Choline Confusion

[MagicBean]

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[Plumster]

Hi MagicBean,

Did you see this NIH link I added on another thread? It weighs the contradictory research fairly, I think:
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Choli ... fessional/

[MagicBean]

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[SusanJ]

Still unsure if I should supplement and with what form specifically.

What is your goal with taking choline? Do you have high homocysteine? Its probably a reasonable indicator if your choline intake is too low given your other snps. Testing might help answer your question.

Have you tracked your choline intake with Cronometer or similar program?

Do you have BHMT variants - you might need more choline, or at minimum TMG.

Are you post-menopausal? That can also drive up choline requirements, because estrogen drives PEMT.

Premenopausal women are relatively resistant to choline deficiency compared with postmenopausal women and men.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430895/

But, if your methylation cycle is humming along, you eat healthy and you're premenopausal, you might not need any.

If you want to experiment, you might try phosphatidylcholine (PC). With the potential for methylation glitches due to your other snps, supplementing PC directly will help spare your methyl groups for other purposes (something like 80% of methyl groups go to making PC, which is in all cell membranes, and creatine).

I supplement to lower homocysteine. I take PC and creatine supplements a few times per week, along with Bs and TMG daily, and the combo finally dropped my homocysteine from 10.4 to 6.9. And I am post-menopausal. If you aren't menopausal, and homocysteine isn't high, you might be fine without supplementing choline, even with your snps.

Highly recommend looking at Ben Lynch's Dirty Genes book. It has a whole chapter on PEMT, and discusses its relationship to methylation. Probably can borrow it from the library.

[MagicBean]

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[SusanJ]

I had to Google TMG... eeek, another supplement to research.

If you don't have high homocysteine, skip TMG. Not necessary.

One other question, do you have a family history of gall bladder disease (gall stones, gall bladder removal)? If not, then your variants might not be an issue.

Cronometer is not an exacting programs for sure. But if you consistently run low on choline, then your estrogen is probably urging PEMT to work a little harder. If I were you, I'd just try to get a few more of the choline containing foods in my diet and leave it at that.

Here's a decent overview from Dr. Axe, which includes a short list of foods with decent choline amounts besides eggs.
https://draxe.com/nutrition/supplements ... s-choline/

[MagicBean]

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[SusanJ]

I've never had gall bladder issues but my mother has (stones and removal) as well as some folks on my dad's side.

So, just watch for signs that your gall bladder needs more support, because PC is needed for bile flow.

Definitely try to get hold of Dirty Genes. I think the chapter on PEMT will be very helpful for you.

[circular]

"Choline Confusion" seems like a good place to post these contradictory findings. I don't have time to dig into them and apologize if they've already been posted somewhere:

2017 Review: Dietary Choline and Betaine and Risk of CVD: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies

Our findings do not support an association between dietary choline/betaine with incident CVD, but call for further research into choline and CVD mortality.

2019 Dietary choline is positively related to overall and cause-specific mortality: results from individuals of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and pooling prospective data:

We evaluated the link between choline consumption and overall as well as cause-specific mortality by using both individual data and pooling prospective studies by meta-analysis and systematic review. ... After adjustments, we found that individuals consuming more choline had worse lipid profile and glucose homeostasis, but lower C-reactive protein levels [leaving one to wonder about the adverse affects of their overall diet with high choline] ... Our findings shed light on the potential adverse effects of choline intake on selected cardiometabolic risk factors and mortality risk.

[Julie G]

Hi Circ! I took a quick look at your latter study, Dietary choline is positively related to overall and cause-specific mortality: results from individuals of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and pooling prospective data, and found it pretty unconvincing. First, choline intake was assessed from a one time interview that relied on accurate self-reporting of a previous 24 hour period. Then, subjects were followed for an average of of 24.4 years before for all cause mortality correlations were drawn. My diet has changed pretty dramatically within a 24 year timeframe. I suspect that the same is likely true of this dataset.

IMG_1574.jpg

Next, look at Table 3 above. (No idea why it's upside down.) You'll see the authors successfully make the argument that insulin resistance is correlated with all cause mortality. Those with the highest hbA1 are more likely to die. The authors, however, fail to make that connection with choline intake because of the poor methodology described above. Lastly, see the introduction to the paper to see the very poor supporting data for this hypothesis:

Evidence linking choline and insulin resistance (IR) is limited and largely based on animal experiments. Only one study in humans, reported improved IR in individuals with a higher choline intake (14). In another human study, serum choline levels were inversely associated with the risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) (8). Furthermore, decreased serum choline levels served as possible predictors of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and IR in the pre-diabetic state (9). Just a single study examined the effects of dietary choline intake on body composition; a high dietary choline consumption was significantly associated with a favorable body composition (10).
To the best of our knowledge, only two studies evaluated the link between CVD mortality and choline intake showing diverse results (11, 12) i.e. a Japanese study reported no association between intake of phosphatidylcholine and CVD mortality (12), whereas an American study found a positive relationship between choline consumption and CVD mortality (11). The Japanese study also evaluated the association between stroke mortality and choline intake, with null findings (12). With regard to all- cause death, there is also just one study involving USA adults, reporting a positive link with choline intake (11). Furthermore, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study (ARIC), involving 14,430 middle- aged men and women, found a non-significant association between choline consumption and CVD incidence (13). This finding was further supported by the Jackson Heart Study (n=3,924), showing a positive relationship between choline intake and coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence, but a reverse link between choline consumption and ischemic stroke incidence (3). In contrast, in another study in 16,165 women (age range: 49-70 years), there was no significant link between CVD and choline intake.

In defense of the authors, nutritional science is very difficult to conduct, especially from a longitudinal perspective. From this paper, however, I see no convincing evidence that dietary choline intake is correlated with mortality.