Mastering Nutrition

Question: If total carnitine is low, should I supplement?Supplementation does increase the acylcarnitine fraction and total carnitine to near normal levels. But I'm not clear about whether it's worth worrying about. So, if the total carnitine is low, but the free carnitine is normal, then total carnitine is low because the acylcarnitines are low. I wouldn't be too worried about the acylcarnitines being low. I would be very worried if the acylcarnitines were very high and overwhelming the total pool of carnitine, 'cause that would suggest a metabolic problem. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: Isn’t taking copper with zinc self-defeating? No. So, the competition between their absorption is not that bad. And if it was bad, everyone would be deficient in both of them because all foods that contain one, contain the other.  If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: Insulin resistance from fat invading muscle cells?I think increased free fatty acids in the blood. That's going to be a normal reaction to dietary fat and I think that if you have increased fatty acids than increased glucose, that you have more energy to dispose off. And if you have more energy to dispose of, and you don't dispose off the energy, then that's going to cause insulin resistance.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: How do carbonated water, magnesium, and potassium affect pH?If you drink carbonated water, the CO2 is going to give up hydrogen ions to become carbonic acid, which is going to give up hydrogen ions to become bicarbonate. So making bicarbonate from CO2 is acidic taking bicarbonate is alkaline. So the thing you have to keep in mind here is that the reason bicarbonate is alkaline is because it makes CO2. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: What’s the difference between the NADH/NAD+ and the NADPH/NADH ratios?So the NADH to NAD ratio and the NAD pH to NADP plus ratio are things that are having real consequences as ratios and biochemistry that are dictating what's going on in our body. The NAD pH to NADH ratio is physiologically irrelevant, but is used as a biomarker of niacin status. So if you look at a biochemistry textbook, that's telling you how things work in the body you're going to see constant references to the NADH to NAD ratio or the NAD pH NADP plus ratio. And you're never going to see any reference to the NAD pH to NADH ratio.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: What if my ferritin is low, but other iron markers are normal?I would first see whether getting more iron in your diet raises your transparent saturation or your iron saturation higher than 40%. If it does, then I wouldn't push it but if it doesn't or if your transparent saturation is significantly below 30%, then I think there's room to try to increase iron further.If pushing iron up isn't the answer, I would try something like milk thistle or sulforaphane, things that are designed to promote gene expression for detoxification are antioxidant defense such as milk thistle and sulforaphane are generally also going to raise ferritin because ferritin is part of the protective response.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: Menstrual Migraines, Pregnancy, and HRTWhat I think is happening is the estrogen is probably suppressing DAO when it's higher, but because it's staying suppressed, there's compensation that's happening for it to help minimize the histamine level. Whereas when the estrogen is cyclical, it's suppressing DAO when the body hasn't made any adaptations to low DAO. And that's sort of like sometimes women will get very strong problems with histamine coming off of a pregnancy because the DAO has been so high so long that all the other adaptations that you would have in other ways of breaking down histamine or down-regulating histamine receptors or whatever else, have all been... There's been no need for them. And so your body is maximally accustomed to DAO doing all the work for you. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: How do I know if biotin deficiency is causing my hair loss and fungal rashes?The plasma or serum biotin level is not a good marker of biotin status because it's not very sensitive. And so, if you're in the bottom 10% of it, I would definitely take that as a red flag that you might have biotin deficiency, the best test for biotin, well, the gold standard for biotin deficiency is beta-hydroxyisovalerate in the urine after a leucine challenge. I don't know how you'd get anyone to give you that, but the next best thing is to get a urinary organic acid test that has as beta-Hydroxyisovaleric acid on it and I know that the Genova ION panel, which is the one I usually prefer has that, but a lot of other ones do too. So I, if you get one, I would just check and see whether the beta-hydroxyisovalerate is on the list of analytes. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: How do you know if skin problems are from zinc deficiency?I would measure plasma zinc and if the plasma zinc, the sweet spot is around 120. If the plasma zinc is in the 70 to 90 range, that's borderline and if it's below 70, that's very clearly potentially related to skin problems. I think you have your answer right there. If your zinc's at 120, your skin problems, are not due to the zinc deficiency.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.

Question: Anxiety, Neurotransmitters, and NutritionSo there's a few trans neurotransmitters that are particularly relevant. Histamine is a key anxiety neurotransmitter. Another neuro-transmitter that's relevant is dopamine and I don't see dopamine as primarily actually causing baseline anxiety. Measurement of neuro-transmitters is very difficult but you can get some hints and make some inferences. I would say the Genova methylation panel and the Genova ION panel plus sporty would give you more than enough to probe this stuff. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the CMJ Masterpass, which includes access to these live Zoom sessions, a private discussion group, premium features on all my content, and hundreds of dollars of exclusive discounts. You can sign up at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/masterpass/ and use the code QANDA to get 10% off the membership for life. From now through March, I will be working full-time on finishing my Vitamins and Minerals 101 book, while reserving a portion of my time for consulting clients. You can pre-order my book at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/book. You can sign up for a consultation at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/consultations. DISCLAIMER: I have a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and my expertise is in performing and evaluating nutritional research. I am not a medical doctor and nothing herein is medical advice. Access the show notes, transcript, and comments here.