Thread in hope it might help others

[Baz493]

I think that the best way that I might be able to help others here is by gradually telling my own story about chronic fatigue.

Over twenty years ago, around a year after starting a new job, I began to experience chronic fatigue whenever I was away from work. When I started work each day I was still struggling but would begin to be filled with energy within the first hour and be filled with energy by the end of the work day. By the time I drove home I would be completely exhausted again and would go to sleep almost immediately, waking again in the morning ready to start work again. Every doctor I consulted just told me not to worry, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest. That wasn't any help at all. Every bookstore I went into I searched for answers and, after a year, found what I was looking for. It was a secondhand book by Dr Ronald L Hoffman; Tired all the time. You know how used books often fall open to whichever page has happened to be opened most often? Well, it did. It was as though the book had been waiting in the store just for me. The open pages detailed a list of chemicals which trigger chronic fatigue and one leaped out at me; trichloroethylene. We sprayed the solvent all over the place at work, cleaning paint and oil off of metal moulds. It's the same chemical which had to be banned from use in the office product, White out, because it caused illness and fatigue in office workers. The company had to have special permission from the government in order to use the chemical but, because of self-regulation laws, couldn't be bothered with living up to the required standards for protecting workers who were using it. I recovered within weeks of doing everything I could to protect myself but the story didn't end there. Since it's a long story, I will try to detail things in subsequent posts on this thread.

 

[Baz493]

Many years after the bout of chronic fatigue, resulting from the trichloroethylene exposure, I experienced another bout. Strangely, I have never been able to work out what triggered this one. So far as I was aware I hadn't been exposed to any toxic substances on this occasion. I consulted the book I mentioned but couldn't find any solutions so I went back to what I am familiar with; health and fitness. I joined my local gym and performed a single set of light, weighted, exercises before fatiguing and walking out. On my next visit, the next day, I was able to perform an additional repetition. I kept up this 'kaizen' approach to exercise for the subsequent year. I also commenced taking large doses of high quality antioxidants, oils, vegetable juices, and other supportive supplements, while improving my diet in any way I thought might help. It took a year before I realised, one day, that I had completely recovered from my chronic fatigue. While I found that Co-enzyme Q10, from my local health food stores, raised my energy levels slightly I quickly learnt that it was worth ordering Ubiquinol, a much stronger form of the enzyme, online.

In order to help you to understand the effect of trichloroethylene on chronic fatigue it is necessary to explain that it replaces a part of the Kreb cycle, initiating the tricarboxylic acid cycle of anaerobic respiration. As this cycle requires exposure to the chemical, in order to create energy, absence of the chemical robs the cycle of a key ingredient. The tricarboxylic acid cycle is often present in chronic fatigue, for a variety of reasons and I cannot hope to explain all of them.

 

[Baz493]

Finally I come to event three. While this isn't actually chronic fatigue I will still include it just in case. Working in the glass industry I experienced two years of extremely intense workload with repeated exposures, without respiratory protection, to a cold end coating spray placed on the outside of bottles. It took me years to find out the actual name of the chemical, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane. During that time it, and the solvents used for aerosolisation, wrecked my respiratory function and burnt holes in my gastrointestinal tract. Since doctors, at least where I live, seem to know very little about industrial chemicals they diagnosed my condition as being completely psychological. I finally found a GP who helped me to run a huge number of tests for conditions which might explain the myopathy I experienced and one returned positive. I had PL-7 autoimmune antibodies. This got me in the door at the local hospital, which had previously refused me medical investigations and criticised me for claiming that anything was wrong with me. The antibodies were proof of a condition called myositis, an autoimmune myopathy which leaves you immensely fatigued. A lot of people who take statin medications wind up with this condition. The investigations which the result bought me proved acute respiratory failure and a range of health issues. For some reason my blood oxygen levels remain perfectly normal even though I have very little pulmonary function.

With the help of the wife of another myositis sufferer we put together these facts. Cellular oxidation, from excessive hydrogen molecules in cells, causes calcium flooding to try to soak up the hydrogen before it alters into lactic acid, lactate, or hydrogen peroxide. The calcium interferes with muscle function, which relies upon calcium flooding to trigger muscle contractions. Hydrogen peroxide releases arachidonic acid from cell membranes, triggering the formation of isoprostanes and isoprostane-like substances. These are going to really mess you up, if they occur, since they have hormone like effects and mess with ion channels inside cells. If you want evidence of chronic fatigue syndrome then try to get your physician to check your levels of F2-isoprostanes. These are linked to the condition in medical research. Of course they're also linked to so many other diseases that it might take a while for your physician to work out exactly what might be wrong with you.

 

[Baz493]

There are very simple ways which I have found to reverse chronic fatigue, and other disease conditions. They won't cure anything but they will definitely help. Antioxidants, used for reversing oxidative states in the body, aren't equal. While vitamin C and E, and so on, are highly recommended by doctors and are necessary for reversing ill-health they are really pretty poor antioxidants. You can find the ORAC ratings for antioxidants on a huge number of different sites, each giving ratings on different foods. I've tended to use grape seed extract since it is fairly cheap, extremely effective, and readily available in large doses. That said, my brother turned out to be allergic to it, so give you may need to try something else if you are the same. For me, it turned the whites of my eyes from a dull greyish colour to bright white when I've used large doses. Restoring normal levels of calcium in cells requires the elimination of the oxidative state as well as force to push the calcium from the cells. That's why magnesium is necessary in the diet. Ideally this would come from green leafy foods but supplementation is often necessary. Do not take magnesium alone. I had a former naturopath who pushed me to take a magnesium only supplement with the consequence that I spent a couple of years fighting off repetitive leg cramps. Electrolytes need to be in balance with corresponding electrolytes. In the case of magnesium this is calcium. Ironic, I know, but you have to take 2 parts magnesium with 1 part calcium or you're likely to regret it. There are other electrolytes you can also use to help with the process of forcing out the calcium but magnesium is so essential to the cellular functions that it can't be replaced and the calcium flooding will result in it being forced out of the cells so it has to be replaced.

The reason that I have previously used exercise, in my own case weight training, in order to reverse chronic fatigue is that you need to get a good mixture of improvement in oxygenation, blood flows, muscle involvement in both of these, and so on, in order to magnify the effect of anything else that you are doing.

One final thing. Find out what caused your chronic fatigue. If you can't then you may still be being exposed to it. If so then you will continue to be poisoned by it. I could never identify the cause of my second bout of chronic fatigue; it may have been something which the company I worked for exposed us to or it may have been something which my local council tested as a weed killer for all I know. If it had been a permanent exposure then I probably would have been forced to find out what it was. Antioxidants, diet, and so on, are just band aid solutions if you are still receiving a toxic exposure. The book which I mentioned explains that you need to think of exposures like trying to carry bricks; one brick isn't too much of a burden but three are almost impossible to walk with. I had to eliminate gluten from my diet in order to get to my own peak performance, before the work exposure hit me like a brick wall. Oh, and companies lie; big surprise. The chemical I worked with was perfectly safe, until it wasn't. There are likely to be thousands of people who worked in the same job that I did who have varying degree's of the disability, fatigue, and illness, which I have experienced. When you experience chronic fatigue don't trust anyone's word; investigate every chemical you may be exposed to, whether directly or indirectly.

 

[Baz493]

What to know about genes and how they can result in chronic fatigue. Don't get the idea that I know everything; I am far from that. However I have been able to learn about a few genes which influence the situation. The MTHFR gene mutation is probably the most discussed online since it can cause so many different diseases. It weakens a bond between folate and riboflavin which is required in the methylation processes of the body. These processes break apart molecules which have already been used so that the smaller molecules can be used in construction of new ones. The weak bond means that the necessary molecule falls apart before it can do the job. People with the mutation can't use synthetic folate; folic acid, so require natural methylfolate. They also require supplementation of the diet with riboflavin and vitamin B12, which is required in the bonding process.

Of less likely importance are the ACTN3 R577X genotype and the MLCK gene mutation, both of which influence muscle fatigue. People with these experience much faster muscle fatigue and reduced athleticism. The ACTN3 gene has been linked to the development of severe myopathy.

If anyone has questions or answers to the situation themselves I leave it to people to post them. I doubt whether I have much more that I can think of to post here but may be able to answer some questions which I haven't been able to think of as I've been writing these posts.

 

[Baz493]

You probably haven't heard anyone mentioning this before but oils (lipids) can trainwreck your health and cause chronic fatigue and a variety of other diseases. And no, I'm not talking about LDL. When cellular oxidation occurs, due to the presence of excessive amounts of hydrogen, some of it is soaked up by the calcium which floods into cells in response to it. However, some will convert into lactic acid, lactate, and hydrogen peroxide. It's the last one which is of particular interest. When hydrogen peroxide damages cell membranes it releases arachidonic acid from the membranes. This acid is then free to attach to other lipids. These altered lipids are then known as isoprostanes. When it attaches to phospholipids they are known as isoprostane-like substances. These can not only weaken the integrity of any membranes in which they are incorporated but can also affect cellular ion channels due to their hormonal effects. They basically trigger anarchy within the cells, with inappropriate molecules entering places when they shouldn't. Your body basically begins to malfunction at the cellular level. This is going to be almost impossible for any physician to detect until many years after it has begun, since the condition may only result in traditionally recognised diseases after many years have passed. In the meantime the condition will likely be diagnosed as either psychosomatic or as chronic fatigue syndrome.

 

[Baz493]

If you've ever experienced a severe health event then you may have had what occurred to me when I collapsed at work with heat stroke one time. Although my own case pivoted upon the heat-induced electrolyte imbalances there are all kinds of ways in which the same result can occur. What was important was the consequence. If you've ever noticed your urine turning a reddish brown colour then you may have thought it was blood, like I did. What it really was, in my own case, was evidence of muscle damage and the destruction of a protein which draws oxygen from the blood, myoglobin. The heat stroke basically caused such a severe oxidation event that it destroyed the myoglobin in my muscles leaving them starved of oxygen and unable to produce energy using aerobic respiration. Anaerobic respiration just isn't anywhere near as efficient for energy production and you wind up with chronic fatigue and myopathy.

 

[Baz493]

I put together an extremely simplified explanation of how disease progresses, in many cases, for my local myositis support group. Hopefully it will be of some assistance to people here too. https://docs.google.com/document/d/19RY4UuP6MsjSbtqwBUnaibG6xR01Jmo5ZewsJ5oh-Tk/edit

 

[Baz493]

Sarcopenia is the name for age-related loss of muscle mass and strength. This is closely tied to the development of myopathy as the same patterns of cellular oxidation and muscle breakdown are involved in both situations. Excess hydrogen resulting in oxidative damage and formation of acids. Calcium flooding to reduce hydrogen levels. On and on as described in the Google docs document provided. Medical researchers and physicians are currently trying to tackle the question of how intra-abdominal pressures relate to disease, myopathy, and other health issues. Since I believe that it will help some people to understand what has happened to them I will explain what happened to me. My health was undermined by repeated toxic work exposures so that when I collapsed from heat stroke my health collapsed with it. Overnight, my physical and cognitive functions virtually disappeared. I couldn't understand how, when I had previously been an avid martial artist and weight trainer, I found myself so fatigued that I was unable to even sit up in bed. I was suddenly like a beached whale. Over the following months I experienced wild fluctuations in my function from hour to hour and day to day as pulmonary function bounced up and down, affecting intra-abdominal pressures. Without normal intra-abdominal pressures your body is a bit like a puppet without strings. Imagine that all of the skeletal muscle function throughout your body relies upon pressure in this region, as thought the limbs had tightened strings which all tethered back there. So losing that pressure is like having those strings cut. The pressures support all abdominal and lower spinal (core) muscle function. Without those you find your posture collapsing, such as in POTS, and every action becomes nighmarishly fatiguing. Of course, unless you know about intra-abdominal pressure, and are able to convince your physicians that it is related to your condition, you are likely to find yourself labelled as having psychological issues resulting in imagined chronic fatigue.

 

[Baz493]

It took me years of searching through medical research available online before I ever heard about isoprostanes. These are altered fatty acid/phospholipid molecules which have hormonal properties. Whenever the body incorporates them in any functional location, whether as cell membranes or for biological activity, they mess up the normal processes. I was looking at an article which linked them with fibromyalgia; there is high production of them in the body yet only normal levels appear to be eliminated from the body. This appears to result in the aberrant cross-linking of collagen in tissues in the disease. As they pertain to chronic fatigue I refer you to this article on healthrising's site; https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2...-fibromyalgia-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-mecfs/ When you look at many diseases, including chronic fatigue, you can often find a similar pattern of excessive hydrogen levels resulting in increased lactic acid, lactate, and hydrogen peroxide. The peroxynitrite, which Dr Shungu details as being relevant to chronic fatigue, is a consequence of a reaction between nitrogen and the hydrogen peroxide. Both peroxynitrite and hydrogen peroxide have been found to trigger the release of arachidonic acid from tissues, so permitting the arachidonic acid to join with fatty acid/phospholipid molecules, forming the isoprostanes and triggering a range of health conditions. When they are joined with peptides and proteins they can trigger an autoimmune response which attacks those particles, so resulting in conditions such as the autoimmune blood clotting called antiphospholipid syndrome. Not all phospholipids are attacked by the immune system in this condition since not all phospholipids are contaminated. The simplest solution is reducing conditions inducing oxidative stress and increasing dietary intake of high ORAC level antioxidant foods while also including healthy oils and phospholipids in the diet. Both saturated and unsaturated fats can become isoprostanes so both are necessary in order to ensure elimination of them from the body. The body only has receptors for detecting saturated fatty acid isoprostanes, in order to trigger their elimination, so that ensuring a good turnover of unsaturated fatty acid isoprostanes may be more difficult.

 

[Meirav]

Fats, functions and malfunctions.

There is a growing recognition that a persistent increase of free fatty acids in the serum, which is seen in shock, heart failure, and aging, indicates a bad prognosis, but there is no generally recognized explanation for the fact that free fatty acids are harmful. I want to mention some...

raypeat.com

 

[Baz493]

Hi Meirav. This is probably a more appropriate Ray Peat article, detailing breakdown of polyunsaturated fats to isoprostanes via the arachidonic acid present in the linoleic acid. http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fats-degeneration3.shtml Linoleic acid is present in many foods so I think it appropriate to provide this link detailing linoleic acid content of foods. https://wholefoodcatalog.info/nutrient/linoleic_acid/foods/1/

 

[Baz493]

After a sleep I took another look at the article I provided you and recognised my mistake. Linoleic acid isn't the 'bad guy' I made it out to be. Both Linoleic acid and linolenic acid can be converted into arachidonic acid by the body but arachidonic acid, itself, is an omega 6 polyunsaturated fat; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidonic_acid So I much appreciate your input Meirav. Here is a more appropriate list of foods to avoid; https://www.organicfacts.net/foods-omega-6.html

 

[Baz493]

In researching my own condition I have been learning about a nasty trend which leads to a range of issues and believe it to be worth sharing. Regardless of the cause, once an excessively oxidative state is reached within the body a cascade of events begins to occur. Arachidonic acid is released in order to form a range of eicosanoids, inflammatory signaling molecules possessing hormonal effects which disrupt the bodies function. Just one example of those effects is vasoconstriction and reduced supply of oxygen and nutrients to muscle, organ, and tissue. Cumulatively, these effects create the pattern which is referred to as inflammation. We are accustomed to seeing swelling in parts of our body which have been injured/inflammed yet don't tend to consider this in cases of disease. However physicians are familiar with raised internal bodypart pressures in both crush injuries and severe disease, as compartment syndrome. The increased internal pressures can crush muscle and organ just like an external blow yet the pressure is likely to remain high unlike the momentary effect of a blow. This, as well as the reduced supply of essential nutrients, is like a constant source of cellular damage. Psychiatrists like to sell the idea that chronic fatigue is a psychological condition and I won't deny that stress can induce vasoconstriction as well as many other issues. However the process which I have described is exactly the same one which you are likely to find in any disease, including chronic fatigue. Toxic exposures tend not to be well advertised and extreme confusion is common when you first experience the onset of these kind of conditions so it's difficult to know what to blame. It took me seven years, after the onset of my current ill health, to identify the exact chemical exposure which induced it. A current neighbour took nearly two years before a doctor recognised his condition as being induced by one of his medications; an opioid. When I first met him his mind was still constantly moving from blaming one after another of a string of chemical exposures; unable to be certain of which was the cause. That's simply how it is in the beginning; everything is so confusing. The trouble is that if you don't actively search for the answer then you are only likely to stumble across it by accident.

 

[Not dead yet!]

Fats, functions and malfunctions.

There is a growing recognition that a persistent increase of free fatty acids in the serum, which is seen in shock, heart failure, and aging, indicates a bad prognosis, but there is no generally recognized explanation for the fact that free fatty acids are harmful. I want to mention some...

raypeat.com

From the article you linked, "The most highly unsaturated fats found in fish oil break down into chemicals that block the use of glucose and oxygen. "

This should be a well known fact of all fats ingested, including saturated fats. The entire "LOW FAT vegan / plant based" community focuses in detail on why fats should be avoided as a food item, as much as possible. It's made up of several famous cardiologists and medical researchers which are NOT shills for any corporation but quite the opposite as the "edible oils" lobby has tried to discredit them vigorously.

I know that I personally can't be a vegan. But that doesn't mean the lesson about low fat and salt is not understood by me. What's missed in the pro-fat / anti-fat debate is that both sides think they're the only renegades on the playing field. Actually they are both renegades. Pro-fat is attacked by the grains industry. Anti-fat is attacked by the edible oils industry.

The net result is that it's incredibly easy to be confused or misled.

What we're seeing now is the first confirmation that there is a side effect of keto dieting. It took until now to see that some people seem to damage their liver with it. That's not the expected side effect. The more obvious one would've been chronic kidney disease being triggered. Except it didn't happen, that's still largely genetic or age related.

I recommend everyone be very cautious about their diet and large changes to it. Verify your assumptions and if you feel unwell, do suspect that it's the diet doing that.

 

[Baz493]

Not dead yet,

I've found that it has paid me to research the diseases of people who I am in contact with as well as my own in order to better understand what has happened in my body. There's often very little in common but even that little bit can add an enormous amount to the entire picture. I was shocked to learn that people suffering from schizophrenia actually have a genetic disposition which tries to protect them from developing cancer through a series of biochemical reactions which result in the schizophrenia. Genetic solutions to health issues can be quite amazing.

I was won over to saturated fats in the diet a long time ago when I learnt that the medium chain fatty acids which I used to support my weight training were just a distillation of coconut oil. Having been out to the Pacific islands and seen how healthy the people are, who live on coconuts as well as vegetables grown in their often poor soils, I had no choice but to re-evaluate the beliefs which physicians have drummed into us about saturated fats. I also learnt, a couple of decades ago, that flaxseed oil is used in the Gerson institutes treatment for disease. Since most of their patients have already been given news on having limited times left to live and since they claim close to a hundred percent cure rate, meaning that patients are still alive five years after treatment, it convinced me of the benefit of the oil and other practices of the organisation.

As for avoiding meat. I did try it for a while but could see my health quickly crashing. I know people who are on vegan diets and seem to be relatively healthy but do wonder whether such a diet requires specific patterns of genetic disposition for it to work. I know that you're right about the fish however my meat intake is largely restricted to fish and chicken. I realised, during the decades of weight training, that people do not require a lot of meat or protein to function. Even at my largest, and most muscular, I found that I required only the smallest amounts of meat and protein in order to build or maintain lean muscle as well as to maintain excellent health. A lot of the time it isn't about what you eat but about how much of it you eat.

 

[Baz493]

I am gradually coming to realise that one of the greatest threats to our health lies in all of the microorganisms which comprise our microbiota. Foreign cells make up 90% of the cells in our bodies and the human body has evolved to rely upon them for its survival. They produce a wide range of molecules which our own bodies are incapable of making and they fill in gaps which we can't. However it's wrong to assume that they are doing this for us. I've come to learn that a lot of health conditions result from a bacterial product called lipid A. It's a lipopolysaccharide and an endotoxin. In healthy people it can be used by our bodies but any dysregulation can result in it damaging all of the different functions for which our bodies have found uses for it. This disrupts signaling proteins, such as tachykinin, and lipid rafts. It disrupts lipid metabolism and every biological process which relies upon that. Compared to this any genetic issues we have seems minor and most doctors seem to know almost nothing about it.

 

[Baz493]

Firstly, the best solution which i have found for reducing levels of pathogenic micro-organisms in the body is a micro-organism. Japanese researchers determined that one of the big secrets for Japanese and Okinawan centenarians has been high levels of a bacteria called Odoribacteraceae. This bacteria produces a bile acid called isoallolithocholic acid. This bile acid actually helps to kill off pathogenic micro-organisms in the body, so leading to far lower doses of endotoxins and mycotoxins in the body and far lower levels of dysregulation which results from that. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34325466/

For those who have been exposed to silica or silica nanoparticles (likely sourced from polyethylene or other resins and yet still labelled as these resins) I have a further answer. A 2021 study, exploring the effect of silica nanoparticles on mitochondrial dysfunction in lung epithelial cells, found that the particles inhibit the transfer of phosphate molecules from ATP for the fueling of energy production in the mitochondria. The implication of this is that the inhibition can prevent both aerobic and anaerobic respiration (production of energy inside cells both with and without oxygen). If we can assume that the same thing occurs in whichever tissues the nanoparticles reside then this has major implications for health. Most people are completely unaware of the presence of these nanoparticles in everything from foods, medicines, cosmetics, surgical prosthetics, coatings and paints, etc. Our society has been completely infiltrated with these particles and medical researchers have begun to question how safe this is. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34576336/ https://particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-8977-7-39 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3014868/