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MTHFR, salicylates and adrenals

21K views 177 replies 25 participants last post by  marge234 
#1 ·
I just got blood work back, and It looks like I've got MTHFR issues. I'm heterozygous for both 677C>T and 1298A>C. The lab comments and internet say this is the higher risk category, but the Dr's comments say it's normal...

It's common advice with MTHFR variations to take a baby aspirin every day. Aspirin=salicylates, which I'm as sure as I can be that I'm sensitive to without having actually tested them yet. So in other words, for me, eating sals could be protecting me from clotting disorders??

But I've also been reading about how salicylates stimulate your adrenals and basically cause adrenal fatigue. I've had symptoms of adrenal issues my whole life, and they're totally responding to vitamin supplements.

And to confuse the picture even more, my homocysteine levels are normal - both before and a month after removing sals... Isn't that the major variable in question with MTHFR mutations?

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*********see post 13 for a summary*********
 
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#4 ·
I really don't know much about MTHFR at all, I'm just now reading up on it - and there's SO MUCH out there. It somehow seems to touch everything I'm dealing with, though, so I'm excited that it'll hold a bunch of the answers!
 
#5 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by isabchi View Post
How you removesalicylates from the diet?....Maybe you right!, maybe it's some link between MTHFR and adrenal fatigue.
Look up failsafe diet and feingold diet for information about removing salicylates. There have also been a few threads around here lately about just using salicylates a diagnostic criteria rather than a lifelong diet.
 
#7 ·
Okay, it looks like the worry with MTHFR mutations is in high homocysteine levels. I had my homocysteine tested about a year apart. The first test, I was eating sals and not supplementing anything. That level was about a point higher than this last test - with long term supplementing of B vitamins and a month off of sals.

Aspirin (AKA salicyates) inhibit the formation of homocysteine.

So the level may have been fine before because sals were preventing homocysteine formation. Now the level is fine because I've got plenty of B vitamins to deal with the inefficient enzyme?

Next questions: How long does it take homocysteine levels to change? And what is the benefit of homocysteine - how bad is it to inhibit formation with sals? Hmm... and the danger of high homocysteine is all the heart disease type stuff that also seems to be the polar opposite of adrenal fatigue symptoms. How is that related?
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by whoMe View Post
Next questions: How long does it take homocysteine levels to change? And what is the benefit of homocysteine - how bad is it to inhibit formation with sals? Hmm... and the danger of high homocysteine is all the heart disease type stuff that also seems to be the polar opposite of adrenal fatigue symptoms. How is that related?
Inhibiting the methylation cycle results in undermethylation
Methyl groups are required for breaking down some amines (like norepinephrine and dopamine, probably others too), for turning genes on and off epigenetically, and other stuff.

www.dramyyasko.com has been most helpful so far, for anyone wanting to do their own reading


Next questions: How do glutathione (important for detox) and sulfate play in?
 
#12 ·
So I guess that one's just correlational? I've just been trying to understand this mess, so I haven't been too careful on the details that aren't relevant. Take the info I'm posting in this thread with a grain of salt!
 
#13 ·
Okay, because I've been posting everywhere, I'm going to try to summarize everything that I've learned in the past week here.

First, methylation. Here's a chart: http://www.dramyyasko.com/Diagrams.html
and here's an explanation: http://www.vsan.org/rok-az/methylation/Methylation.pdf

In short, the methylation cycle is something that happens in just about all the cells in your body. It processes sulfur amino acids and generates methyl groups which are used for many metabolic processes, including turning genes on and off (epigenetics) and detoxification. See my explanation based on this one.

MTHFR is an enzyme closely involved in this methylation cycle. There are a couple of known mutations (I'm looking at 1298 and 677) that affect how well the enzyme works. If you have a certain patterns of those mutations, then you essentially need double the folate in order to have the same functioning as 'normal' people. If you don't get it (the folate), then your methylation cycle will be running slow - resulting in a build up of homocysteine (maybe) and undermethylation and lower levels of important sulfur amino acids (likely).

If your homocysteine is high, your baby is at an increased risk of neural tube and other midline defects, and you're at increased risk for stroke, clots, and other cardiovascular badness that I haven't read much about.

With the methylation and sulfur amino acids low, you're likely going to have trouble detoxing. (tuberose link above) If you can't detox properly, then you have foods and other toxins floating around your bloodstream and ending up places they shouldn't be - fat, metabolic processes, breastmilk, etc. So you would expect to be reacting to foods (intolerances) and forming antibodies to them (allergies).

Yeah?
 
#14 ·
If salicylates are not caught and detoxed by the liver, then they will slow down the methylation cycle (further).

Salicylates are normally detoxed by sulfation (sulfate originating from the methylation cycle or from epsom salt baths) or glucuronidation. Glucuronidation can be reversed by an enzyme made by 'bad' bacteria, meaning the detoxified salicylates are re-toxified and reabsorbed into the bloodstream. Ways to address that reversal are getting rid of the bad bacteria (GAPS/SCD/antibiotics/probiotics) or with Calcium D-glucurate in foods or supplements.
 
#15 ·
whoMe, I think I love you.
thanks!!

ETA: okay, I re-read your posts a few times. It's officially. You're my new internet crush.
:

This is a prime example of info coming to me when I'm ready. This makes perfect sense to me and fits us very well.

I had some chocolate yesterday and today. I'm paying for it today in the form of a wicked headache and some anger outbursts. This is my "classic" amine overload response.

DD1 has been a contrary mary today. This is her classic amine overload response.

We gotta get this ironed out. The more I know, the more I'm excited to help my body get to optimal functioning/detoxing!! I'm not inherently broken. We can work with this!
:
 
#16 ·
One of the 3 detox pathways that does *not* depend on the methylation cycle is acetylation, in which a form of coenzyme A binds to the toxin for excretion.

Coenzyme A is needed by the adrenals, and a deficiency is known to hypertrophy the adrenals (first stage of adrenal fatigue) in rats.

I'm assuming (based on logic and personal experience) that detox gets priority over happy adrenals.
 
#17 ·
What was the process by which you got the testing done for MTHFR? I completely blew it off for me, the family history stuff just doesn't fit, but
they fit for my husband's family, several people have had early strokes. Hmm, they also have high blood pressure, which I'd think in itself would be related to strokes--I wonder if those are two separate sets of problems that just coincidentally overlap with stroke or not. Thoughts? Why did you/your HCP test for this, and I don't suppose you remember the cost?
 
#18 ·
Huh. This suddenly turned into something that I need to be more knowledgeable about.

I initially showed up looking for non-specific help on my kid's cheeks. He's three, showing a major intolerance to sals. We're going through an elinination diet right now, using failsafe and also pulled out the top 8, too. I didn't mention that he has Down syndrome because I didn't really think it was super important.
Then I read this:
Homocysteine, an indicator of methylation pathway alternation in Down syndrome and its regulation by folic acid therapy and, well, geez. Now I have to do a quick Google-U/PubMed education on methylation and folate levels and maybe we can figure this thing out with my kid. Thanks for having this conversation right now. Really.
stephanie
(just in case anybody wanted to read the whole thing, it's a pdf here)
http://journals.mui.ac.ir/jrms/article/viewFile/158/341
 
#19 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by TanyaLopez View Post
What was the process by which you got the testing done for MTHFR? I completely blew it off for me, the family history stuff just doesn't fit, but
they fit for my husband's family, several people have had early strokes. Hmm, they also have high blood pressure, which I'd think in itself would be related to strokes--I wonder if those are two separate sets of problems that just coincidentally overlap with stroke or not. Thoughts? Why did you/your HCP test for this, and I don't suppose you remember the cost?
I'm curious as well.
 
#20 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by TanyaLopez View Post
What was the process by which you got the testing done for MTHFR? I completely blew it off for me, the family history stuff just doesn't fit, but
they fit for my husband's family, several people have had early strokes. Hmm, they also have high blood pressure, which I'd think in itself would be related to strokes--I wonder if those are two separate sets of problems that just coincidentally overlap with stroke or not. Thoughts? Why did you/your HCP test for this, and I don't suppose you remember the cost?
Because of all the midline talk, I think I have a really mild tongue tie, and dd's bottom teeth are getting slightly pulled in (the V). So I was curious about the double need for folate. I have an AWESOME doctor who doesn't know all that much about all this stuff, but is totally interested in alternative medicine and the science behind it. I asked if she had any way of testing MTHFR, she looked up and there was a test in the computer. So we did a blood test that was totally covered by Blue Shield insurance
We called it a prenatal screening test.
 
#21 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by perstephone View Post
Huh. This suddenly turned into something that I need to be more knowledgeable about.

I initially showed up looking for non-specific help on my kid's cheeks. He's three, showing a major intolerance to sals. We're going through an elinination diet right now, using failsafe and also pulled out the top 8, too. I didn't mention that he has Down syndrome because I didn't really think it was super important.
Then I read this:
Homocysteine, an indicator of methylation pathway alternation in Down syndrome and its regulation by folic acid therapy and, well, geez. Now I have to do a quick Google-U/PubMed education on methylation and folate levels and maybe we can figure this thing out with my kid. Thanks for having this conversation right now. Really.
stephanie
(just in case anybody wanted to read the whole thing, it's a pdf here)
http://journals.mui.ac.ir/jrms/article/viewFile/158/341
Yeah, I came across some Down Syndrome stuff, too. CBS is the enzyme that starts the breakdown of homocysteine into cysteine and glutathione and sulfate... all important for detoxing. The issue is that it's triplicated in Down Syndrome, so it's acting really, really fast. I'm fuzzy on the details here, but I think the problem is that you're producing a bunch of ammonia in the conversion which then has to be converted into urea by another enzyme, BH4. BH4 is in limited supply, so if too much gets used up in high priority processes, not much is left for less critical things like manufacture of dopamine and serotonin. Definitely check out www.dramyyasko.com - you can order a full gene polymorphism panel and give you customized nutritional advice.
 
#22 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by whoMe View Post
and dd's bottom teeth are getting slightly pulled in (the V).
Let's talk about this for a minute. DD2's bottom two teeth are "crooked" like that. Pulled in like a V. I know DD1 also has some funky teeth issues, too, but I thought it was just "over crowding" or whatever (I have that, especially on the bottom). But, as with many things, I'm finding there's just no "just" about it. Hmm.
 
#23 ·
My son has the v bottom teeth too. That's where I see a lot of overlap between Price and nutrition and the issues we discuss here. My son's bottom jaw is too narrow and his teeth are crowded and he's got a tongue tie I think all because of nutritional deficits on my part (I'm assuming it's a vitamin A thing for me, so far the folic acid stuff hasn't rung any bells). The changes in facial structure that Price talked about seem to correlate well to the types of problems we've got--my daughter's nostrils look sorta pinched and she has a high, arched palate (and I'm guessing a posterior tongue tie). My son's face is widest at the temple, narrower through the middle (high, arched palate, likely posterior tie) and narrower still through the jaw (that heart-shaped jaw shape goin' on) and an anterior tie and crowded bottom teeth. His top teeth are a bit tight but not actually overlapping.
 
#24 ·
http://heal-thyself.ning.com/forum/t...eth-and-tongue

I posted a picture and video, trying to see in her mouth. She doesn't have any crowding at all, and we have no reason to suspect the tongue tie besides looking really hard for it. We also have no history of stroke or clots or heart disease or any other obvious reason to look at the MTHFR stuff. Just high blood pressure on one side.
 
#25 ·
I have a MTHFR mutation (double), my son has a sacral dimple, and my stepdaughter has Down syndrome. I need to sit down and figure all this out. Is there a book for dummies on this subject?
 
#26 ·
Good gravy, if you figure out a 'for dummies' approach, share it with me!
I did some cursory reading last night and I'm boggled. I'm pretty sure I don't have the mthfr mutation (I think that was part of our fertility testing), but DS with Ds was concieved using IVF. Clearly something was amiss (and was always 'unspecified infertility', along with the urban legend second oopsie pregnancy to follow).
I don't want to 'fix' him, I just want to help his body out, you know? I can't be around to cook his every meal forever, and I wish there was a primer on this. I've noticed lately that almost all the baby pictures of kids with Ds have a similar cheek redness.
My son's bottom two teeth do the turn in thing, while my typical daughter's do not.
There's just so much that goes into it, and I don't know where to start.
 
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