Mastering Nutrition

Question: What is the value of third party genetic reports? There are very, very few genes where we have really good information on how they impact nutritional requirements, but we have many, many, many genes where we have decent information on what they do mechanistically and where we can speculate things that might be helpful. So genome analysis is very useful as a brainstorming mechanism. And o...

Question: What is the value of the oxidized phospholipids test? It's interesting to measure, but we don't have real strong data on its correlation to disease risk.  And we also don't really know how much it reflects the oxidation of lipoproteins in the subendothelial space, which is what matters. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Mas...

Question: Can NADH supplements cram more NADH into the system? The NADH will be hydrolyzed to something along the lines of nicotinamide riboside, it will be absorbed and it will act like nicotinamide riboside does, which will increase the amount of nicotinamide stored in the liver for release to the tissues. And that will help increase their NADH levels. If you would like to be part of the next li...

Question: How to avoid losing nutrients in fat thrown out from an organ meat blend I don't think you're going to lose that many nutrients because the 25% fat, 75% lean ground beef mixed with those organs, most of that fat is coming from the marbling of the beef. That's not coming from the organ meats. Most of the nutrients in the organ meats, and they're not in marbled fat they're in cells and stu...

Question: How to manage the zinc-to-copper ratio? I don't agree with using the zinc/copper ratio in testing. So it is the case that zinc and copper need to be in a very loose range of ratios. So you don't want your dietary zinc to be more than 15 times your dietary copper, and you don't want your dietary zinc to be less than two times your dietary copper. But other than that, you're really looking...

Question: Milk thistle, sulforaphane, and blood donation for iron overload If it's an uptrend, you probably want to do something about it. Someone in that situation could try the Nrf2 stimulators, like milk thistle and sulforaphane. But if it is a genuine uptrend in early stage iron overload, that might be a situation that giving blood once a year would be the best solution. If you would like to b...

Question: Why would methylated vitamins increase pain sensitization? I'm not sure. Just to throw out some random threads that may or may not be of use. I think methylation in some people is going to lead to increased synthesis of dopamine. But in general, the effect is going to be to decrease the tonic pool of dopamine. There's going to be some degree to which it decreases other neuro-transmitters...

Question: Why would ferritin and B12 increase on a low-calorie keto diet? Ferritin is very strongly influenced by inflammation, oxidative stress. And so if the iron status is not changing and the ferritin is going up and then down, to me that suggests that oxidative stress or inflammation is increasing in the hypocaloric state. I was thinking maybe there's more PUFAs and stronger favoring of oxida...

Question: Why are polyunsaturated fats more easily burned for energy than saturated fats? I don't know in detail the mechanism, but I do know that it's been shown in human cells and in live animal experiments. And it presumably is related to the affinity of the enzyme for the fatty acid. And that's not something that's biochemically difficult. It's normal if there are enzymes that work with any fa...

Question: Why zinc deficiency causes resistance to thyroid and sex hormones and vitamins A and D The answer to that is because the, because all of those things carry out their gene expression function by binding to nuclear receptors. And all of the nuclear receptors to DNA using zinc finger motifs. Zinc finger motif means that in the nuclear receptor, there's a zinc ion that coordinates the primar...

Question: Which nutrients do we need every single day? I would say that the top ones to be concerned about from a have-to-get-it-today perspective would be zinc and B12. And both of those have absorption caps that are fairly tight, but B12 is the number one concern. You want to pay decent attention to the zinc rule, and you do want to make sure that your B vitamins are getting in on most of those...

Question: What nutrients does a collegiate swimmer need to look out for? Mainly calories would be absolute number one. Number two would be carbohydrate. So I do think that people can fuel athletic capabilities on low-carb diets, but you might want to look at stress hormones and sex hormones, because sometimes fueling athletic performance on a low-carb diet comes at the expense of elevated stress h...

Question: Is extended fasting the best choice for weight loss when low-carb doesn't work? If someone's on low-carb diet, they're not losing weight, they're not sustaining the caloric deficit at food intake that's satisfying them. So I would try helping the protein and doing something maybe cyclical keto on top of that before I would do an extended fast. If you would like to be part of the next liv...

Question: MK-4 vs MK-7: Vitamin K2 Showdown My default here is that a healthy diet would always have a mix of all of them. And although it's hard to justify a reason for having K1 specifically if you also have MK-7, the justification for having MK-4 is somewhat speculative. I wouldn't say speculative, but it's at kind of the theoretical level. So basically, MK-4 is not very good at supporting bloo...

Question: How should someone balance a vitamin D of 80 ng/mL with other nutrients? Let's say the idea is to maintain someone on a lifelong level of 80 nanograms per milliliter. Maybe four times the first year, two times the second year, once the third year and then every few years thereafter, I would measure the urinary calcium and make sure that that level is not associated with hypercalciuria in...

Question: Can MTHFR cause ADHD? So, methylation will reduce the background level of tonic dopamine. And make you more mentally flexible. And a lack of methylation will generally lead to a higher level of background dopamine and make you not as mentally flexible. So, I really don't think that the ADHD is solely a consequence of MTHFR. Low methylation state and glycine wasting is probably playing in...

Question: MTHFR, Depression, Irritability, and Anxiety So, if someone has an MTHFR snip, they don't have enough methylfolate. And so if they're treating it with methylfolate, the methylfolate causes the depression, irritability, and anxiety, then that's one thing. Whereas, if they have the MTHFR snip, they're not doing anything about it and they have depression, irritability, anxiety, that's anoth...

Question: Why you have to multiply labeled phosphatidylcholine by 15% Yes. If a lecithin product states the phosphatidylcholine content and you want to know the choline content, multiply by 15%. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium feature...

Question: Is liver OK to eat if raw or if blended in a Vitamix? So, the blending might hurt some really sensitive stuff. There's a lot of glutathione in liver. It might hurt some of the glutathione. I think the majority of the vitamins are going to be okay. And the minerals in general will be fine. And I think it's important to note that, if it makes the difference between whether you eat the live...

Question: If total carnitine is low, should I supplement? Supplementation does increase the acylcarnitine fraction and total carnitine to near normal levels. But I'm not clear about whether it's worth worrying about. So, if the total carnitine is low, but the free carnitine is normal, then total carnitine is low because the acylcarnitines are low. I wouldn't be too worried about the acylcarnitines...

Question: Isn't taking copper with zinc self-defeating? No. So, the competition between their absorption is not that bad. And if it was bad, everyone would be deficient in both of them because all foods that contain one, contain the other.  If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom session...

Question: Insulin resistance from fat invading muscle cells? I think increased free fatty acids in the blood. That's going to be a normal reaction to dietary fat and I think that if you have increased fatty acids than increased glucose, that you have more energy to dispose off. And if you have more energy to dispose of, and you don't dispose off the energy, then that's going to cause insulin resis...

Question: How do carbonated water, magnesium, and potassium affect pH? If you drink carbonated water, the CO2 is going to give up hydrogen ions to become carbonic acid, which is going to give up hydrogen ions to become bicarbonate. So making bicarbonate from CO2 is acidic taking bicarbonate is alkaline. So the thing you have to keep in mind here is that the reason bicarbonate is alkaline is becaus...

Question: What's the difference between the NADH/NAD+ and the NADPH/NADH ratios? So the NADH to NAD ratio and the NAD pH to NADP plus ratio are things that are having real consequences as ratios and biochemistry that are dictating what's going on in our body. The NAD pH to NADH ratio is physiologically irrelevant, but is used as a biomarker of niacin status. So if you look at a biochemistry textbo...

Question: What if my ferritin is low, but other iron markers are normal? I would first see whether getting more iron in your diet raises your transparent saturation or your iron saturation higher than 40%. If it does, then I wouldn't push it but if it doesn't or if your transparent saturation is significantly below 30%, then I think there's room to try to increase iron further. If pushing iron up...