Year Four of Changing to a youthful phenotype with sprouts

March 31, 2024 gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Beliefs, Epigenetics, Immune system, Memory, Stress Reciprocity

1. I’ve continued daily practices from Year Three to experience another year without being sick. I’ll get a set of Labcorp tests in two weeks to see if anything is sneaking up on me.

Foods are the same as Week 189 except I eat two raw eggs in the morning after Avena sativa oat sprouts. Supplements are the same except I stopped the ProdromeGlia plasmalogen precursor supplement due to it being out-of-stock.

It’s annoying because after a few days, my sense of smell and taste improvements reverted without ProdromeGlia. I’ve continued ProdromeNeuro, but it seems that its combination with ProdromeGlia was essential for stopping my left ulnar nerve elbow pain, which returned after a week without ProdromeGlia.

2. You may have noticed that earlier this month, a U.S. government agency was forced by a lawsuit to delete their 2021 propaganda pieces against a medication that’s safer than acetaminophen. I had a prescription that local pharmacies suddenly wouldn’t fill in August 2021.

Plenty of workarounds have been available, though. I hadn’t mentioned it before, but a prophylactic weekly intake may have played a part in me not being sick even one day this decade.

Another part was that my living and working in the Washington DC area for 30+ years through 2017 taught me, as an initial response, to not believe a single word of what a government employee said. I’ve since extended that to many other types of compromised people, such as medical professionals.

3. Our ancestors evolved to deal with everyday bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens. Train your immune system every day! disclosed that I was in Milan, Italy on the same February 22-23, 2020 weekend that ten towns were closed south of Milan. I still haven’t experienced any symptoms.

One factor in immune response was that fifteen years previous, I’d taken daily steps with yeast cell wall β-glucan to guard against the phenotypical immune system collapse of old age.
Another factor was that I’d ridden the filthy Washington DC Metro twice a day to-and-from work for years, and had already been exposed to who knows what.

Treat your gut microbiota well. Give them what they want – including cruciferous sprouts – and expect reciprocity.

Sulforaphane vs. ESP enzyme

March 28, 2024 gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Stress Control group, Genetic factors

A 2024 study evaluated genetic makeups of 29 broccoli varieties for their sulforaphane-producing capability:

“Sulforaphane (SFN) is one of the most important bioactive compounds in cruciferous vegetables, and is derived from glucosinolates (GSLs [glucoraphanin]). GSLs are hydrolyzed by myrosinases to produce SFN.

However, SFN is not a unique hydrolysate of GSLs. Another enzyme, named epithiospecifier protein (ESP), hydrolyzes GSLs to produce undesirable nitrile components, resulting in a low SFN yield.

Fresh 7-day-old seedlings of 15 broccoli cultivars with a high SFN content did not fully correspond to those with a high GSL content. Seven out of the fifteen broccoli cultivars, such as C2, C8, C12, C21, C22, C28, and C33, produced high SFN, but their GSL content were not particularly remarkable.

Extracted SFN yield from the curds (the curd of broccoli refers to its edible part, which is the entire flower head) was about 70% of that from the seedlings. Nevertheless, in consideration of the obviously higher biomass and lower cost of curds compared to seedlings, these results confirmed that the extraction method established here could also efficiently extract high SFN from broccoli curds and was more feasible for the large-scale extraction of SFN.

Decreased ESP activity can lead to increased SFN formation in broccoli. Broccoli cultivars with strong GSL biosynthetic ability, high myrosinase, and low ESP enzymatic activity are the preferred materials for SFN production.”

https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/14/3/352 “Sulforaphane-Enriched Extracts from Broccoli Exhibit Antimicrobial Activity against Plant Pathogens, Promising a Natural Antimicrobial Agent for Crop Protection”

I haven’t seen a broccoli variety suitable for home sprouting advertised for its combined high glucoraphanin biosynthetic ability, high myrosinase enzyme activity, and low epithiospecifier protein enzyme activity genetic profile. Seems like a marketing opportunity. I use a narrow temperature band to suppress ESP activity but not suppress myrosinase activity of 3-day-old sprouts.

A head slam anecdote

March 26, 2024March 27, 2024 gettingwell4 Just me

1. I had some head trauma on Day 146 of an extended 90-day trial of plasmalogen precursor supplements. It happened when ordering dinner for delivery to three people while visiting them a half-dozen states away.

Order status notification was Delivered, but when I went downstairs, I couldn’t find it on either the front or back porches. In the middle of wandering around an unfamiliar house during twilight, I tripped, and head-butted a wall.

2. I’m a little concerned about a 4 cm x 3 cm scalp scrape. Maybe the scar will become a tattoo?

I’m more concerned about the skull / brain impact and cervical disk compression I felt. There have been subsequent symptoms like not understanding simple things my hosts said, and other glitches in me perceiving reality.

Getting medical professionals involved in possible injury treatment won’t happen, though. I lost trust in them because of their actions this decade.

3. Taking daily plasmalogen precursor supplements may have cushioned effects of this head slam. Two days afterwards, though, I ran out of ProdromeGlia, which has been out-of-stock for over a month. Other Prodrome non-proprietary products I don’t use are also out-of-stock. Not a desirable business metric.

There are a hundred ways a small business can screw up customer relationships. It may help for management to emphasize a customer’s value when assessing inventory. Here’s one way to calculate a customer’s monetary value:

Ergothioneine dosing, Part 2

March 17, 2024March 21, 2024 gettingwell4 4-5 stars Advanced knowledge, Dopamine, Epigenetics, Hippocampus, Immune system, Limbic system, Memory, Neurochemicals, Stress, Telomeres Brain neurons, Control group, Genetic factors, Neurodegenerative disease

Continuing Part 1 with a 2024 rodent healthspan and lifespan study:

“We investigated the effects of daily oral supplementation of ergothioneine (ERGO) dissolved in drinking water on lifespan, frailty, and cognitive impairment in male mice from 7 weeks of age to the end of their lives. Ingestion of 4 ~ 5 mg/kg/day of ERGO remarkably extended the lifespan of male mice.

The ERGO group showed significantly lower age-related declines in weight, fat mass, and average and maximum movement velocities at 88 weeks of age. This was compatible with dramatic suppression by ERGO of age-related increments in plasma biomarkers. ERGO also rescued age-related impairments in learning and memory ability.

Ingestion of ERGO may promote longevity and healthy aging in male mice, possibly through multiple biological mechanisms.”

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-024-01111-5 “Ergothioneine promotes longevity and healthy aging in male mice”

Subjects’ plasma ergothioneine levels of an estimated 4 ~ 5 mg/kg daily dose were:

A human equivalent daily dose is an estimated 22 mg to 28 mg (4 or 5 mg x .081 x 70 kg).

The third paper in Part 1 cited a 2017 clinical trial that provided 5 mg and 25 mg ergothioneine doses for 7 days, resulting in these plasma ergothioneine levels:

The first paper of Part 1 referenced a 2020 human study where the dose was 5 mg/day for 12 weeks, but I don’t have access to it. It’s unclear whether humans could continually raise ergothioneine levels by daily consumption throughout our lives as did this rodent study.

A 2024 paper reviewed the importance of ergothioneine to humans:

“We propose that the diet-derived compound ergothioneine (ET) is an important nutrient in the human body, especially for maintenance of normal brain function, and that low body ET levels predispose humans to significantly increased risks of neurodegenerative and possibly other age-related diseases.

Work by multiple groups has established that low ET levels in humans are associated not only with cognitive impairment/AD but also with other age-related conditions, including frailty, Parkinson’s disease, vascular dementia, chronic renal disease, cardiovascular disease, and macular degeneration. Low ET levels also correlate with increased risk of developing preeclampsia in pregnant women [53].

Plasma ET levels from healthy (age-matched) vs unhealthy individuals in Singapore – Mild cognitive impairment (MCI); Alzheimer’s disease (AD); vascular dementia (VaD); Parkinson’s disease (PD); age-related macular degeneration (AMD):

Does low ET cause or contribute to age-related neurodegeneration, or

Does disease cause low ET, or

Low ET and increased disease risk are both caused by something else, as yet unidentified?

Prevention of neurodegeneration is especially important, since by the time dementia is usually diagnosed damage to the brain is extensive and likely irreversible.”

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891584924001357 “Are age-related neurodegenerative diseases caused by a lack of the diet-derived compound ergothioneine?”

Whether or not the healthy individuals ate mushrooms daily in the above graphic was lost while conglomerating multiple studies.

Note that scales of the above two human graphics are a thousand times smaller than the above rodent graphic. I thought that maybe the rodent study made a plasma ergothioneine calculation error, but didn’t see one in the provided Supplementary data.

Reference 53 of the second paper is a 2023 human study:

“We analysed early pregnancy samples from a cohort of 432 first time mothers. Of these 432 women, 97 went on to develop pre-term or term pre-eclampsia (PE).

If a threshold was set at the 90th percentile of the reference range in the control population (≥462 ng/ml), only one of these 97 women (1%) developed PE, versus 96/397 (24.2%) whose ergothioneine level was below this threshold. One possible interpretation of these findings, consistent with previous experiments in a reduced uterine perfusion model in rats, is that ergothioneine may indeed prove protective against PE in humans.”

https://portlandpress.com/bioscirep/article/43/7/BSR20230160/233119/Relationship-between-the-concentration-of “Relationship between the concentration of ergothioneine in plasma and the likelihood of developing pre-eclampsia”

Eyeballing the Healthy individuals in the above graphic, none of those 544 people were below this study’s 462 ng threshold.

A 2023 companion article analyzed the third paper’s unusual findings:

“These results suggest that there might be a dichotomized association between ergothioneine concentrations and preeclampsia; and only a high ergothioneine level over 90th percentile of the control population could be protective against preeclampsia.

Univariable results showed that ergothioneine had a significant non-linear association with preeclampsia and it would start to offer protective effect from 300 ng/ml onward. Analysis also confirmed that body mass index was significantly associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia.

A large observational study could strengthen the causal association between ergothioneine and preeclampsia. If confirmed, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) assessing whether ergothioneine supplementation can reduce risk of preeclampsia will be imminently feasible. Ideally, such RCT should compare placebo with a range of different doses of ergothioneine to identify the best or minimal effective dose, given its good safety records, including in pregnancy, with a no-observed-adverse-effect level (NOAEL) of 800 mg/kg body weight per day.”

https://portlandpress.com/bioscirep/article/43/8/BSR20231076/233395/Dose-related-relationship-between-ergothioneine “Dose-related relationship between ergothioneine concentrations and risk of preeclampsia”

My daily mushroom ergothioneine dose is around 7 mg, and I weigh about 70 kg. I don’t think a daily 800 mg/kg ergothioneine dose would be desirable for anybody, regardless of what experts say.

How many times have public health employees been wrong this decade? Would you bet your or your child’s health on their advice?