phosphatidylserine supplement
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wmonique2
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About nicotine and its "benefits"---- I think one should be very cautious about where any research comes from. Many of the so-called papers that are posted on the internet about certain research that is contrary to what the evidence shows should be considered questionable. There are many lobbies whose only job is to promote the agenda of the companies they represent.
I know of many PR firms that represent those companies and their only job is to pepper the internet with false information or biased information. These sites disguise as legitimate research, look legit but are anything but. You have to be a pretty savvy media person to distinguish between them and the real legit medical research. So, caveat emptor.
Nicotine may protect you from alzheimers or parkinsons as some paper claim (and I read the enclosed "research" which is certainly paid for by the cigarette lobby) but it will kill you from heart disease, arterial peripheral disease and lung cancer long before you develop either one of these conditions. It will put you on an oxygen machine and you'll die gasping for air. Not a pretty sight. I've seen it. I lived it.
Monique
I know of many PR firms that represent those companies and their only job is to pepper the internet with false information or biased information. These sites disguise as legitimate research, look legit but are anything but. You have to be a pretty savvy media person to distinguish between them and the real legit medical research. So, caveat emptor.
Nicotine may protect you from alzheimers or parkinsons as some paper claim (and I read the enclosed "research" which is certainly paid for by the cigarette lobby) but it will kill you from heart disease, arterial peripheral disease and lung cancer long before you develop either one of these conditions. It will put you on an oxygen machine and you'll die gasping for air. Not a pretty sight. I've seen it. I lived it.
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Thx, Monique, but I don't smoke anymore, but occasionally use an ECIG with liquid nicotine. I do know some of the research is skewed because of the power of lobbyists and the big corporations, though... which is a terrible shame. Sometimes you have to read betw. the lines & compare the research with other writings & use your common sense, huh? It's like the powerful drug companies out & out lying about what some drugs will do for you, then you read the side effects and some of them are worse than what you want or need help with.
You can't change the wind, but you can adjust the sails.
Monique,
Aren't you missing the point here? Smoking is not the only way to administer a nicotine treatment. The medical community could develop a safe way to administer nicotine as a treatment, if they had any interest in doing so, but they are only interested in treating disease by prescribing expensive drugs, so they rely on their pharmaceutical partners to develop those expensive drugs. Pharmaceutical companies are not likely to promote the use of nicotine, because it is cheap, and readily available, so there is no way that they can patent it and make a fortune from selling it as treatments for disease, so it's not likely to happen. That leaves patients high and dry, in their effort to find the best ways to treat certain diseases.
I've been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, so I've done my homework. I tried one of the recently-developed "wonder drugs" designed to treat it, Azilect (rasagiline). It almost killed me. Azilect is probably the reason why I almost bled to death a couple of years ago. It lead to a drug interaction (with a common antihistamine) that resulted in a series of blood pressure spikes that came in cycles that persisted for days, until it finally caused massive colonic bleeding (surgeons had to perform emergency surgery to remove my colon, in order to save my life, and they almost didn't get it done in time). Trust me, no drugs are without risk, and I agree that includes nicotine.
The use of nicotine as a treatment for disease is hardly a tobacco company PR campaign (I doubt that any tobacco companies would actually try to promote smoking as "healthy", since that would surely result in a major backlash effect). Fortunately, a few medical researchers have actually gone to the trouble to do analytical studies on the topic (as seen in the old article at the link below), but since tobacco has been marked to be forcibly removed from public use, no one is interested in studying the use of nicotine to prevent or treat disease anymore, and it's highly unlikely that any future research will ever be funded.
Transdermal Nicotine for Active Ulcerative Colitis
That research was published in 1994, and I believe that we can all agree that the New England Journal of Medicine is a reliable source of medical research information. The results of the study leave no doubt that nicotine patches could be used very effectively to treat UC. But have you ever heard of anyone who has UC who has been offered such a treatment? I'm guessing that your answer is, "No", because I haven't heard of anyone either. Instead of doing that, doctors prefer to prescribe expensive drugs with serious side effects.
So Lulu's points are clearly valid. We realize that we can't trust everything that we read on the internet, because the internet is full of websites promoting "agendas". But one thing that we do know for sure is the fact that we can't trust the pharmaceutical companies and our doctors to always recommend what's best for us. We have to accept responsibility for our own health, and we always have to make our own judgments, because ultimately, no one knows as much about our personal health, or cares as much about it, as we do.
Incidentally, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that the current epidemic of IBDs, Alzheimer's, obesity, and autoimmune-type diseases in general, just happens to coincide with the eradication of smoking in the general population. Do you really think that is nothing more than just a coincidence?
I'm not trying to legitimatize smoking — I'm just trying to legitimatize the use of nicotine as an option to treat certain diseases for which it could be very helpful.
FWIW, I don't inhale smoke of any kind (not even second-hand smoke), because I agree that it can cause the dire results that you listed. But I've been smoking cigars for well over 50 years now, and my oxygenation rate is typically around 98 % (and I had serious asthma problems when I was young). Sure, it's a disgusting habit, but it's the most practical way for me to administer a nicotine treatment, and I really don't care to risk developing Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's, because they are also extremely cruel diseases.
Life is a wheel of fortune, and we win or lose the game by the choices we make.
Love,
Tex
Aren't you missing the point here? Smoking is not the only way to administer a nicotine treatment. The medical community could develop a safe way to administer nicotine as a treatment, if they had any interest in doing so, but they are only interested in treating disease by prescribing expensive drugs, so they rely on their pharmaceutical partners to develop those expensive drugs. Pharmaceutical companies are not likely to promote the use of nicotine, because it is cheap, and readily available, so there is no way that they can patent it and make a fortune from selling it as treatments for disease, so it's not likely to happen. That leaves patients high and dry, in their effort to find the best ways to treat certain diseases.
I've been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, so I've done my homework. I tried one of the recently-developed "wonder drugs" designed to treat it, Azilect (rasagiline). It almost killed me. Azilect is probably the reason why I almost bled to death a couple of years ago. It lead to a drug interaction (with a common antihistamine) that resulted in a series of blood pressure spikes that came in cycles that persisted for days, until it finally caused massive colonic bleeding (surgeons had to perform emergency surgery to remove my colon, in order to save my life, and they almost didn't get it done in time). Trust me, no drugs are without risk, and I agree that includes nicotine.
The use of nicotine as a treatment for disease is hardly a tobacco company PR campaign (I doubt that any tobacco companies would actually try to promote smoking as "healthy", since that would surely result in a major backlash effect). Fortunately, a few medical researchers have actually gone to the trouble to do analytical studies on the topic (as seen in the old article at the link below), but since tobacco has been marked to be forcibly removed from public use, no one is interested in studying the use of nicotine to prevent or treat disease anymore, and it's highly unlikely that any future research will ever be funded.
Transdermal Nicotine for Active Ulcerative Colitis
That research was published in 1994, and I believe that we can all agree that the New England Journal of Medicine is a reliable source of medical research information. The results of the study leave no doubt that nicotine patches could be used very effectively to treat UC. But have you ever heard of anyone who has UC who has been offered such a treatment? I'm guessing that your answer is, "No", because I haven't heard of anyone either. Instead of doing that, doctors prefer to prescribe expensive drugs with serious side effects.
So Lulu's points are clearly valid. We realize that we can't trust everything that we read on the internet, because the internet is full of websites promoting "agendas". But one thing that we do know for sure is the fact that we can't trust the pharmaceutical companies and our doctors to always recommend what's best for us. We have to accept responsibility for our own health, and we always have to make our own judgments, because ultimately, no one knows as much about our personal health, or cares as much about it, as we do.
Incidentally, I'm sure you're aware of the fact that the current epidemic of IBDs, Alzheimer's, obesity, and autoimmune-type diseases in general, just happens to coincide with the eradication of smoking in the general population. Do you really think that is nothing more than just a coincidence?
I'm not trying to legitimatize smoking — I'm just trying to legitimatize the use of nicotine as an option to treat certain diseases for which it could be very helpful.
FWIW, I don't inhale smoke of any kind (not even second-hand smoke), because I agree that it can cause the dire results that you listed. But I've been smoking cigars for well over 50 years now, and my oxygenation rate is typically around 98 % (and I had serious asthma problems when I was young). Sure, it's a disgusting habit, but it's the most practical way for me to administer a nicotine treatment, and I really don't care to risk developing Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's, because they are also extremely cruel diseases.
Life is a wheel of fortune, and we win or lose the game by the choices we make.
Love,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
I TOTALLY agree Tex. I cannot tell you the many times Drs. & their drugs have failed family members of mine and friends also. That's exactly why I also read natural alternatives. I have HAD to. If it hadn't been for them & an excellent Naturopathic minded person at my local health food store back then, my daughter would most likely have died (she was soo sick from a Dr's. treatment of meds), or would've gotten C-Diff a couple of different times. Just recently a good friend got it and almost died, because of the ineptness of a Dr. giving her long term antibiotics without the proper probiotics. Sometimes Western Medicine lacks lots, and also Drs. get self involved in their practices and or lives and just don't research enough. I know there is a place for RX meds, esp. antibiotics, but I also think common sense & not believing the Dr. is God, has an equal place. I watched Dr. Weil on Dr. Oz yesterday and his go- to Dr., Dr. Tiernona Low Dog, MD. I think they are right on target, just as Dr. Mercola, etc, are on lots of things.
I also think that smoking shouldn't be blamed for everything that comes along. Like Tex, I know it isn't healthy, & that's why I quit, & I may still get something from years of it, but a friend of mine the other day had something wrong, and the Dr. told her it was because she smoked, and she had to laugh, telling him she'd never smoked. He even argued with her. That attitude is pretty wrong, I'd say. I take wild oil of oregano for lots of ailments and it helps me more than any med I've ever taken, so it's good to research, at least for me not to just believe everything a Dr. says.
I also think that smoking shouldn't be blamed for everything that comes along. Like Tex, I know it isn't healthy, & that's why I quit, & I may still get something from years of it, but a friend of mine the other day had something wrong, and the Dr. told her it was because she smoked, and she had to laugh, telling him she'd never smoked. He even argued with her. That attitude is pretty wrong, I'd say. I take wild oil of oregano for lots of ailments and it helps me more than any med I've ever taken, so it's good to research, at least for me not to just believe everything a Dr. says.
You can't change the wind, but you can adjust the sails.
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wmonique2
- Rockhopper Penguin
- Posts: 1048
- Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:06 am
- Location: Georgia, U.S
- Contact:
phosphati...
Tex,
I knew I was going to get blasted for that .... but it doesn't change my opinion about smoking. However, I agree with you on the following:
I am not disagreeing with you that nicotine may have its medicinal benefits if administered correctly. I just disagree with people who chose to smoke it ignoring the total damage that it does to their bodies. It's no different than pot, it has its medicinal benefits.
And you're right about this:
[quote Life is a wheel of fortune, and we win or lose the game by the choices we make. [/quote]
Love,
Monique
I knew I was going to get blasted for that .... but it doesn't change my opinion about smoking. However, I agree with you on the following:
The research you enclosed shows that fifty percent of those who used the transdermal patch achieved complete remission and twenty five percent achieved the same results from the placebo effect. What does it say about both the patch and the placebo?'m not trying to legitimatize smoking — I'm just trying to legitimatize the use of nicotine as an option to treat certain diseases for which it could be very helpful
I am not disagreeing with you that nicotine may have its medicinal benefits if administered correctly. I just disagree with people who chose to smoke it ignoring the total damage that it does to their bodies. It's no different than pot, it has its medicinal benefits.
And you're right about this:
[quote Life is a wheel of fortune, and we win or lose the game by the choices we make. [/quote]
Love,
Monique
Diagnosed 2011 with LC. Currently on Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)
Hi Monique,
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as "blasting" you.
Please forgive me. I just happen to love a good debate, and sometimes that very likely makes me appear to be a bit too zealous. 
I'm talking roughly 50-50.
And you know what else it says? It says that stress plays a huge role in UC, (just as it does with all autoimmune diseases), and it says that those placebo patches are perceived as a treatment by the patient, and that perception alone is sufficient to help relieve some of the stress. There's an entire area of science behind the use of placebos. In many cases (such as cited above) they are basically just as effective as the drugs that are prescribed for certain issues, and they have a huge advantage — they are much cheaper than those drugs, and they are devoid of side effects (assuming that they aren't made with harmful or allergenic ingredients).
To receive FDA approval, a drug only has to be shown to have some degree of effectiveness for the treatments specified on the label, and it's benefits have to outweigh it's risks. That's pretty broad, but it's the reality of the situation, and it allows some mighty questionable drugs to receive approval on a regular basis.
Love,
Tex
Sorry, I didn't mean to come across as "blasting" you.
Please forgive me. I just happen to love a good debate, and sometimes that very likely makes me appear to be a bit too zealous. It says (believe it or not) that this particular treatment was at least as effective as most of the drugs on the market, and more effective than many of the most popular prescription drugs. If you look at the data (if you can find any) on antidepressants for example, you will find than in many/most cases, the drugs are for all practical purpose, no more effective than placebos.Monique wrote:What does it say about both the patch and the placebo?
I'm talking roughly 50-50.And you know what else it says? It says that stress plays a huge role in UC, (just as it does with all autoimmune diseases), and it says that those placebo patches are perceived as a treatment by the patient, and that perception alone is sufficient to help relieve some of the stress. There's an entire area of science behind the use of placebos. In many cases (such as cited above) they are basically just as effective as the drugs that are prescribed for certain issues, and they have a huge advantage — they are much cheaper than those drugs, and they are devoid of side effects (assuming that they aren't made with harmful or allergenic ingredients).
To receive FDA approval, a drug only has to be shown to have some degree of effectiveness for the treatments specified on the label, and it's benefits have to outweigh it's risks. That's pretty broad, but it's the reality of the situation, and it allows some mighty questionable drugs to receive approval on a regular basis.
Love,
Tex
It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
Hi Lulu,
I'm late to post as I've been working in the rustbelt but wanted to post as I've used both the otc vitamin version of 1 pill of metanx and soy free phosphatidylserine supplement.
I first tried the otc vitamin version of 1 pill of metanx after Tex talked about it for memory issues. (I'd been having a lot of problems typing on my keyboard, transposed letters etc during the midst of my first initial long mc flare. I'm 50 years old btw.) Search metanx on this forum and you'll come across my discussions (and Tex's too.) I have somewhat limited time tonight so apologize for not inserting the hyperlinks. I was able to pick up all of the vitamins at Vitamin Shoppe locally. I'd also had almost a year of steady brain fog. Within 2 weeks of starting the otc version of metanx my brain fog lifted and has been gone since then. Within 8 weeks my memory improved and I no longer had issues with typing and transposed letters on the keyboard. At the 10-12 week point I started getting "jittery" so I cut the dose back proportionately by 50%. Stayed on the cut back dose for about 5-6 months
and now I'm on 400 mcg of the absorbable folate (metafolin) and and 500 mcg of the methylb12 (I cut a 1000 sublingual in half) and 50 mg of the p5p I take every third day or so. My current dose is very low.
The metafolin seems to really help with my brain function. If I skip a day I can feel it.
FATS-- I'm also eating a lot of fats in my diet and they seem to help the brain. I generously drizzle EVOO on my overcooked veggies that I have at breakfast, lunch, dinner, I drizzle EVOO generously on chicken and fish. The EVOO from California tastes great and is less likely to be "fake" olive oil. I cook w/ coconut oil. I have a T of flax seed oil a day. I have an avacado every 2 or 3 days. I occasionally have ghee (some folks may have problems with ghee.) On the rare low fat day for me.....yup.....I start having memory issues again.
Check out Stephanie Senoff's website and papers. She has a lot of good info about high fat diet for brain issues. I learned about her here and hopefully I've spelled her name correctly.
Re: phosphatidylserine supplement
I tried these only after I had the adrenal fatigue "waking up at 2:00 am every night for about 4 months at the same time on the dot" thing going on. I clearly have some kind of cortisol disruption. James Wilson talks about it in his Adrenal Fatigue book and I had every symptom. Before I got on the phosphatidylserine supplement I tried about 5 different herbal things that gave me a lot of side effects and I switched from Prempro to bioidenticals thinking it was menopause related. Nothing helped and I was feeling like I was sleeping at a prisoner of war camp. I bought two soy free versions of phosphatidylserine supplement. Seriphos(I've tried this) and Integrative Therapeutics soy free (I've not tried this one.) Both were from professional supplement center on line. I've been taking 1 1000 mg of the Seriphos at 9:00 pm for about 6 months and now I'm waking up
at 4:00 instead of 2:00 am so improvement as NOT BEEN FAST. It is supposed to "retrain" your cortisol or something like that. I've tried taking two but it didn't make a difference and then midway thru the 6 months I stopped taking them for about 3 weeks but seemed to do better on them, i.e. I was sliding back to 2:00 am wakeups so I resumed them again. I've had no side effects but I do feel somewhat "off" in the morning upon wake up. In the big picture I think if I quit my job and did yoga for 6 months I'd have better results at managing my cortisol than with the phosphatidylserine supplements.
I'm not familiar with Parkinsons but I'd give the metanx two thumbs up, moving towards a higher fat diet two thumbs up and the phosphatidylserine supplement a 1/4 of a thumb up for my situations.
If you are in a big flare take it slow on the fats.
Hope this gives some insite, Brandy
TEX---Thanks for the positive post about white potatos for brain protection! You made my day! Brandy
I'm late to post as I've been working in the rustbelt but wanted to post as I've used both the otc vitamin version of 1 pill of metanx and soy free phosphatidylserine supplement.
I first tried the otc vitamin version of 1 pill of metanx after Tex talked about it for memory issues. (I'd been having a lot of problems typing on my keyboard, transposed letters etc during the midst of my first initial long mc flare. I'm 50 years old btw.) Search metanx on this forum and you'll come across my discussions (and Tex's too.) I have somewhat limited time tonight so apologize for not inserting the hyperlinks. I was able to pick up all of the vitamins at Vitamin Shoppe locally. I'd also had almost a year of steady brain fog. Within 2 weeks of starting the otc version of metanx my brain fog lifted and has been gone since then. Within 8 weeks my memory improved and I no longer had issues with typing and transposed letters on the keyboard. At the 10-12 week point I started getting "jittery" so I cut the dose back proportionately by 50%. Stayed on the cut back dose for about 5-6 months
and now I'm on 400 mcg of the absorbable folate (metafolin) and and 500 mcg of the methylb12 (I cut a 1000 sublingual in half) and 50 mg of the p5p I take every third day or so. My current dose is very low.
The metafolin seems to really help with my brain function. If I skip a day I can feel it.
FATS-- I'm also eating a lot of fats in my diet and they seem to help the brain. I generously drizzle EVOO on my overcooked veggies that I have at breakfast, lunch, dinner, I drizzle EVOO generously on chicken and fish. The EVOO from California tastes great and is less likely to be "fake" olive oil. I cook w/ coconut oil. I have a T of flax seed oil a day. I have an avacado every 2 or 3 days. I occasionally have ghee (some folks may have problems with ghee.) On the rare low fat day for me.....yup.....I start having memory issues again.
Check out Stephanie Senoff's website and papers. She has a lot of good info about high fat diet for brain issues. I learned about her here and hopefully I've spelled her name correctly.
Re: phosphatidylserine supplement
I tried these only after I had the adrenal fatigue "waking up at 2:00 am every night for about 4 months at the same time on the dot" thing going on. I clearly have some kind of cortisol disruption. James Wilson talks about it in his Adrenal Fatigue book and I had every symptom. Before I got on the phosphatidylserine supplement I tried about 5 different herbal things that gave me a lot of side effects and I switched from Prempro to bioidenticals thinking it was menopause related. Nothing helped and I was feeling like I was sleeping at a prisoner of war camp. I bought two soy free versions of phosphatidylserine supplement. Seriphos(I've tried this) and Integrative Therapeutics soy free (I've not tried this one.) Both were from professional supplement center on line. I've been taking 1 1000 mg of the Seriphos at 9:00 pm for about 6 months and now I'm waking up
at 4:00 instead of 2:00 am so improvement as NOT BEEN FAST. It is supposed to "retrain" your cortisol or something like that. I've tried taking two but it didn't make a difference and then midway thru the 6 months I stopped taking them for about 3 weeks but seemed to do better on them, i.e. I was sliding back to 2:00 am wakeups so I resumed them again. I've had no side effects but I do feel somewhat "off" in the morning upon wake up. In the big picture I think if I quit my job and did yoga for 6 months I'd have better results at managing my cortisol than with the phosphatidylserine supplements.
I'm not familiar with Parkinsons but I'd give the metanx two thumbs up, moving towards a higher fat diet two thumbs up and the phosphatidylserine supplement a 1/4 of a thumb up for my situations.
If you are in a big flare take it slow on the fats.
Hope this gives some insite, Brandy
TEX---Thanks for the positive post about white potatos for brain protection! You made my day! Brandy