Masterjohn in a podcast say this is the right form. It says "pyridoxine" on the label. I think it was this podcast: Why You're Probably Nutrient Deficient)

- Other nutrients.

I stopped my methylated Bs and folate to see if the nutritional yeast with diet keeps my homocysteine low. I think I also eat a fair amount of choline and supplement some phosphatidylcholine and a small amount of betaine. (I have three homozygous SNPs that could be affecting my choline status.)
Is this what Chris Masterjohn recommends? :shock: From what I understand, nutritional yeast has zero B vitamins naturally. It's vitamin fortified. Also, folic acid (as opposed to naturally occurring folate) is associated with cancer.
He didn't necessarily recommend nutritional yeast, and definitely not for reducing homocysteine. I'd need to listen to that podcast again to catch his exact wording. I think he was just saying that it happens to have the right form of B6 ... or was it B5!? :?

I didn't know about the fortified and non-fortified types. I've also been using Braggs and assumed it was just the nutritional yeast. I didn't even look at the ingredients that show the fortification, what the label calls a "specific design to help meet the nutritional needs of vegetarians, vegans and anyone wanting a good source of B-complex vitamins (including natural B12)."

What got me started on it was Terry Wahls making a comment that it was a useful nutritional addition to her dietary recommendations, but she didn't clarify fortified or not that I recall. That was quite a while back and I don't recall what I was listening to. I checked out the ingredients list and was personally focused on the thiamine, zinc and selenium, with the idea that as I increase my animal protein intake, supplementing with this might help me achieve healthy lab values without supplementation. I have yet to see this experiment through with labs, but now need to switch to Sari.

The Sari, unfortified version, lacks folate or folic acid as well as B12, so now I see why Bragg's fortified formula is meant for vegans and vegetarians, adding those in, as well as riboflavin (also useful for methylation), which is not really present in Sari. I definitely wouldn't use Sari to treat high homocysteine, but it's still no shrinking violet when it comes to nutrition, even at one tbs instead of two. Interestingly, it has 8 gms of protein per serving, assuming one can eat a whole serving of two tbs, where Bragg's has 2 gm of protein per tbs. I may try it in vegetable smoothies but I'm doubtful that will fly well.

This may be old news to others, but Chris Masterjohn has an interesting mini-podcast about when folic acid, as in fortified grain diets, may help some people feel better, except that it does so by covering up problems associated with vitamin B12 deficiency. That's not an argument for taking folic acid but interesting nonetheless.

One lab I'm waiting for results on right now is homocysteine, but now it won't matter, since I'll stop the Bragg's (conveniently just ran out!) and switch to Sari and will need to address the homocysteine either through diet alone or adding pertinent supplements back in. Grrr.
ApoE 3/4 > Thanks in advance for any responses made to my posts.
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