Question Are low polyunsaturated omega-6 values on the ION test a concern? Not the total, but if the arachidonic acid levels are low I would look at low arachidonic acid intake, or inflammation, or oxidative stress. It would concern me because arachidonic acid is important to a lot of physiological functions, but I don’t care …
Question: When high selenium does not come down in response dietary efforts and cessation of supplementation, what’s going on? Either there’s high levels of selenium in the soil where your food is grown, or you have low methylation because methylation is needed to get rid of excess selenium. This Q&A can also be found as …
Question: Creatine, when is it recommend that if you don’t have the MTHFR SNP that causes methylation problems? 1.)When you want to improve your physique. 2.)When you want to improve your athletic performance. 3.)When you have a rare creatine synthesis disorder. 4.)If you have depression, it might help. 5.) If you have any signs that …
Question: When should tryptophan be taken on a keto diet? Night, day, both? Presumably you’re doing this to try to increase tryptophan getting into the brain. The best thing to do is to take it two to three hours away from other protein. The second consideration is if you have an allotment of carbs that …
Question: Do you think there are true non-responders to creatine, or do you think that those apparent non-responders have some defects in methylation that makes typical doses of creatine sufficient only for other needs. Alex Leaf would be a great person to ask about this and he’s not here right now… [Alex appears] Alex, so …
Question: How do I bring up low levels of arachidonic acid? Should I supplement with 250 milligrams? What brand is there from well-known company? If you want 250 milligrams of arachidonic acid, eat an egg. I don’t know anything about arachidonic acid supplements yet, except that they exist because you can eat eggs and you’ll …
Question: How to interpret the pattern of high citrate, low cis-aconitate, low glutamate, and high glutamine. The aconitate and citric acid are markers on the citric acid cycle where we metabolize most of our energy. If citric acid is high and isocitric acid is low, (this must be the Great Plains Test which doesn’t have …
Question: What are the best ways to optimize glutathione status for someone who has a G6PD deficiency? Riboflavin was shown to be of benefit for normalizing oxidative stress in people who have glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. So for people who don’t know what this is G6PD is, glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase is an enzyme that you …
Question: Are there diminishing returns in the amount of fish in a weekly diet? I know you mentioned eating fish about twice a week. I’ve been trying to eat salmon once a day. Is there an ideal ratio of fish to non-fish protein you should aim for? There’s not a lot of data backing that …
Question: How to deal with the fact that blood tests for nutritional status aren’t adapted to children? There aren’t childhood-based ranges that are data-driven. So what if the ranges need to be a little bit different in children? The approach in the Cheat Sheet is not to rely exclusively on ranges, it’s also to look …