need for help about lab results

[circular]

I ramped up choline due to being homozygous mutant on three pertinent SNPs.

Good job teasing out the details! Homocysteine has so many moving parts and it's great you found the biggest lever for you.

Thanks. Since both B12/B6/folate supplementation and choline/betaine seem to independently control my homocysteine, I suppose I should test my B12/B6/folate status. My lever could be both choline/betaine and B12/B6/folate, but where just one masks the need for the other apart from homocysteine?

[circular]

Thanks. Since both B12/B6/folate supplementation and choline/betaine seem to independently control my homocysteine, I suppose I should test my B12/B6/folate status. My lever could be both choline/betaine and B12/B6/folate, but where just one masks the need for the other apart from homocysteine?

Put another way, can you infer from good homocysteine levels that B12/B6/folate are okay? I'm guessing maybe not, although I'm not too worried about it.

[SusanJ]

Put another way, can you confer from good homocysteine levels that B12/B6/folate are okay?

Not sure, they are 2 different pathways to the same end. Do you have any of the usual methylation snps? MTHFR, SLC19a1, MTHFD1, MTRR, MTR? That said, you could have done enough healing that your need for methyl groups has dropped over time.

Only way to know is to test at some point. Lynch feels that you shouldn't depend on the choline pathway as the primary means to reduce homocysteine, so the extra choline could be doing the heavy lifting that the B's should be doing.

But that said, I have to use TMG, creatine and a little PC on top of my Bs to get to my last 6.9!

[Richard McG]

Thanks, guys!

Literally lifesavers all of you

[circular]

Put another way, can you confer from good homocysteine levels that B12/B6/folate are okay?

Not sure, they are 2 different pathways to the same end. Do you have any of the usual methylation snps? MTHFR, SLC19a1, MTHFD1, MTRR, MTR? That said, you could have done enough healing that your need for methyl groups has dropped over time.

Only way to know is to test at some point. Lynch feels that you shouldn't depend on the choline pathway as the primary means to reduce homocysteine, so the extra choline could be doing the heavy lifting that the B's should be doing.

But that said, I have to use TMG, creatine and a little PC on top of my Bs to get to my last 6.9!

Thanks Susan. I haven't had or taken the time to scout out my methylation genes yet. I think I may have one that's wonky but not multiple.

After this conversation I found that I had high TMAO at 9.9 (<6.2 uM). I stopped taking the phosphatidylcholine supplement and the betaine. I still don't supplement with Bs in pill form, but I use about 1 tbs/day of the right kind of nutritional yeast, and of course eat a healthy diet (sorry, I forget the name offhand). I've now retested my TMAO and homocysteine. The TMAO is now in the normal range, suggesting the phosphatidylcholine supplement, rather than my high fish consumption, was the cause of the high TMAO. My homocysteine has bumped up, but only from 6.0 to 6.4, so I'm not worried but will watch. I didn't change my meat consumption, which temporarily included 3 eggs a day, so my 'high meat' diet itself (from some perspectives ... roughly 100 mg/day) doesn't appear to mess with TMAO.

This of course means that my clever hacking to add a phosphatidylcholine supplement to compensate for my presumed bad boy choline genes just gave me the illusion that it was helping my homocysteine while instead it was raising my TMAO!

Glad you've been able to sort out what you need for your health homocysteine. You mention 'a little PC', so maybe it's not kicking up your TMAO. I think mine was a pretty high does but I don't have it handy.

[SusanJ]

Glad you've been able to sort out what you need for your health homocysteine. You mention 'a little PC', so maybe it's not kicking up your TMAO.

Well, I'm not on PC at the moment. Because I tested positive for phospholipid antibodies last fall, Tanio suggested stopping any supplements like PC and my Longvida curcumin (it's liposomal) until we get some improvements in my underlying inflammation.

I've been on a plan to reduce arsenic levels, which I think has helped my cognition - fewer lost words and names - but I'm also sleeping better in general (our old pup crossed the rainbow bridge in November after several months of night time wandering and having to go out a lot ). And I've been more regular going to workout. So it's always hard to tease out what is helping when you have multiple irons in the fire.

Almost at the end of the 2 month treatment, so more tests will be on the way. I'll probably ask to also get a homocysteine test to see where I'm currently at, sans PC.

[Jafa]

Hmmm, something to ponder. I’ve been taking phosphatidyl choline as sunflower lecithin, 2500mg/day on a 2 egg equivalent basis (Masterjohn), ie on days I don’t have 2 eggs I have the PC. This is in addition to TMG 500mg and other sources of choline such as salmon. The reason - my homocysteine got stuck at around 9-10, on moderate dose vitamin B therapy (400ug folate, 250ug B12, 37.5mg B6). Bigger doses of the B’s and TMG didn’t offer any additional benefit, and neither did riboflavin.

Homocysteine came down to 8 after adding PC but now I’m worrying about TMAO, although sunflower lecithin is supposed to be the least TMAO-genic option (Masterjohn again). Can’t measure my TMAO in my part of the world.

I haven’t had my homocysteine checked for a while as I had pneumonia in November and it’s taken me a while to recover to the point where it’s worth splashing the cash for a re-test. Will go next week.

I take Longevinex resveratrol and Mr Saadi regularly sends me pearls of wisdom. A recent pearl of relevance to this thread follows:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27048804/

Hmmm?