James you have probably read this article but I just ran across it :

Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neurons Express KATP Channels That Are Regulated by Estrogen and Responsive to Glucose and Metabolic Inhibition
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/38/10153.full.pdf

The supporting systems affecting excitation thresholds for neuronal GnRH pulsatile release in this paper are the postassium ATP channels regulating glucose usage and free 17
beta-estradiol (E2) levels. The link between pheromonal response in your GnRH model (at least as far as the mouse study shows) is dependent on glucose regulation. There are probably a ton of factors relating to both the estrogen and KATP channels that are regulated by the endogenous biome.

After about a year and half of reading about the new research on the gut population, I've selected this brand of probiotic to take, and everyone in my immediate family is taking these with some regularity, and a noted decrease in incidents of poor health - http://ultimateflora.com/ - I chose it based on the strains of flora and the enteric coating to deliver the payload past the stomach acids.

The studies on "gut hacking" by intentionally manipulating the gut population balances are really new, with some of the research going across geographic and cultural divides to provide a census of strains and proportions Human Microbiome Project (HMP) http://www.hmpdacc.org/

Perhaps a natural outcome of these types of research would be to tweak our own microbiomes and health to optimally produce pheromones and other chemosignals so that artificial pheromones would not be required? The ultimate pheromonal signature! Au Naturale!

The Herxheimer reaction is ugly and probably not well understood by Western medicine - I take a cocoanut oil extract called Lauridicin (monolaurin) whenever I get coldsores or start to feel sick, and it sometimes does knock me down for a day or two when I start taking it. It helped my 7-year old get over mononucleosis fairly quickly as well without acquiring any secondary infections. Comments about its use commonly relate experiences of Herxheimer reactions as die-off of pathogens occurs.

Some folks with autoimmune disorders have gained relief by intentionally infecting themselves with a non-reproducing strain of pig pinworm (helminthic therapy) - the idea being that the human body is evolved and constantly primed to fight off ongoing infection by fungi, bacteria, virii, worms, and other creepy crawlies. With the advent of modern medicine, we live in a state where we fight off relatively few pathogens on a constant basis since we are able to kill them off so effectively with medicines. Thus our immune systems are more prone to mis-firing and going after our own bodies, having less to do everyday (bored immune systems? lol). Introducing a non-harmful worm infestation is thought to occupy the immune system in a natural way and lessens the autoimmune attacks on one's own body. Totally gross but it makes sense in some ways. I wonder how much of this could be replaced with a purposefully tailored gut microbiome?

Ongoing facultative infections are likely to be the root cause of quite a few chronic syndromes with unidentified viral, protozoan, fungal, and bacterial pathogens living just under the radar of current medical diagnostics. One site I was reading about Lyme disease had a vitamin C and salt treatment that claimed to purge the body of a protozoan that the author suspected of being a component of the Lyme disease - nasty pictures supposedly of the pests eliminated from the body too - http://www.lymephotos.com/

(09-16-2012 12:43 AM)wiserd Wrote:  I've read that facultatively lysogneic viruses (viruses which don't have to kill their host cell, but can propagate with them for a time before becoming virulent and busting out from their host, for anyone here following along) are capable of causing an ongoing Herxheimer type reaction. At least according to one study that I don't have on hand. Unfortuantely, I haven't seen a lot of effort put in to diagnosing or treating this type of problem. Phage technology could attack gut flora selectively enough, but outside of Tsibli or some clinic in central America or a few NIH studies, that seems to be a painfully slow tech to develop. There seems to be some phage research in China as well, maybe started by exchange with the soviets a long time ago. But I couldn't find anyone willing to discuss details when I was there.

(09-16-2012 10:04 AM)2Soon2Care Wrote:  Thus our immune systems are more prone to mis-firing and going after our own bodies, having less to do everyday (bored immune systems? lol). Introducing a non-harmful worm infestation is thought to occupy the immune system in a natural way and lessens the autoimmune attacks on one's own body. Totally gross but it makes sense in some ways. I wonder how much of this could be replaced with a purposefully tailored gut microbiome?

Ongoing facultative infections are likely to be the root cause of quite a few chronic syndromes with unidentified viral, protozoan, fungal, and bacterial pathogens living just under the radar of current medical diagnostics. One site I was reading about Lyme disease had a vitamin C and salt treatment that claimed to purge the body of a protozoan that the author suspected of being a component of the Lyme disease - nasty pictures supposedly of the pests eliminated from the body too - http://www.lymephotos.com/

I tried the whole Linus Pauling megadosing on ascorbate salts for a while. Vit C megadosing is interesting, and probably helps with collagen production. I could certainly tolerate far far less ascorbate when I was healthy than when I was sick. But I suspect that a really high dose of vit C might remove enough free radicals that it basically turns off the adaptive immune system, since our antibodies are essentially primed via free radicals. So it might be the people megadosing with vit C are just numbing part of their immune system. High-dose Probiotic supplements might also have a similar effect, to some extent. There seems to be good evidence to support that, and at least an overdose of mostly benign bacteria would go away when you were done with them.

I have monolaurin for a fixative. I'll have to try it the next time I get sick. Though fortunately I've been pretty healthy for the past few years. I've never had cold sores, but red cabbage juice is supposed to be very good for ulcerations.

As regards colonizing the gut, have you ever looked at serrapeptase? It a silkworm enzyme which breaks down bacterial biofilms. Used in conjunction with antibiotics, it significantly improves the cure rate both by removing the protective bacterial biofilms and also because it acts as an anti-inflammatory allowing improved tissue penetration for the antibiotic. It would probably be great for things like lyme which requires longterm antibiotic treatment (though it would probably also make probiotic supplementation even more essential during that time.) I'm really shocked the stuff isn't standard practice in the US, though I've heard it's used in Japan.

Yeah, it's amazing how much we can't test for. I've had friends say things like "I got tested and I'm clean!" ... no such thing, unfortunately.

I like Paul Ewald's notion that most sickness is either caused by pathogens or is a reaction to the possibility of pathogens.

(09-16-2012 4:02 AM)jvkohl Wrote:  I haven't had time to explore the choline- acetylcholine- acetaldehyde connection that appears to lie at the core of adaptive evolution via ecological, social, neurogenic, and socio-cognitive niche construction, but would welcome the involvement of someone like you who might better be able to put the pieces together.

Cool. More than happy to share what I know about the subject.

(09-16-2012 4:02 AM)jvkohl Wrote:  The regulation of glucose in gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) by choline seems to be the key as the mammalian GnRH molecule can be traced to its origins as the alpha-mating pheromone in brewer's/baker's yeast. Thus, we have the origins of cellular energy required for movement towards a food source or opposite sex conspecific at the advent of sexual reproduction in a single-celled organism, and can extend the molecular mechanisms to gene duplication and copy number variation via the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals, such as forms of glucose required for speciation that is controlled by pheromones.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae flor has been a great model for molecular evolution IMO. They have a sweet knack for adapting to distinct conditions found in many industrial apps. This is due to the extreme degree of specialization certain strains have developed based in these highly restricted environments.

I read an article awhile back that tested the differences between 2 different strains. The array/study concluded that the occupation of genes that confer specific and generic characteristics to the 2 strains of flor yeast (within amp'd DNA pieces from PCR I think) encourages the role of chromosomal rearrangements as a major mechanism of adaptive evolution in S. cerevisiae strains. I cant remember exact numbers but it was something like 40% of the genome that the strains differ from each other. I found that very interesting.

So what I took from it all is environment change leads to nutrient seeking leads to nutrient adaptation leads to haploid diploid freaky deaky yeast sex which leads to genetic diversity which leads to strain evolution. Magnificent. And yes freaky deaky haploid diploid yeast sex is a scientific term as of now. Lmao

It has been a bit since I read the study but in a nutshell it proposed that genes, located at different loci on the same chromosome (or on different chromosomes for that matter) are manipulated by acetaldehyde induced breaks in the DNA. Long story short these breaks are repaired by pathways that are comprised of various chromosomal rearrangements. This idea of chromosomal evolution could also account for the sexual isolation shown among the flor yeast if one were inclined to dive into the rabbit hole a bit further.

(09-16-2012 10:04 AM)2Soon2Care Wrote:  The Herxheimer reaction is ugly and probably not well understood by Western medicine - I take a cocoanut oil extract called Lauridicin (monolaurin) whenever I get coldsores or start to feel sick, and it sometimes does knock me down for a day or two when I start taking it.

Pathogen die off is wicked on the system. I agree that it is also poorly understood by westernite med fields. I've seen it do some gnarly things to patients in the past for days on end.
Lysine whacks cold sores as well. My step sis gets em and I tell her bust a lysine cap and dab the sore. Like magic.
Coconut oil is pure awesome. I could write 3 pages of benefits from that stuff and barely scratch the surface. In fact I did write an abstract on using the MCTs in coconut oil for use in patients with chronic malabsorption GI issues that suffered from acute caloric decreases. Its prolly stuffed somewhere being used as a bookmark or something now.
Coconut oil has alot of saturated fatty acids, most notably is lauric acid. Whats really cool about lauric acid, other than being a component of breast milk, is that the body turns it into monolaurin. The antimicrobial abilities of monolaurin are amazing and underrated IMO. Sadly coconut oil is being looked at as a food preservative now by big business instead of its wonderful health effects.
I choke down (I hate coconuts) 3 tbsp a day with pramiracetam dissolved in it.

(09-16-2012 9:50 AM)2Soon2Care Wrote:  After about a year and half of reading about the new research on the gut population, I've selected this brand of probiotic to take, and everyone in my immediate family is taking these with some regularity, and a noted decrease in incidents of poor health - http://ultimateflora.com/ - I chose it based on the strains of flora and the enteric coating to deliver the payload past the stomach acids.

Ultimate flora is a great brand. I have a bottle of it that I use on occasion to add some diversity down there. My probiotic stash is bigger than my mone stash. LOL Bad thing about many products out there are the lack of concentration of colony forming bacteria. While many probiotic supps deliver a heavy strike at the beginning, they lack longevity. Although they are good for affecting GI pH in the short term. Ive been crushing the probiotic field for about 14 yrs now and the best I have found to date is a combination of separate products.
Heres what I take and make my son take, maybe will help you too (or at least give some ideas):
L. Plantarum 299V strain 10 billion per cap
S. Boulardii 5 billion per cap
L. Reuteri 10 billion per cap

I break these open in applesauce and mix. It Adds some fiber for them to grub on in transit.
The L Plantarum is colonizing and is missing in our diet. In the past we ate more fermented food. It loves acid so no problemo in stomach acid. The S. Boulardii is a friendly yeast that crows out pathogenic yeasts like Candida bc they compete for the same food sources. It is a colonizer as well. The L Reuteri is a warrior bacteria that is a colonizer and fights pathogens. Colonizing bacteria are the most beneficial bc when you kill off the bad guys (with antimicrobials), good ones need to take their spot on the mucosal lining.

Concerning helminth therapy, I have read alot about us using 3rd world models for making advancements in western medicine. I know some IBD sufferers are gaining relief from this type of therapy now. Im in agreement with the hygiene hypothesis but I do not think it has anything to do with autoimmune disorders. I think one has to be genetically predisposed for an autoimmune disorder rather than environmentally predisposed triggers. It is the combination of the 2 that causes flares IMO. Perfect storm stuff.

Thanks Thundr - I'll have to go back to my list of microbes to see which ones I was targeting from the research :

Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1
Lactobacillus bulgaricus (Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus)
Bifidobacterium animalis subspecies lactis LKM512

Lactobacillus rhamnosus JB-1 showed significantly fewer stress, anxiety and depression-related behaviours than those fed with just broth. Moreover, ingestion of the bacteria resulted in significantly lower levels of the stress-induced hormone, corticosterone.
The researchers also showed that regular feeding with the Lactobacillus strain caused changes in the expression of receptors for the neurotransmitter GABA in the mouse brain, which is the first time that it has been demonstrated that potential probiotics have a direct effect on brain chemistry in normal situations. The authors also established that the vagus nerve is the main relay between the microbiome (bacteria in the gut) and the brain.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/201...164601.htm
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notroc...r-in-mice/


Lactobacillus bulgaricus (Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus)
For the supplementation of probiotics, care must be taken to choose a hardy strain and packaging that will not cause a die-off of the probiotic before it reaches the intestines. This means continuous refrigeration with a minimum exposure to light for any encapsulated probiotics, and a guaranteed potency through the expiry date. Researched strains of L. bulgaricus such as LB-51, if correctly packaged, have been shown to implant well in the human digestive tract.
While no direct clinical studies have confirmed this fact, there is growing evidence that points to the reality that the probiotic Lactobacillus bulgaricus (Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus) can suppress appetite. The evidence is based upon the mechanisms related to appetite and satiety.
http://voices.yahoo.com/lactobacillus-bu...08752.html


Bifidobacterium animalis subspecies lactis LKM512
Matsumoto and colleagues previously showed that LKM512 could reduce inflammatory markers in elderly humans and modify the makeup of intestinal bacteria, but the effects of it on lifespan still required investigation. After starting 10-month-old mice on a diet including LKM512 for 11 months, the researchers found that LKM512-treated mice lived longer, had fewer skin lesions, and had better hair quality than untreated mice.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-di...erial.html

I'm using the Ultimate Flora Adult Formula 15 Billion - Walgreens, Walmarts, tons of places carry it, around $15-$20 for 30 veggie caps.

Not to debate whether the amount of viable cells is accurate but it says it has, only has the L. planarum in common with no strain info :
Bifidobacterium lactis 7.5 Billion
Lactobacillus acidophilus 4.5 B
Bifidobacterium breve 750 M
Bifidobacterium longum 750 M
Lactobacilus casei 375 M
Lactobacilus plantarum 300 M
Lactobacilus paracasei 300 M
Lactobacilus salivarius 300 M
Lactobacilus rhamnosus 150 M
Lactobacilus bulgaricus 75 M

(09-16-2012 4:47 PM)thundr Wrote:  

(09-16-2012 4:02 AM)jvkohl Wrote:  The regulation of glucose in gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) by choline seems to be the key as the mammalian GnRH molecule can be traced to its origins as the alpha-mating pheromone in brewer's/baker's yeast. Thus, we have the origins of cellular energy required for movement towards a food source or opposite sex conspecific at the advent of sexual reproduction in a single-celled organism, and can extend the molecular mechanisms to gene duplication and copy number variation via the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals, such as forms of glucose required for speciation that is controlled by pheromones.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae flor has been a great model for molecular evolution IMO. They have a sweet knack for adapting to distinct conditions found in many industrial apps. This is due to the extreme degree of specialization certain strains have developed based in these highly restricted environments.

I read an article awhile back that tested the differences between 2 different strains. The array/study concluded that the occupation of genes that confer specific and generic characteristics to the 2 strains of flor yeast (within amp'd DNA pieces from PCR I think) encourages the role of chromosomal rearrangements as a major mechanism of adaptive evolution in S. cerevisiae strains. I cant remember exact numbers but it was something like 40% of the genome that the strains differ from each other. I found that very interesting.

So what I took from it all is environment change leads to nutrient seeking leads to nutrient adaptation leads to haploid diploid freaky deaky yeast sex which leads to genetic diversity which leads to strain evolution. Magnificent. And yes freaky deaky haploid diploid yeast sex is a scientific term as of now. Lmao

It has been a bit since I read the study but in a nutshell it proposed that genes, located at different loci on the same chromosome (or on different chromosomes for that matter) are manipulated by acetaldehyde induced breaks in the DNA. Long story short these breaks are repaired by pathways that are comprised of various chromosomal rearrangements. This idea of chromosomal evolution could also account for the sexual isolation shown among the flor yeast if one were inclined to dive into the rabbit hole a bit further.

You have specific information that someone needs to integrate into my model. "The concept that is extended is the epigenetic tweaking of immense gene networks in ‘superorganisms’ (Lockett, Kucharski, & Maleszka, 2012) that ‘solve problems through the exchange and the selective cancellation and modification of signals (Bear, 2004, p. 330)’. It is now clearer how an environmental drive probably evolved from that of food ingestion in unicellular organisms to that of socialization in insects. It is also clear that, in mammals, food odors and pheromones cause changes in hormones such as LH, which has developmental affects on sexual behavior in nutrient-dependent, reproductively fit individuals across species of vertebrates." What you are indicating to me is that acetaldehyde induces breaks in DNA could be very important to linking unicellular and multicellular energies involved in movement.

The unicellular organisms are yeasts, specifically brewer's/baker's yeast
at the advent of sexual reproduction. From the yeast alpha mating pheromone you can get to vertebrate LH via conservation of ligand (e.g., GnRH) - receptor (e.g., GnRHR) binding and species diversification.

Thanks, but I missed that one and don't have time right now to pursue its implications, which are clear in the context of nutrient chemical metabolism by microbes to the pheromones that control reproduction. You are correct that this article will be important to the overall understanding of genomic interactions in superorganisms like us, but I think we are still several years away from involving today's scientists who have no more insight than what they were taught to have, which is none.

(09-16-2012 9:50 AM)2Soon2Care Wrote:  James you have probably read this article but I just ran across it :

Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone Neurons Express KATP Channels That Are Regulated by Estrogen and Responsive to Glucose and Metabolic Inhibition
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/27/38/10153.full.pdf

SNIP

Very cool, this has "evolved" into a very interesting thread! It is most significant that the understanding of the food and environmental epigenetic effects are in some ways just tools that we can use in hacking our own biome just as we use pheromones to hack the interpersonal relationships we pursue.

The latest info on bees extends well to human behavior in the context of foraging for food and pheromone controlled colony behavior.

How bees decide what to be Sunday, 16 September 2012
Natural selection and the behavior of whole organisms

Excerpt: “…for the first time DNA methylation “tagging” has been linked to something at the behavioral level of a whole organism.”

My comment: Was I not the first to link the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones to the development of behavior in species from microbes to man? I used the honeybee model organism to exemplify how the molecular biology common to all species links the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones to DNA methylation so that others might better be able to grasp the species-wide complexity that starts with microbes.

Excerpt: The researchers say they hope their results may begin to shed light on complex behavioral issues in humans, such as learning, memory, stress response and mood disorders, which all involve interactions between genetic and epigenetic components similar to those in the study.

From Kohl (2012): “The honeybee already serves as a model organism for studying human immunity, disease resistance, allergic reaction, circadian rhythms, antibiotic resistance, the development of the brain and behavior, mental health, longevity, and diseases of the X chromosome (Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium, 2006). Included among these different aspects of eusocial species survival are learning and memory, as well as conditioned responses to sensory stimuli (Maleszka, 2008; Menzel, 1983).”
Kohl, J.V. (2012) Human pheromones and food odors: epigenetic influences on the socioaffective nature of evolved behaviors. Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology, 2: 17338.