Another way to fight off, recover, and improve neurological health is by using my Brain Stack, which is NOT for everyone, I am aware, but the effects at this point are undeniable. It is strong enough to share many pathways and effects with Reboxetine, which has been studied lately as a way to improve and reverse memory loss in neurodegenerative diseases, among other effects.
Key mechanisms are modulating NMDA receptors, glutamatergic activity, and noradrenergic system activation, thus it enhances neuroplasticity (especially memory/learning), among other improvements.
Food (or supplement) for thought.
I wrote for a lot of today, so any mistakes will be corrected tomorrow. My hand is mildly cooked as the kids say.
Good post on C.diff. It takes me back to 2005-2007 when I had to test loads of in-patient poop samples (all were elderly/immunocompromised/suffering bowel conditions/taking lots of meds). We were told that one knows when someone's got C.diff because of the odour when each poop container is opened 😬🤢
The neuro thread is interesting too, because we're seeing an uptick in workload for AI encephalitis and MOG+NMO (in serum & CSF). Most of those requests usually need, gangliosides, Paraneoplastic & other Brain antibodies. Next Tuesday I'll be in London - EuroImmune are hosting a training workshop event on Paraneoplastic syndromes, AI encephalitis and Alzheimer's Disease.
I saw a post on X (health) on lymphatic drainage months back and started incorporating the moves during moisturizing after a shower. It followed an order apparently; beneath collarbones, axillas, beneath jawline, sides & back of neck, temples, below eyes & sides of nose. Then below breastbone, groin both sides and finally the backs of the knee.
I used to take Methylene blue to see if there's any additional benefits to neuro function. Initially it did but the effects were short lived. So I finished the bottle and carried on with Lions Mane (am) and Ashwagandha (afternoon). I've sampled some strange herbal stuff from Ramp Health (B4 calm focus) for the times I need to "network" and/or "socialize". It was like drinking alcohol but without the squiffy after effects of getting slowly inebriated. Oh it worked alright!
The "Turbo" stack and your reports have been interesting over the past few years.
I am still very reluctant to accept something which resembles the reports from cocaine users, or ADHD stimulant patients, without prolonged (say 25 years) observation of the outcomes and, predictably, I will not last long enough to assess the results.
Exercise seems fairly benign, other than the inevitable training injuries as we age.
Easier, just YouTube facial Lymphatic drainage massage, in very bruntly simple way, it is "the same", adjusting to the same areas in the study wouldn't be particularly hard.
But attention to what the paper says, GENTLE massage, and the frequency, short period, just many times during the day.
Some of these drainage massages go hard, which does not have the desired effect.
YES. Similar to Gua Sha, which I only recently discovered after mentioning to a massage therapist that the "arthritis" in my hands and feet was worsening. She used a metal spatula-like thingy between my metacarpals / metatarsals and I felt much better afterwards.
This is super helpful for me. I keep getting minor skin outbreaks at the base of my neck as I detox from long Covid and industrial life in general and I had the intuition that lymphatic drainage can help.
Dopamine and its system affect glymphatic flow, and anaesthesitics do affect dopamine and... well, glymphatic flow, so the likely end result must be better.
Thanks very much for the discussion of research into the glymphatic system.
I recall some research which showed that standing on a full body vibration platform, used for a special form of exercise, reduced the incidence of depression. A possible mechanism is the vibration transmitted up the spinal cord and shook up the brain, improving drainage, and so reducing barriers to neurogenesis in the hippocampus, the lack of which is the, or at least a, primary mechanism of depression. This would surely have beneficial effects, over year and decades, for draining the brain of waste products and debris.
Low level vibration at the back of the neck might have the same effect. Gentle vibration there induces drowsiness and perhaps sleep, in adults, just as vibrating cribs and basinets do for babies. However, I suspect this gentle vibration would not affect the glymphatic system much, and its drowsiness and calming effects are more related to evolved proclivity of infants to be very quiet when they are being carried, possibly in circumstances where a single cry would alert predators or the enemy and so lead to the whole party being killed.
The easiest and best way of reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies etc. is to supplement vitamin D3 cholecalciferol sufficiently to attain the 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L = 1 part in 20,000,000 by mass) level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D calcifediol (AKA "calcidiol") which the immune system needs to function properly.
This page begins with graphs from Quraishi et al. 2014 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/ articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf which show that immune responses to bacterial pathogens which cause post-operative infections are highly effective (2.5% risk of hospital-acquired and 2.5% risk of surgical site infections) with pre-operative circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels of 50 ng/mL or more, but are weak (25% risk of each type) with 20 ng/mL, which is a normal level for those who do not supplement vitamin D3 properly, and who have not recently had high levels of UV-B irradiation of ideally white skin.
Most doctors regard 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D as sufficient for good health. However, this is only what the kidneys need to play their role in regulating calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism, which is the function of the three vitamin D compounds medical professionals all understand.
What they don't know is that many types of cell, including many or perhaps most types of immune cell, rely on a good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D as a raw material for their 25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) intracrine signaling systems. These are signaling systems entirely within a single cell and are crucial to the ability of many types of cell to alter their behavior in response to their changing circumstances. A related paracrine signaling system is used by some types of immune cell to signal to nearby immune cells, typically of different types.
25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol intracrine signaling was first discovered in dendritic cells and macrophages by Martin Hewison and colleagues in the late 2000s. In 2021 a team of NIH researchers elucidated this signaling system (which they named, somewhat incorrectly, as "autocrine" signaling) in Th1 regulatory lymphocytes: Chauss et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01080-3. I summarized this dense (and I think Nobel Prize worthy) cell biology article at: https://aminotheory.com/cv19/icu/#2021-Chauss.
Th1 cells from the lungs of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were found to be stuck in their pro-inflammatory startup program, despite detecting the condition (a high level of a complement protein) which should cause them to transition to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program. The researchers describe in great detail the 25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol intracrine signaling system which achieves this transition. The failure or this system in these patients, who almost invariably have very low circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels) was found to be due entirely or almost entirely, to these cells having inadequate supplies of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in their cytosols. (These people had severe disease due to poor initial responses to the virus and due to the pathologically sustained inflammatory response once the virus infected the alveoli. If they had had 50 ng/mL or more circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D they would generally have had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.)
This and the related paracrine signaling systems enable cell-type specific conditions to be detected so that the cell responds in a cell-type specific manner. These signaling systems are unrelated to hormonal (endocrine) signaling, which the kidneys use (with calcitriol as the blood-borne signaling molecule, AKA hormone) to alter the behavior of cells in distant parts of the body.
Neither vitamin D3 cholecalciferol no 25-hydroxyvitamin D are hormones. They are not signaling molecules. The immune system does not use hormonal signaling. Medical professionals and many vitamin D researchers refer to all three compounds as if they were all "vitamin D". This is a mistake, as Reinhold Vieth pointed out in 2004: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2004.03.037.
25-hydroxyvitamin D, as measured in "vitamin D" blood tests, is made, primarily in the liver, by hydroxylating vitamin D3 cholecalciferol on the 25th carbon.
There's very little vitamin D (2 or the natural 3) in food, including food with is fortified with vitamin D3 or the less effective D2.
Vitamin D3 can be produced with UV-B irradiation of ideally white skin, but most people cannot attain this naturally (dark or black skin, living too far from the equator etc.) to get this all year round - and all such UV-B exposure damages DNA and so increases the risk of skin cancer.
Supplementation of vitamin D3, in quantities well above those needed for 20 ng/mL 125 nmol/L 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed by almost everyone in order to be healthy. The exceptions are babies breast fed by 25-hydroxyvitamin D replete mothers (about equal amounts of vitamin D3 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the breast milk, with the latter being 4 times as effective as vitamin D3 in raising the baby's 25-hydroxyvitamin D) and those who get so much UV-B skin exposure, year after year, that they are at high risk of developing skin cancer.
In 2022, New Jersey based Professor of Medicine Sunil Wimalawansa published an article with proper vitamin D3 supplementation recommendations, as ratios of body weight, with higher ratios for those suffering from obesity, since obesity reduces the rate of hydroxylation in the liver to 25-hydroxyvitamin D and because the excess adipose tissue absorbs 25-hydroxyvitamin D and vitamin D3: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity- deficit.
He later simplified these recommendations somewhat to average daily supplemental intakes of vitamin D3:
70 to 90 IU / kg body weight for those not suffering from obesity (BMI < 30).
100 to 130 IU / kg body weight for obesity I & II (BMI 30 to 39).
140 to 180 IU / kg body weight for obesity III (BMI > 39).
For 70 kg (154 lb) without obesity, this is about 0.125 milligrams (5000 IU) a day. This takes several months to attain the desired > 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. This is 8 or more times what most governments recommend. "5000 IU" sounds like a lot, but it is a gram every 22 years - and pharma grade vitamin D costs about USD$2.50 a gram ex-factory. This will safely attain at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L 25-hydroxyvitamin D over several months, without the need for blood tests or medical monitoring. He recently repeated these recommendations in an article co-written by two other professors - one of medicine and the other of pediatrics:
Integrating Endocrine, Genomic, and Extra-Skeletal Benefits of Vitamin D into National and Regional Clinical Guidelines Sunil J. Wimalawansa, Scott T. Weiss and Bruce W. Hollis, Nutrients 2024-11-20 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/22/3969.
I wonder if wasabi or ghost peppers might prompt a clearing of the facial glymphatics? Western posture does not facilitate good drainage.... lots to pay attention to now - can't just slide by on good food and genes.
Anything aromatic amino acids is related to the gut bacteria, since we humans do not produce it.. Just wonder how the disappearance of the BIfido species supports the apparent shift to C. diff..? The chronic diarrhea after covid is indeed very common.. How long one needs to supplement with S. boulardii in order to 'normalize' to stool formation?
I've heard about a very gentle massage technique (helping the Alzheimer victims) based on tapping the right and left lymphatic duct at the bottom of the neck-shoulder connection, followed by an extreme head movements left and right, all the way reaching the shoulder view with the eyes movement. The latter 'activates' the spinal nerve which connects all the organs 'below'. Since movement is the only 'motor' of the lymphatic system, there must be that connection to the NOS3 activation requirement. The only thing I'd add is, disposing misfolded or normal proteins happens via proteases, folding on the other hand via chaperones, thus can't see that pathway to the NOS3 somehow.
Another way to fight off, recover, and improve neurological health is by using my Brain Stack, which is NOT for everyone, I am aware, but the effects at this point are undeniable. It is strong enough to share many pathways and effects with Reboxetine, which has been studied lately as a way to improve and reverse memory loss in neurodegenerative diseases, among other effects.
Key mechanisms are modulating NMDA receptors, glutamatergic activity, and noradrenergic system activation, thus it enhances neuroplasticity (especially memory/learning), among other improvements.
Food (or supplement) for thought.
I wrote for a lot of today, so any mistakes will be corrected tomorrow. My hand is mildly cooked as the kids say.
Good post on C.diff. It takes me back to 2005-2007 when I had to test loads of in-patient poop samples (all were elderly/immunocompromised/suffering bowel conditions/taking lots of meds). We were told that one knows when someone's got C.diff because of the odour when each poop container is opened 😬🤢
The neuro thread is interesting too, because we're seeing an uptick in workload for AI encephalitis and MOG+NMO (in serum & CSF). Most of those requests usually need, gangliosides, Paraneoplastic & other Brain antibodies. Next Tuesday I'll be in London - EuroImmune are hosting a training workshop event on Paraneoplastic syndromes, AI encephalitis and Alzheimer's Disease.
I saw a post on X (health) on lymphatic drainage months back and started incorporating the moves during moisturizing after a shower. It followed an order apparently; beneath collarbones, axillas, beneath jawline, sides & back of neck, temples, below eyes & sides of nose. Then below breastbone, groin both sides and finally the backs of the knee.
I used to take Methylene blue to see if there's any additional benefits to neuro function. Initially it did but the effects were short lived. So I finished the bottle and carried on with Lions Mane (am) and Ashwagandha (afternoon). I've sampled some strange herbal stuff from Ramp Health (B4 calm focus) for the times I need to "network" and/or "socialize". It was like drinking alcohol but without the squiffy after effects of getting slowly inebriated. Oh it worked alright!
The "Turbo" stack and your reports have been interesting over the past few years.
I am still very reluctant to accept something which resembles the reports from cocaine users, or ADHD stimulant patients, without prolonged (say 25 years) observation of the outcomes and, predictably, I will not last long enough to assess the results.
Exercise seems fairly benign, other than the inevitable training injuries as we age.
Would it be possible to have a graphic of the different facial massage areas for moving the glymphatic system lymph?
Easier, just YouTube facial Lymphatic drainage massage, in very bruntly simple way, it is "the same", adjusting to the same areas in the study wouldn't be particularly hard.
But attention to what the paper says, GENTLE massage, and the frequency, short period, just many times during the day.
Some of these drainage massages go hard, which does not have the desired effect.
YES. Similar to Gua Sha, which I only recently discovered after mentioning to a massage therapist that the "arthritis" in my hands and feet was worsening. She used a metal spatula-like thingy between my metacarpals / metatarsals and I felt much better afterwards.
TYVM as always, Moriarty.
This is super helpful for me. I keep getting minor skin outbreaks at the base of my neck as I detox from long Covid and industrial life in general and I had the intuition that lymphatic drainage can help.
Thank-you!
And please provide the human diagrams, many of us do not have mice, labs, and anaesthetists to duplicate the report.
Dopamine and its system affect glymphatic flow, and anaesthesitics do affect dopamine and... well, glymphatic flow, so the likely end result must be better.
A shower thought based on you funny comment lol.
Thank-you. That's what I was meaning, but wasn't specific enough.
We need to have some fun.
Great info on treating C diff. Thanks
Thanks very much for the discussion of research into the glymphatic system.
I recall some research which showed that standing on a full body vibration platform, used for a special form of exercise, reduced the incidence of depression. A possible mechanism is the vibration transmitted up the spinal cord and shook up the brain, improving drainage, and so reducing barriers to neurogenesis in the hippocampus, the lack of which is the, or at least a, primary mechanism of depression. This would surely have beneficial effects, over year and decades, for draining the brain of waste products and debris.
Low level vibration at the back of the neck might have the same effect. Gentle vibration there induces drowsiness and perhaps sleep, in adults, just as vibrating cribs and basinets do for babies. However, I suspect this gentle vibration would not affect the glymphatic system much, and its drowsiness and calming effects are more related to evolved proclivity of infants to be very quiet when they are being carried, possibly in circumstances where a single cry would alert predators or the enemy and so lead to the whole party being killed.
The easiest and best way of reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies etc. is to supplement vitamin D3 cholecalciferol sufficiently to attain the 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L = 1 part in 20,000,000 by mass) level of 25-hydroxyvitamin D calcifediol (AKA "calcidiol") which the immune system needs to function properly.
Please see the research cited and discussed at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/. Regarding low circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D being a huge risk factor for neurodegeneration: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 and (in pregnancy and early childhood) preeclampsia, pre-term birth, mental retardation, ADHD and autism: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.2.
This page begins with graphs from Quraishi et al. 2014 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/ articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf which show that immune responses to bacterial pathogens which cause post-operative infections are highly effective (2.5% risk of hospital-acquired and 2.5% risk of surgical site infections) with pre-operative circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels of 50 ng/mL or more, but are weak (25% risk of each type) with 20 ng/mL, which is a normal level for those who do not supplement vitamin D3 properly, and who have not recently had high levels of UV-B irradiation of ideally white skin.
Most doctors regard 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D as sufficient for good health. However, this is only what the kidneys need to play their role in regulating calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism, which is the function of the three vitamin D compounds medical professionals all understand.
What they don't know is that many types of cell, including many or perhaps most types of immune cell, rely on a good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D as a raw material for their 25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D) intracrine signaling systems. These are signaling systems entirely within a single cell and are crucial to the ability of many types of cell to alter their behavior in response to their changing circumstances. A related paracrine signaling system is used by some types of immune cell to signal to nearby immune cells, typically of different types.
25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol intracrine signaling was first discovered in dendritic cells and macrophages by Martin Hewison and colleagues in the late 2000s. In 2021 a team of NIH researchers elucidated this signaling system (which they named, somewhat incorrectly, as "autocrine" signaling) in Th1 regulatory lymphocytes: Chauss et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01080-3. I summarized this dense (and I think Nobel Prize worthy) cell biology article at: https://aminotheory.com/cv19/icu/#2021-Chauss.
Th1 cells from the lungs of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were found to be stuck in their pro-inflammatory startup program, despite detecting the condition (a high level of a complement protein) which should cause them to transition to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program. The researchers describe in great detail the 25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol intracrine signaling system which achieves this transition. The failure or this system in these patients, who almost invariably have very low circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels) was found to be due entirely or almost entirely, to these cells having inadequate supplies of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in their cytosols. (These people had severe disease due to poor initial responses to the virus and due to the pathologically sustained inflammatory response once the virus infected the alveoli. If they had had 50 ng/mL or more circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D they would generally have had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.)
Since there are no peer reviewed articles which explain 25-hydroxyvitamin D to calcitriol intracrine signaling, I wrote a non peer reviewed tutorial: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/. A simpler version is at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#02- compounds.
This and the related paracrine signaling systems enable cell-type specific conditions to be detected so that the cell responds in a cell-type specific manner. These signaling systems are unrelated to hormonal (endocrine) signaling, which the kidneys use (with calcitriol as the blood-borne signaling molecule, AKA hormone) to alter the behavior of cells in distant parts of the body.
Neither vitamin D3 cholecalciferol no 25-hydroxyvitamin D are hormones. They are not signaling molecules. The immune system does not use hormonal signaling. Medical professionals and many vitamin D researchers refer to all three compounds as if they were all "vitamin D". This is a mistake, as Reinhold Vieth pointed out in 2004: https://sci- hub.se/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2004.03.037.
25-hydroxyvitamin D, as measured in "vitamin D" blood tests, is made, primarily in the liver, by hydroxylating vitamin D3 cholecalciferol on the 25th carbon.
There's very little vitamin D (2 or the natural 3) in food, including food with is fortified with vitamin D3 or the less effective D2.
Vitamin D3 can be produced with UV-B irradiation of ideally white skin, but most people cannot attain this naturally (dark or black skin, living too far from the equator etc.) to get this all year round - and all such UV-B exposure damages DNA and so increases the risk of skin cancer.
Supplementation of vitamin D3, in quantities well above those needed for 20 ng/mL 125 nmol/L 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed by almost everyone in order to be healthy. The exceptions are babies breast fed by 25-hydroxyvitamin D replete mothers (about equal amounts of vitamin D3 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the breast milk, with the latter being 4 times as effective as vitamin D3 in raising the baby's 25-hydroxyvitamin D) and those who get so much UV-B skin exposure, year after year, that they are at high risk of developing skin cancer.
In 2022, New Jersey based Professor of Medicine Sunil Wimalawansa published an article with proper vitamin D3 supplementation recommendations, as ratios of body weight, with higher ratios for those suffering from obesity, since obesity reduces the rate of hydroxylation in the liver to 25-hydroxyvitamin D and because the excess adipose tissue absorbs 25-hydroxyvitamin D and vitamin D3: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#obesity- deficit.
He later simplified these recommendations somewhat to average daily supplemental intakes of vitamin D3:
70 to 90 IU / kg body weight for those not suffering from obesity (BMI < 30).
100 to 130 IU / kg body weight for obesity I & II (BMI 30 to 39).
140 to 180 IU / kg body weight for obesity III (BMI > 39).
For 70 kg (154 lb) without obesity, this is about 0.125 milligrams (5000 IU) a day. This takes several months to attain the desired > 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. This is 8 or more times what most governments recommend. "5000 IU" sounds like a lot, but it is a gram every 22 years - and pharma grade vitamin D costs about USD$2.50 a gram ex-factory. This will safely attain at least 50 ng/mL 125 nmol/L 25-hydroxyvitamin D over several months, without the need for blood tests or medical monitoring. He recently repeated these recommendations in an article co-written by two other professors - one of medicine and the other of pediatrics:
Integrating Endocrine, Genomic, and Extra-Skeletal Benefits of Vitamin D into National and Regional Clinical Guidelines Sunil J. Wimalawansa, Scott T. Weiss and Bruce W. Hollis, Nutrients 2024-11-20 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/22/3969.
I wonder if wasabi or ghost peppers might prompt a clearing of the facial glymphatics? Western posture does not facilitate good drainage.... lots to pay attention to now - can't just slide by on good food and genes.
Very interesting post, thank You.
Anything aromatic amino acids is related to the gut bacteria, since we humans do not produce it.. Just wonder how the disappearance of the BIfido species supports the apparent shift to C. diff..? The chronic diarrhea after covid is indeed very common.. How long one needs to supplement with S. boulardii in order to 'normalize' to stool formation?
I've heard about a very gentle massage technique (helping the Alzheimer victims) based on tapping the right and left lymphatic duct at the bottom of the neck-shoulder connection, followed by an extreme head movements left and right, all the way reaching the shoulder view with the eyes movement. The latter 'activates' the spinal nerve which connects all the organs 'below'. Since movement is the only 'motor' of the lymphatic system, there must be that connection to the NOS3 activation requirement. The only thing I'd add is, disposing misfolded or normal proteins happens via proteases, folding on the other hand via chaperones, thus can't see that pathway to the NOS3 somehow.
what sort of face massage in humans might replicate those in mice?
Facial lymphatic drainage massage, but attention to the frequency and duration and strength.
It is gentle massage, short duration, many times a day.
More research will surely come out of this fast. Hopefully
you the best