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Holistic Nutrition
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If you look at almost any other system of medicine besides the Western, you'll find a heavy reliance on food. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, after whom the Hippocratic oath was named, taught, "let food be thy medicine." The "foods" of modern medicine, however are drugs. The typical American doctor completely disregards nutrition. Those who are concerned with nutrition are labeled as faddists, freaks, extremists, radicals and quacks. Why aren't our doctors telling us about these things and trying to do something to change it? Many people think that medical physicians are experts in nutrition because they seem to know some things about the human body. Well, physicians may be great at saving lives in an emergency or for relieving pain temporarily, but very few are taught to prevent illness. Hard-working and dedicated, they are highly trained to diagnose illness (symptoms), administer drugs and perform surgical procedures. Their schooling demands so much time for pharmacology (drug therapy) that they have little time for studying nutrition. What scant information they do receive is usually outdated and less detailed than that which nurses and technicians receive in their training.
When the average physician is asked, "What should I eat?" The typical answer is "Just eat a balanced diet." If you want to know what an average physician thinks a balanced diet is, look at any hospital food fed to patients, doctors, staff and visitors. The mutually-exclusive roles of dietician and cook are nowhere more apparent than in such institutions. All are identical. Iceberg lettuce, with a glob of cottage cheese, and a wedge of canned pineapple. Slices of overdone and warmed-over beef that have suffered for hours in some electronic purgatory, coated with gravy made of water, library paste, and bouillon cubes. Peas, corn, and carrots--boiled. The pie is a sickening slab of beige goo, flavored with artificial maple sugar, in a crust of reconstituted cardboard, topped with sweetened shaving cream squirted from an aerosol bomb. The problem is that the dieticians who actually supervise such "cooking"--as well as the hapless agents of the FDA and the USDA who inspect the forced and faked-up products that go into it--can indeed prove that it contains the proper amount of protein, carbohydrate, minerals and vitamins. But this is like judging the worth of music in terms of decibels and wave frequencies.
George Blackburn, M.D., an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said that 5% of all patients who die in American hospitals--50,000 people--starve to death, and their doctors don't realize it. Less extreme malnutrition hastens death in 160,000 cases and delays recovery in 330,000 cases, Dr. Blackburn said. In other studies on hospital nutrition, it was revealed that malnutrition is one of the most common causes of death among elderly people in hospitals. Then there's the soft drink, candy and cigarette vending machines strategically placed throughout the hospital. The hospital gets a percentage of everything sold in these machines.
In 1970, Professor Richard Ahrens of the University of Maryland School of Nutrition proposed more nutrition courses for the School of Medicine and was turned down on the grounds that the medical students needed to devote still more time in their crowded schedules to learn the latest information about more and more drugs. A very small percentage of doctors specialize in preventive medicine, but most better fit the description given by Dr. Julian B. Schorr of the New York Blood Center, in a January 1971 Wall Street Journal article by Mary Bralove: "Often doctors are trained in nutrition by doctors who heard it from another doctor who made it up." Yet they believe what they say is true and get upset when they're contradicted.
The average physician is not a nutrition imbecile, he can recognize overweight, gross malnutrition and other nutritional problems. But physicians usually get out of their area of expertise when they talk about dietary cholesterol, subclinical scurvy and long-term dietary studies. Time (December 18, 1972, p. 75) quoted Dr. Michael Latham of Cornell University's Graduate School of Nutrition: "Nine out of ten doctors in New York City would give wrong answers to dietary questions."
Senator Richard S. Schweiker of Pennsylvania, a member of the Senate Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, said (in Prevention October, 1972) "I am particularly concerned about the need for better practical nutrition education for our doctors." "The advice of family doctors carries a great deal of weight with most people. But, unfortunately, most doctors simply do not receive sufficient training in nutrition while they are at medical school to enable them to give sound advice on nutrition that we urgently need..."
The 1969 White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health concluded, "The effectiveness of physicians in providing optimal care for the many patients who have diseases with an important nutritional component is dependent in considerable part on the kind of nutrition teaching offered them at medical school and thereafter. At the present time, nutrition teaching in medical schools and in teaching hospitals is woefully inadequate." Medical schools with nutrition departments are rare. Most don"t even offer separate courses in nutrition but mingle what little they do offer in an elementary chemistry course. Not one medical school can honestly say it teaches nutrition seriously. An open mind is needed by all, not dogmatic opinions from out-of-date "experts."
Nicolas Wade, in New Republic Magazine, wrote: "The scientific enterprise is one of the few American institutions whose inner workings have never been subjected to close public scrutiny. It has been protected by the perceived idealism of scientists and by the belief that science and technology are the engines of progress. But the cases of fraud that seem to be popping up every month or so raise uncomfortable questions about whether all is well in the scientific realm." Wade then briefly describes fabrications of research data, forged laboratory results, results of research not even conducted, dishonesty, cheating and plagiarism by leading medical researchers. Named are: J.H. Cort of Mount Sinai School of Medicine; J. Darsee at Harvard Medical School; H. Levin of Philadelphia doing clinical trials for several drug companies and used by FDA to evaluate safety and efficacy; W. Aronow, chief of cardiovascular diseases at V.A. Medical Center, Long Beach. Aronow was also Professor of Medicine, University of California; an unnamed research fellow at Harvard Medical School; A. Rincover of the Psychology Dept., University of North Carolina, found guilty of plagiarism and Industrial Bio-Test (IBT), one of the countries largest testing laboratories.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, studies for 737 safety tests of herbicides and pesticides were found invalid. Sadly, of those "safe" chemicals represented, 15% of the pesticides were on the market...212 to be exact. J. Darsee who was found guilty of research fraud at Harvard Medical School was many years at Emory University where he was also faking research data. "His career of successful fakery spanned 14 years..." He concludes, "All of the premises of this comfortably insulating hypothesis are seriously flawed. The scientific enterprise is supposed to consist of communities of scholars who rigorously check each other's work...but...the standard checking mechanism in detecting fraud is virtually nonexistent."
From the book Confessions of a Medical Heretic, the late Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., 1980: "Dr. Leroy Wolins, a psychologist at Iowa State University, had a student write to 37 authors of scientific reports asking for the raw data on which they based their conclusions. Of the 32 who replied, 21 said their data either had been lost or accidentally destroyed. Dr. Wolins analyzed 7 sets of data that did come in and found errors in 3, significant enough to invalidate what had been passed off as scientific fact."
The difference between orthodoxy and the naturalist is as pronounced as the difference between black and white. The orthodox health practitioner embraces all theories of health and disease that further the interests of the food, dairy, chemical, pharmaceutical and medical-care delivery systems. This acceptance does not imply individual physician dishonesty or corruption--rather--it denotes a very good four to six years of brainwashing in a "higher institute of learning," where a preponderance of inaccurate, deceptive instruction is passed on by equally "brainwashed" professors. When a college professor diverges from the party line demanded by the school's patrons, he suddenly finds himself in want of tenure. When such inaccurate information appears repetitively in the news media, it becomes factual. As a result of unsurpassed human greed, chronic poisoning and malnutrition lead to sickness and premature death by destroying biochemical equilibrium.
Two thirds of Americans die from diseases caused by a poor diet. It is difficult to change a dietary pattern, even if it is unhealthy, when it means swimming upstream against social pressure and our old, programmed habits and belief systems. Nevertheless, it is necessary to examine one's programming and be willing to abandon what is no longer appropriate for maintaining one's state of total well-being of body, mind, and spirit. In this unfolding process, one learns to abandon what does not keep one in health and harmony. There are several major stages of dietary transition. Each stage may take as little as one season in a yearly cycle. The concept of transitioning allows one to be receptive to the continued progress of one's evolutionary growth no matter what the time frame. Stage one is a transition from all biocidic foods to natural, whole, organic foods. This means letting go of all processed, irradiated, chemicalized, pesticide-ridden and fungicide-containing, adulterated, fast and junk foods. In this stage we also give up red meats. The second stage is letting go of all flesh foods including poultry and fish. It also includes not eating eggs. Stage three is a vegetarian diet with the inclusion of dairy at the beginning and the moving to an 80% live food intake by the end. Stage four is vegetarian without dairy and may be as much as 95 - 100% live foods by the end of stage four.
The first stage in the transition process is the mental acceptance and understanding that a dietary change is necessary. It involves becoming conscious of what one is eating, from pesticides to nitrates. This means significantly dropping one's intake of health-destroying, biocidic foods. Giving up these processed, commercially grown, fast food and junk foods means no longer offering oneself up as a sacrificial guinea pig to the pesticide, herbicide, additive, fungicide, food processing, irradiating, microwaving, fast food, and junk food industries for experimentation. It is a time to learn to read labels and ask the right questions to protect you. Stage one involves not drinking municipal tap water or well water and instead drinking and cooking with reverse osmosis filtered water. Stage one eliminates such deleterious foods as white sugar, white bread, candy, T.V. dinners, soft drinks, and meats that have been treated with nitrites and nitrates, pasteurized milk and cheeses, baked goods containing refined or hydrogenated oils, foods containing additives, and prepared foods that have been stored in the refrigerator for more than two or three days.
Actually, almost all cooked foods become biocidic approximately twenty-four hours after preparation. Whether it takes one to four days to become contaminated with bacteria or mold is not the point, for all stored foods have lost their vital energy even if kept in the refrigerator. This is significantly less so if the food is quick frozen. These foods, when eaten, cause an increase in the white blood cell count in the blood, the same as in an infection. They are linked with cancer, weakened immune system, allergies, neurotoxicity, hyperactivity in children, and brain allergies. These substances also reduce mental functioning, decrease mental clarity and give poor concentration. This stage is the time for action to begin. It is the first step in your commitment.
The stage two diet increases the amount of organic, health-promoting foods to about 90% and phases out fish and chicken from the diet. There are no nutrients found in fish, which cannot be found in safer and healthier vegetarian sources. What fish have in abundance as compared to vegetarian food is mercury, PCBs, salmonella and hepatitis virus found in polluted waters. The toxicity in fish is so serious that some studies have found that babies whose mothers have eaten fish from Lake Michigan have lower birth weight and more neurological problems. There are no good reasons for hanging on to old habitual food patterns by continuing to eat toxic fish and many reasons for letting go. This is the last step in the transition to a vegetarian diet.
Stage three is the first step into vegetarianism. It is a major lifestyle change and needs to be experienced in that light. There may be some minor psychological shifts as well as a slow detoxification process that is initialized. By moving into it slowly and peacefully, these changes will have a minimal impact. This stage takes you a little further toward optimal health and allows you to build or clean and balance. At this stage one's awareness of the acid-alkaline balance, food combining, low protein intake, and organic foods becomes more refined. One develops sprouting skills and uses more rejuvenating foods. One will shift to 60-80% biogenic and bioactive foods and 20 - 40% cooked foods. Fruits and vegetables become a larger part of the diet, and the grains, especially cooked grains diminish in quantity. About 30 - 40% of the diet is fruit, and 30 - 40% vegetables nuts, seeds and grains. There's a tendency for some to think that because they stopped eating the highly concentrated protein of flesh foods, they can begin eating large amounts of dairy, oily foods, tofu, and roasted nuts and seeds. These are high in cooked fats and protein and shouldn't be eaten in excess either.
A diet high in natural complex carbohydrates and low in protein creates the best health, vitality, and longevity. Many of the cultures, which are noted for their longevity, eat only one-half to one-third the protein that the western nations eat. Americans, who are the world leaders in cancer, heart disease, arthritis, obesity, high blood pressure, multiple sclerosis, mortality rates, miscarriages and birth deformities, eat more meat, more protein, and probably more cooked fat than any other nation. A stage three diet will adequately support all one's nutritional needs and provide a gradual detoxification over the years, so one's body will progressively become healthier and more in tune with nature and one's spiritual self.
This is the stage that accelerates the sensitivity and spiritualizing process in many people. It is a diet for spiritual athletes. The people who do best on it are those who have reached a certain amount of stability and harmony in their lives and are already experienced vegetarians. It is a 95% or more live food diet with about 50% biogenic food 50% bioactive food, and 0 to 5% cooked foods, like potatoes, or slightly cooked, fibrous vegetables. Although you may not feel it is time to try a Stage four diet, its principles are worth understanding and applying to your diet. In stage four, you reach a level of refinement; our ability to absorb nutrients is continually improving. A high-protein diet clogs the basement membrane, and as eating less protein and no flesh food eliminates the excess protein, the basement membrane becomes more and more porous.
On a 95% live food diet, this process of clearing the basement membrane occurs more quickly than on other diets so that less and less food is needed to give the same amount of nutrients Eventually one discovers one does not need to eat three meals per day. The digestive system is able to rest and is more efficient in absorbing more nutrients from what one eats. Eating two, or perhaps even one, meal per day may be more closely aligned with what a healthy organism actually needs, although this will vary with one's constitution. As health improves, enough life force is created to regenerate damaged and exhausted enzyme systems or even develop new enzyme systems. The body can make specific enzymes that can actually transmute one mineral into another.
Our enzyme systems are constantly improving, so one needs to eat less and less in order to assimilate the same amount of nutrients. This might explain how some people have been observed to live on water alone. A potential obstacle of the 95 -100% raw food diet is the tendency to follow it as some sort of obsessive, self-righteous, self-centered ritual in the hope of achieving happiness, purity, or God just from the diet alone. One cannot eat one's way to God or even personal happiness. They are a state of awareness in which there is no ego to claim ownership. The secret to making changes is to go slowly, patiently, and with a great gentleness on oneself. Forcing changes in diet too quickly often results in reversals that are self-defeating. The more refined our bodies become, and the more structured our body fluids become, and the more bio-electricity we generate, we become a superconductor for the cosmic energy passing through. We experience Divine energy, which helps us feel connected, and a part of the flow of the universe.
A healthy redox balance depends on a fluid shift between glutathione synthesis and methylation, especially when responding to environmental toxins, stressors, or infections. Two B vitamins, folate and cobalamin (B12), are absolutely essential for this fluid, dynamic shift. Most important, the body must be able to adequately convert both nutrients to their active forms, so they can do their job in helping the body methylate when needed, and make more glutathione when needed.
Methyfolate is the only substance that can donate a methyl group to B12, making the all-important and highly active methylcobalamin.
Folate occurs naturally in many foods. Foods high in folate include leafy green vegetables (such as spinach, chard, turnip greens, romaine, broccoli), citrus fruits and papaya, cantaloupe, pineapple, honeydew and bananas, eggs, beans, peas, as well as beef liver. Different forms of folate—before its conversion to methylfolate—play many important roles in the body. They help regulate the healthy growth of new cells, which is especially important for an embryo and newborn. They are necessary to make both DNA and RNA, and help protect DNA from mutations that might lead to cancer.
They are crucial to making normal red blood cells (they help form heme, the iron-containing protein in hemoglobin), and it is essential for metabolizing homocysteine so that this amino acid doesn’t build up to unhealthy levels. Because folate is so important, the Food and Drug Administration published regulations in 1996 requiring that the synthetic form of folate, called folic acid, be added to breads, cereals, flours, pastas, rice and other grain products so commonly eaten by Americans. This helped prevent birth defects and miscarriage, since folate is needed during pregnancy and early life. Thus today, grains are also a source of the synthetic form of folate, folic acid.
Though folic acid is stable and has a long shelf life, the body must convert it into folate in order to use it. Studies show transformation of folic acid falls off after ingesting 200 mcg, and is saturated around 400 mcg. When it is not converted, it can remain in the bloodstream for days, even weeks at a time. In addition, there is some conflicting evidence that high-dose supplementation of folic acid may contribute to risk of certain cancers.
On the other hand, dietary folate seemed protective, although not at a rate that was statistically significant. The researchers conclude: “These findings highlight the potential complex role of folate in prostate cancer and the possibly different effects of folic acid-containing supplements vs. natural sources of folate.” However, one issue they sidestep is whether a synthetic supplement, folic acid, that has to be converted back to folate, may itself cause problems.
Genetic variations mean that some of us have trouble converting B12 to the active forms.
Although the body has many uses for folate, one is to serve as a building block for methylfolate. Methylfolate is the only substance than can donate a methyl group to B12, making the all-important and highly active methylcobalamin. Because of genetic variation, some people are less efficient at conversion, and when their bodies are stressed they may not make enough methylfolate. Then their ability to methylate and to make glutathione will be impaired, contributing to many chronic health problems. Testing can help determine if conversion capacity is low. Supplements of methylfolate are available, in a calcium salt form of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, and in a newly available form, a glucosamine salt of 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, which has demonstrated greater solubility and bioavailability in preliminary studies. The new 5-MTHF glucosamine salt was shown to be approximately 100 times more soluble and increased plasma levels 20% higher in rats and 10% higher in humans than the calcium salt form.
Cobalamin, or B12, is a very interesting vitamin, which actually contains the mineral cobalt, giving it that lovely, striking red color. In 1934, three researchers won the Nobel Prize for the discovery that eating large amounts of raw liver, which contains high amounts of vitamin B12, could save the life of incurable patients with fatal pernicious anemia. This finding saves 10,000 lives in America each year. The vitamin itself was isolated from liver extract in 1948 and its structure was characterized 7 years later.
Deficiency of vitamin B12 impairs DNA synthesis, affecting the growth and repair of all cells. Everything from anemia to neuropathy, weakness, loss of appetite or taste and smell, irritability, memory impairment, tingling and numbness can be symptoms of Vitamin B12 deficiency.
B12 can be converted by the body to an active form known as adenosylcobalamin. This form interacts with the enzyme methylmalonyl CoA mutase and is used by the mitochondria, the energy powerhouse of the cell. Vitamin B12 can also be converted to another active form, methylcobalamin. Methycobalamin is a cofactor for the enzyme methionine synthase, and is a key nutrient in both methylation and in regulating the synthesis of glutathione. As with folic acid, supplements of B12 are often available in a synthetic form called cyanocobalamin, which has a long shelf life, but must be converted by the body back into a useable form. In addition, the body’s ability to absorb B12 from typical oral dietary supplements is limited by the capacity of something called intrinsic factor, a glycoprotein secreted by the stomach. Only about 10 mcg of a 500 mcg oral supplement is absorbed by healthy people, simply because it exceeds the ability of available intrinsic factor.
We cannot make our own B12. Bacteria in our gut can make it for us and other mammals. Naturally occurring B12 is found in animal products, including fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products. Vitamin B12 is generally not present in plant foods, but like folic acid, certain foods such as breakfast cereals are fortified with it in a cyanocobalamin form. As we age, we can have more difficulty absorbing B12 from food. In fact, many of us may be deficient in B12.
Genetic variations mean that some of us have trouble converting B12 to the active forms. Urine tests can reveal deficiencies of the active forms even when blood tests show adequate B12.
In the simplest terms, maintaining life can be viewed as the ability to resist oxidation. Oxygen is essential to life, but oxygen is like fire. It can be very damaging and needs to be controlled by antioxidants, known as “reducing” molecules. Balancing reduction and oxidation—or redox—is the fundamental challenge of life. What’s great about that word, redox, is that it shows that they are profoundly linked and we need both. Once you understand this relationship, it leads to all kinds of new insights.
From the very moment of conception, life can be sparked by the unique redox environment created when a sperm fertilizes an egg. The sperm is extremely rich in proteins containing the mineral selenium, which is a potent reducing agent for glutathione, the most important antioxidant molecule in cells. The egg, on the other hand, is very rich in glutathione. Bring these two potent antioxidant strategies together, and you create an exceptionally reduced cell that can initiate life and promote development using the power of redox. That reducing power provides a metabolic spark as new life begins its journey, allowing the rapidly dividing cells to safely maintain a high rate of oxidation. The same metabolic challenge continues as the embryo develops. The entire nervous system and the shaping of gene activity are profoundly influenced by this redox balance as well. Aging is essentially a process of gradual oxidation, and our health as we age depends on successfully quenching that oxidation. Finally, innumerable diseases are linked to high levels of oxidation and low levels of glutathione—from schizophrenia to major depression, autism, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and most chronic autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases.
Glutathione is made from cysteine, glycine, and glutamic acid. You can get cysteine from the diet, in meat, eggs, garlic, onions, red pepper, broccoli and other foods. Cells in the gut lining, aided by transporter molecules, will bring it into the body. Both gluten (found in grains such as wheat) and casein (milk protein) can inhibit the uptake of cysteine, which the body needs to make glutathione. So many children with autism, or adults with autoimmune disorders, do better when they eliminate wheat and milk from their diet. It’s due to a redox mechanism.
Both casein and gluten are broken down into certain peptides that are relatively stable. The protein casein is broken into casomorphins. The “morphins” are so named because, like morphine, they act on the opiate receptors. The most famous one, beta casomorphin 7 (BCM7), has seven amino acids. Our recent research shows that BCM7 first stimulates the uptake of cysteine, but then inhibits it. However, the human BCM7 is markedly different than bovine BCM7 from the cow. It turns out that the BCM7 from a cow inhibits cysteine at least twice as much as the BCM7 from a human mother. The implications for health are profound if you start thinking about formula feeding and all the dairy products from cows in our diet. Breastfeeding is clearly regulating the redox system of newborns. A diet high in dairy from cows can promote a decrease in our antioxidant capacity, our ability to make enough glutathione.
The peptide from sheep’s milk behaves more like human milk. Similarly, the protein in gluten is known as gliadin, and it also creates a seven amino acid peptide, like BCM7. We already know that gliadin can trigger celiac disease, and can also lead to gluten intolerance and sensitivity. These problems reflect the ability of gluten peptides to inhibit cysteine uptake, perhaps contributing to chronic inflammation, although we have more to learn about that. Of course, not everybody who eats diary or wheat has poor antioxidant capacity, and milk and wheat are important sources of nutrition. There are probably genetic vulnerabilities that bring some people closer to a critical point for oxidative stress, while for others it is a non-issue. Overall, though, this is an issue to consider in any chronic inflammatory disease or neuro-immune disease.
Methylation and glutathione are very tightly intertwined. There is a critical metabolic intersection—a fork in the road—where cells must decide to either make more glutathione, or support more methylation. The overall balance between these two options is crucial to health.
Your body can take homocysteine and convert it back to cysteine. Homocysteine is a metabolite of the essential amino acid methionine, and elevated levels have been associated with vascular disease. Homocysteine is created when methionine donates its methyl group to another molecule in a process known as methylation.
Methylation is a fundamental process of life which is intimately linked to redox status. In chemistry, a methyl group is a hydrocarbon molecule, or CH3. When a substance is methylated, it means that a CH3 molecule has been added to it. Methylation can regulate gene expression, protein function, even RNA metabolism. It can suppress viruses, even latent viruses or cancer viruses we are born with and can help us handle heavy metals. In the liver in particular, methylating a toxin helps change it to a form of the compound that can be more easily processed and excreted.
Methylation is an extremely broad and fundamental action that nature uses to regulate all kinds of processes. It regulates epigenetic changes—changes to gene expression that occur because of environmental factors—by affecting how DNA unravels during development. Some changes can be permanent for the whole lifespan and can even be passed down as many as three generations. That shows that the environment, through the process of methylation, can be quite a profound influence. There are 150-200 methyl transferase enzymes, and each enzyme can methylate multiple targets. So you can imagine methylation as a spider’s web within each cell, and that web branches out in many directions.
Methylation and glutathione are very tightly intertwined. There is a critical metabolic intersection—a fork in the road—where cells must decide to either make more glutathione, or support more methylation. The overall balance between these two options is crucial to health, and this occurs with homocysteine. When methionine gives away its methyl group, we’re left with homocysteine. And the body has to decide, should homocysteine be methylated, and go back into methionine, or should it be converted into cysteine, so that the body can make more of the antioxidant glutathione? This fundamental decision is made again and again by the body, and the overall balance is crucial to health. Too little glutathione and we will end up with free radical, oxidative damage. Not enough methylation, and many genes and viruses will not be properly regulated. Excess homocysteine, and the risk of vascular disease goes up.
It’s important to understand that multiple factors impinge on the same system. What’s so important here is that the glutathione antioxidant system is a common target for so many different environmental toxins and infections. Every single one of them impinges on the glutathione system. It’s not that each molecule of mercury or lead picks off one glutathione molecule. No. It’s that in general, environmental assaults inhibit the enzymes that are responsible for keeping the glutathione in its reduced antioxidant state, where it can do its job. The potent ability of mercury to inhibit selenium-containing enzymes is a good example.
Some people sail through these stressors and remain healthy, while others stumble and fall. Though many molecules and nutrients are important, the active forms of vitamin B12 (adenosylB12 and methylB12) and the active form of folate (methylfolate) are essential to this process. Once you have the raw material to make glutathione or to methylate, you need cofactors like methylfolate and methyl B12 to complete the process. If we don’t make enough of these active forms, we will not be able to smoothly and fluidly shift between methylation and glutathione.
Nature allows, and even encourages, genetic variation, and the bottom line is that some people have genetic variations that render this process less functional. Even with a less functional genetic legacy, you might be fine if you are not stressed by the environment—in particular by chronic infections or toxic assaults. Stress brings out limitations in genes that otherwise are latent and not problematic. That’s a general truth. So yes, with proper testing by a doctor to see if there is a functional deficiency, supplementation with active forms can help. For example, there is a test that measures levels of methylmalonic acid (MMA) in the urine; if the levels are high, you are not making enough of the two active forms of B12. Your serum B12 may be perfectly normal—you just aren’t converting enough of it to the active form.
We ourselves cannot make B12, also known as cobalamin. Bacteria make it for us, and since vegetables don’t carry those bacteria, vegans can be deficient in B12. B12 is such a precious material for the body that if, for instance, you eat a piece of rib eye steak, the B12 released from the proteins is instantly bound right there in the GI tract and chaperoned as if in a football handoff to be carried to cells, transported inside and then processed into the two active forms. Nature knows this is a precious material for life, and a critical indicator of cellular oxidation status.
There are several natural forms of B12 which need to be converted into the active forms, adenosylB12 and methylB12. CyanoB12, the form in most vitamin supplements, is not active and is less useful than the active forms for treating deficiency states. Glutathione itself is needed for converting other forms of B12 to the active forms. Indeed, there is a type of cobalamin called glutathionylcobalamin that is an intermediate for making the active forms.
There are two enzymes in the human body that require active B12 as a cofactor. One is called methylmalonyl CoA mutase, and it needs adenosylB12. It is an enzyme that is necessary for the mitochondria—the energy powerhouse of your cell—to function. The other enzyme that requires active B12 is the enzyme methionine synthase, which requires methyl B12.
MethylB12 is constantly recycled. It donates its methyl group to homocysteine, which then turns into methionine. Once B12 is missing its methyl group, it needs to get a fresh one. And that’s where methylfolate comes in. Methylfolate is in essence a methyl donor for methionine synthase. That’s its job in life. It is the only molecule than can donate a methyl group to B12. Once it does that, the rest of the folate is available to go out and support all kinds of other reactions in the body that need plain folate.
When your level of methylB12 is low, homocysteine builds up and this can have adverse health effects. High homocysteine levels in the blood reflect low activity of the enzyme methionine synthase, and this has been linked to an increased risk of atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. It is also well known that homocysteine levels are increased in Alzheimer’s disease, which suggests a role for impaired methylation in this neurodegenerative disorder. Of course low B12 levels are classically associated with pernicious anemia and with peripheral neuropathy.
Low levels of folate are also classically associated with anemia, heart disease, fetal abnormalities such as spina bifida, as well as neuropathies and these have been specifically linked to a deficiency in methylfolate. In addition, recognition of the important role of methylfolate and vitamin B12 in supporting D4 dopamine receptor methylation links their deficiency to impaired attention such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). People with genetic polymorphisms in the enzyme that makes methylfolate are particularly vulnerable to a deficiency.
Some research has shown that synthetic folic acid can build up when supplemented, and a few studies have suggested this may even be linked to cancer in high doses.
In addition to vitamin B12 and methylfolate, there are several other nutritional supplements whose actions are critical for redox and methylation pathways. Vitamin B6 (pyridoxal-5-phosphate or P5P) is an essential cofactor for the two enzymes that sequentially convert homocysteine to cysteine, namely cystathionine-beta-synthase and cystathionine-gamma-lyase. Together these two B6-dependent enzymes comprise the transsulfuration pathway that promotes glutathione synthesis. The common supplement form of vitamin B6, pyridoxine, must be converted to the active form, and in some disorders, such as autism, this conversion is impaired, so the P5P form may be more effective. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) provides a supplementary source of cysteine. NAC can cross into the cell cytoplasm where the cysteine is released and allowed to promote glutathione synthesis. SAMe is an active, methyl-donating derivative of the essential amino acid methionine, and during oxidative conditions its levels may be low, due to low methionine synthase activity. SAMe has shown particular benefit in treating depression.
These examples of the interrelationship between oxidation and methylation are just the tip of the redox iceberg. Nature has learned to harness the power of oxidation as a signaling mechanism to control cellular activity. When more antioxidant is made available, cells can safely undertake a higher level of metabolic activity. There is a lot more to learn, and the real challenge will be to convert this evolving knowledge about redox and methylation into new, more effective treatment strategies.