[quote]helga wrote:
Can we assume that you doc has tested you for diabetes?[/quote]
Just fasting glucose, which came back both times @ 77 and 78 I belive.
[quote]Bri Hildebrandt wrote:
Hey Ben,
I thought you might like to be filled on the purpose of the supplements a little better, especially the copper and boron. I know I don’t like to take things I don’t know much about.
[/quote]
Thanks, this gives me a good starting point for my own research. The problem is this is what I spend all my time doing and my school work falls farther behind. Last spring & summer I had to do a medical withdrawl. I barely eeked through the fall semester, and just started a new spring semester yesterday.
[quote]
Hope that helps. If you’re interested in buying these supplements especially the copper and boron they may be harder to find. Your typical GNC or healthfood store might not stock them. If you look hard enough though, you should be able to find them in your area… perhaps a specialty healthfood store, and most obviously the internet if it is no where else to be found. A months supply for all five supplements should be less than 50 dollars. They are all quite cheap. There’s no real money to be made from some unscroupulous huckster.
Brian Hildebrandt[/quote]
I’m going to give it a try. There’s a couple specialty health food stores in town I’m going to check after class.
Getting rid of all the fruit in the house was hard. I got rid of most of it last night, but then couldn’t sleep because I was so pissed off from not solving this problem by now and really couldn’t sleep. So I got back up and ended up threw the rest of it away early this morning. I also packed up my numerous bags & tins of coffee (which I refuse to throw out) and am going to store them at my friends house for the time being so I’m not tempted.
Breakfast this morning I did:
1c Oats, 1/3c Flax, 1/3c Grow!, 1/2c Skim Milk, 1/2oz Shredded Coconut, 1oz Almonds, 85g Baby Carrots, (3) Fish Oil Capsules, 20mg Adderall, 100mg Caffeine, 150mg Effexor XR, Acidophilus, Allega-D, 180mg Aleve.
1000 calories, 49g Fat (13g Saturated), 90g Carb. (25g Fiber), and 52g Protein. (44% Fat, 36% Carb., 24% Protein)
Already been through 40oz water, 4 bathroom trips & planning on eating again real soon (~+3 hrs).
I think that the best advice is to go find a good doctor that you feel comfortable with. It is impossible and dangerous to diagnose things on the internet. I would be wary of extreme diets like total avoidance of certain food groups like fruit. You do not have diabetes mellitus, your fasting blood glucose is normal and that is the test of choice.
You should get a urine analysis to screen for things like diabetes insipidus (which has nothing to do with sugar), and to look for blood or protein in the urine. Depression may masquerade as many illnesses and is definately in your list of possibilities. Find a good doctor, and work with this person! Good luck.
[quote]Mithrandir wrote:
I think that the best advice is to go find a good doctor that you feel comfortable with. It is impossible and dangerous to diagnose things on the internet. I would be wary of extreme diets like total avoidance of certain food groups like fruit. You do not have diabetes mellitus, your fasting blood glucose is normal and that is the test of choice.
[/quote]
I agree that he most likely doesn’t have diabetes mellitus due to his fasting blood glucose readings. What I’ve outlined for him is hardly extreme or dangerous though. No ones going to drop dead from temporarily stopping eating fruit.
Eliminating fruits isn’t all that big a deal. In paleolithic times, fruit was only available at certain times of the year, and wasn’t eaten on a regular basis.
Just like cutting out dairy. 70% of the world is lactose intolerant which means they can’t eat dairy without the help of ingested enzymes. To them, cutting out a whole food group doesn’t sound all that irrational. It’s our modern concept of the “food pyramid” I think which has distorted our view of what is good and what is bad.
Some people clearly need more fruit in their diets. They function tremendously well on it. Better with it than without, but that’s unique to their specific chemistry. You can’t say fruit is “good” or “bad”. It depends on the situation.
The reason for forgoing fruit is that it is rich in fructose. Copper deficient people have a hard time metabolizing fructose. How do I know he’s copper deficient? I don’t directly but a lot of things point to to indirectly:
He appears anemic looking at his red blood cell values. Anemia can be a result of being deficient in iron, B12, or copper. Since his iron and B12 are normal it does point to a copper deficiency.
His neutrophils are also deficient which is a marker for copper deficiency. As well as an extremely elevated folate level. Folate levels are inversely proportionate to copper levels.
We’ll never know whether he’s copper deficient until it gets reliably tested, but it’s a working theory at least.
Taking advice from “some guy on the internet” doesn’t sound all that appealing as well I can admit. The best thing to do is to become an informed patient, do as much research yourself, work with a doctor, and do some trial and error.
In a perfect world we could go to any doctor, they would run a few tests, figure out the CAUSE of our symptoms, treat us properly, and practice preventative medicine, but sadly it doesn’t work that way. I had been to upteen specialists myself. All of them telling me “everything checked out normal”, and that there was nothing they could do for me, when I was clearly suffering myself with extreme fatigue, depression, and hypoglycemia.
What a piss off it is to find out after thousands of hours of research that you “cured” yourself by eating more fat and protein, less fruit, and increasing calcium metabolism via vitamin D, copper, etc… It doesn’t exactly sound like rocket science after the fact does it? 
I agree it would be a good idea to get tested for diabetes insipidus. It’s one more thing to rule out if that’s not the case.
Brian Hildebrandt
[quote]tomblin wrote:
All told, I eat a LOT of fructose, and haven’t tried giving it up yet. It’s worth trying, so like I said I just emptied the fridge and will give it a shot. Anything is better than what I’ve been going through.
[/quote]
This makes me think uric acid levels would be even more interesting. Fructose, iron and insulin all seem to increase uric acid levels, and it’s rather unclear what effects of it’s own uric acid has. It aparently decreases the excretion of ions like sodium and potassium and is a competitive inhibitor of lactate excretion. This decrease in excretion could explain elevated plasma osmolality and possibly the high potassium level. It may even interfere with insulin metabolism itself, adding to the viscious circle.
As always, I’m not a doctor, just a nerd. Please consult a real phsyician as they tend to “know what they’re doing” whereas I’m just speculating. Seriously though, I would get your uric acid checked.
Now for the fun stuff, scientific literature:
This one I couldn’t get a hyperlink for (accessed it from school network) so here’s the abstract:
The association between serum ferritin and uric acid in humans
?
Free Radical Research ? March, 2005, vol. 39, no. 3, ? pp. 337-342(6)
?
Ghio Andrew J. [1]; Ford Earl S. [1]; Kennedy Thomas P. [1]; Hoidal John R. [1]
?
[1] Respiratory, Critical Care, and Occupational (Pulmonary) Medicine Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84132 USA
?
Abstract:
Objective : Urate forms a coordination complex with Fe 3+ which does not support electron transport. The only enzymatic source of urate is xanthine oxidoreductase. If a major purpose of xanthine oxidoreductase is the production of urate to function as an iron chelator and antioxidant, a system for coupling the activity of this enzyme to the availability of catalytically-active metal would be required. We tested the hypothesis that there is an association between iron availability and urate production in healthy humans by correlating serum concentrations of ferritin with uric acid levels. Materials and methods : The study population included 4932 females and 4794 males in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. They were 20 years of age or older and in good health. Results : Serum concentrations of ferritin correlated positively with uric acid levels in healthy individuals ( R 2 =0.41, p <0.001). This association was independent of an effect of gender, age, race/ethnic group, body mass, and alcohol consumption. Conclusions : The relationship between serum ferritin and uric acid predicts hyperuricemia and gout in groups with iron accumulation. This elevation in the production of uric acid with increased concentrations of iron could possibly reflect a response of the host to diminish the oxidative stress presented by available metal as the uric acid assumes the empty or loosely bound coordination sites of the iron to diminish electron transport and subsequent oxidant generation.
?
Keywords: Xanthine oxidase; iron; phlebotomy; oxidants; gout
The above study is a personal favorite.
That’s plenty. If you have access to the Annals of Internal Medicine you may also want to read “Pathogenesis of Gout” to get another look at uric acid metabolism.
[quote]conorh wrote:
tomblin wrote:
All told, I eat a LOT of fructose, and haven’t tried giving it up yet. It’s worth trying, so like I said I just emptied the fridge and will give it a shot. Anything is better than what I’ve been going through.
This makes me think uric acid levels would be even more interesting. Fructose, iron and insulin all seem to increase uric acid levels, and it’s rather unclear what effects of it’s own uric acid has. It aparently decreases the excretion of ions like sodium and potassium and is a competitive inhibitor of lactate excretion. This decrease in excretion could explain elevated plasma osmolality and possibly the high potassium level. It may even interfere with insulin metabolism itself, adding to the viscious circle.[/quote]
I looked over the abstracts and will read the articles this weekend when I get a moment. (I also have access through school) The more I know the better chance I have getting the doctor to do what I want.
[quote]
Bri Hildebrandt wrote:
Taking advice from “some guy on the internet” doesn’t sound all that appealing as well I can admit. The best thing to do is to become an informed patient, do as much research yourself, work with a doctor, and do some trial and error.
In a perfect world we could go to any doctor, they would run a few tests, figure out the CAUSE of our symptoms, treat us properly, and practice preventative medicine, but sadly it doesn’t work that way. I had been to upteen specialists myself. All of them telling me “everything checked out normal”, and that there was nothing they could do for me, when I was clearly suffering myself with extreme fatigue, depression, and hypoglycemia.[/quote]
I’m not abandoning my doctor, rather I’m doing whatever I can in the meantime to find relief and based on Brian’s experience this seems worth a try.
Starting today the regimen I’ve implemented is as follows:
No fruit, no coffee. Slowly taper caffeine intake using caffeine pills, green tea, and Adderall.
Morning: .5g Calcium Citrate, 2g Chelated Boron, 2g Chelated Copper, 1g Vitamin D (extracted from fish oil), 1.5g EPA/DHA (cod liver oil), Acidophilus, 150mg CoQ10.
Afternoon: .5g Calcium Citrate, 5g Boron, 2g Copper, Acidophilus, .8g EPA/DHA (fish oil).
Evening: 400mg Magnesium, 1.3g EPA/DHA.
In addition I’ve taken to increasing average meal size to about 1000 calories each with around 40-50g fat with some emphesis on saturates which I largely tried to elimate before.
Now if I could only get to the gym, fractured ribs are a bitch.
Off to the PT now, will report back in a week with my food diary and results so far.
any results?
Are you still training with this kind of volume, or anything like it?
Your food needs are going to be extreme if you are burning so much energy.