Daniel
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Hey ,
Usually, my advice is to heal the gut in different phases: remove, replace, reinoculate, repair and after this rebalance. This is also called the ‘5R protocol’.
Every stage has its own importance and comes with its own supplement advice. You can find the supplement recommendations in the video!
I kept the advice general since the advice. I can be more specific in my recommendations but only based on additional tests. For example, you could try to heal the gut, but healing the gut won’t remove mold or other unwanted microbes that might be damaging the gut.
The supplements for healing the gut are in the video mentioned under repair. When you believe this is the only thing you need, you can think about zinc carnosine, aloe vera, and miscellaneous herbs like slippery elm and marshmallow root. Thorne GI relief, Pure encapsulations DGL Plus are great supplement blends you can try. These are supplements without L-glutamine.
L-glutamine is also a great amino acid that can help heal the gut. You could use it, but Designs for Health has a great blend with L-glutamine called GI Revive.
L-glutamine is not for everyone though. When you notice that you feel more anxious with glutamine, I would consider leaving the L-glutamine out.
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Interesting. Sometimes these dosages can make people feel nauseous an hour after consumption. If this has happened to you, now you know why.
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There can definitely be a gut component to acne. It is hard to say what that component exactly is. Testing will provide deeper insights. As Bernadette mentioned, your gut can be colonised by mold when you have lived in a moldy environment. Mold can produce toxins, but mold can also alter the diversity and density of microbes in the microbiome. Mold can also impair the gut lining. As a consequence nutrient absorption might change.
If a coffee enema helps, this cleans the gut temporarily and the toxic burden might get lower. A coffee enema can also increase glutathione production, which is an important antioxidant that helps with detoxification. My best advice would be to make some time and dive into the Gut Health Masterclass which will help you to take steps in how to heal the gut. Mold & Mycotoxin Illness is a second course in B Better which can help you address mold issues. If you think mold is at play I recommend you start there.
To help you on your way I will provide you with a few tips. I also have made a selection of a few videos that I think are the bare minimum to watch:
• Make sure you aren’t vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is necessary to keep the tight junctions (which you can consider as doors between cells in the lining of the gut) closed. This will make it harder for undigested foods or toxins to get in. Here is a handout that I love, that talks about vitamin D.
• Make sure you are having a bowel movement at least once per day. Anything less I personally consider as constipation and needs to be addressed before you start any detoxification protocol. Otherwise, you might reabsorb toxins which you are trying to detox. If you are experiencing constipation, this handout and this video will help you.
• Remove foods that feed unwanted microbes, like sugar, fast carbohydrate sources and processed foods. Avoid foods or things that you are allergic to or have food sensitivities to. Remove stress and improve sleep quality if you aren’t waking up refreshed. All these things influence your immune system. Binders can help bind to toxins when you believe they play a role. G.I. Detox from Biocidin Botanicals is a supplement that I often recommend to my clients because it has a combination of binders. It is important to take them on an empty stomach though. There needs to be at least one hour between your next meal when you have consumed them. This video provides you with other supplement ideas.
• Remove the microbes (mold, yeast, whatever might be at play) becomes part of the healing journey as well. The next videos will help you on how to do that, but for a more targeted strategy, testing first is important.• The Fight – Antimicrobial
• The Fight – Antifungal
• The Fight – Antiparasitic
• The Fight – Probiotics & Gut Immunity
• Make sure your immune system gets all the nutrients needed (Vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and zinc). Bernadette already provided you with some tips. This handout she shared as well, but I have put it here just to be complete.
• Reinocculate the gut microbiome with probiotic foods or supplements.
• Repair the gut lining can help if there has been some damage. This video provides some ideas on how to repair the gut lining. If you like to know if some damage is present, I would recommend you test first.
• Rebalance your lifestyle where necessary to make sure reoccurrence won’t happen. Sleep, stress, diet and exercise all play an important role in rebalancing your life.
• If you like to learn more about how to set up a good healing strategy: watch The 5R protocol video.If you suspect mold is at play, I would recommend you to at least watch the full video section Detoxing from Mold in the Mold & Mycotoxin Illness course. The first video you can find here!
I hope this gives you a direction!
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Hey ,
Just out of curiosity, what form of zinc were you using?
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Hey ,
There are definitely things you can do when you are suffering from acne! It is however important to be sure that it is acne. There are four components that together form acne:
1. Increased oil production – This can happen when androgens (like a derivative from testosterone called DHT or dihydrotestosterone) are increased. Causes for this can be insulin resistance (click here and here to see a list of symptoms that might be indicative of insulin resistance).One of the symptoms of PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) is also acne, again caused by increased androgens often exaggerated by insulin resistance. Signs & symptoms of PCOS are: irregular or absent ovulation, increased facial hair growth, male pattern balding, and acne.
Zinc can help decrease DHT and a supplement could help you if you aren’t getting enough zinc.
2. Increased skin cell stickiness – This can cause pores to be blocked, trapping the oil. A lack of vitamin A could be a cause. If you eat a lot of orange vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc) and your hands and skin turn orange, you might not be able to process beta-carotene efficiently to the biologically available vitamin A due to genetic reasons.Getting your vitamin A from animal food sources in this case is something that might help you. Great animal sources are for example liver (you can find a great recipe right here and here if you don’t like liver that much). If you like to work with supplements, make sure the ingredient list says ‘retinyl palmitate’. This form of vitamin A doesn’t use the enzyme that converts beta-carotene to vitamin A and bypasses that problem.
3. Bacterial overgrowth – The microbiome on the skin can feed off the oil and dead cells trapped in the pores. Tea tree oil can help since it has antibacterial properties. Make sure you start with a diluted version since high concentrations might irritate the skin in some people.
4. Inflammation – Once the immune system starts fighting the bacterial overgrowth, the skin gets inflamed. This is causing red skin you can see sometimes with acne. Supporting the immune system can help. Nutrients that support the immune system are vitamin D, vitamin A, zinc, vitamin B12 and folate. Omega 3s are great as well! They will help resolve inflammation. Usually, I recommend 2000-4000 mg of DHA+EPA with my clients when they experience inflammation.Having an anti-inflammatory lifestyle helps as well. Try to reduce sugar, refined foods, and cheap vegetable oils and focus on quality oils like Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Alcohol, unfortunately, is inflaming. Chronic stress as well. Try to avoid foods that your immune system sees as a threat like food sensitivities and food allergies. Focus on good quality sleep. Incorporate nuts and fish into your diet and try to eat foods rich in antioxidants like organic blueberries, strawberries, spinach, kale and cabbages.
Gut health can for sure play a big role in acne as well. Did you mean by sialic, sialic acid storage disease or celiac disease? Celiac disease can change nutrient absorption. Healing your gut is probably an important part of your healing journey as well.
Let us know if you would like some guidance for that as well!
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If you feel like getting the most out of other tests, I would first work with him on the low-hanging fruits (which includes bringing his vitamin B12 up), then retest. It is my personal preference to make sure that obvious causes don’t show up in more advanced testing.
Having a white blood cell panel done can also confirm how you are processing since you would be able to compare apples to apples.
If the rash turns out to be fungus an advanced stool test could be something you could consider
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I hope you aren’t worried about the color of your urine. Riboflavin, one of the B vitamins, can cause urine to be bright yellow. If you like to know if the B complex is the cause, just stop taking it for a couple of days. Your urine should turn into its old color quite fast.
Some symptoms can be related to a suboptimal thyroid hormone balance. You can find a complete course about thyroid health in the monthly courses. I would watch the video called ‘Signs & symptoms of Thyroid Dysfunction’ and if you feel this is you watch the video ‘Testing Thyroid Function’. Your previous labs from August 2022 showed evidence of this as well. Symptoms like feeling cold, memory problems, hair loss, constipation and depression can all be related to this.
Shortness of breath is often more a sign of anemia. I’m glad you are taking B vitamins. Usually, after 6 weeks of taking B vitamins some form of improvement should already be noticeable.
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Hey ,
There are some pearls hidden here. To help you in the best way possible I would like to know if you experience any symptoms. It helps the interpretation of these lab values. It also helps to know if you experienced forms of stress when you had your labs drawn.
Alkaline phosphatase needs nutrients. For example, low zinc can result in lower alkaline phosphatase levels. In my experience, when Alkaline phosphatase is below 70, this is often the case. If you like to learn about symptoms that fit a low zinc status, I recommend you to take a look at the monthly course section and check the mineral balance course.
Your liver enzymes (AST, ALT) could indicate a need for more vitamin B6 for the same reasons. We like low values for these enzymes, but we like them not to be too low.
I’m honestly a little confused about your basophil score. You don’t seem to have any. You might want to check the laboratory and ask if this was because the lab report only shows 1 digit behind the dot.
Are you experiencing any symptoms like feeling cold, fatigue concentration problems, perhaps hair loss, maybe shortness of breath or hair loss? Your thyroid hormone production looks a little low to me. There are also clues that the size of your red blood cells is suboptimally high. This can be caused by a vitamin B6 insufficiency, but insufficiencies in folate and vitamin B12 can cause this as well.
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Hey ,
I have taken a look at the lab reports you shared with me and I’m glad you shared them. There are a lot, so it will take me a little longer to digest all the reports, but I wanted you already give some important pearls:
The Detoxygen gene report already provides a lot of unique insights. It’s very important to realize that genes and variations of genes don’t determine a future. The way to look at these reports is that they emphasize a unique way of living for this person to their benefit.
The Detoxgen Report from 2019 shows your husband has a genetic variation on his ApoE gene. This can contribute to elevations in cholesterol. The most common ApoE variations are called ApoE2, ApoE3 and ApoE4. The ones carrying the ApoE4 gene are at more risk for certain diseases like high cholesterol or Alzheimer’s disease. The test doesn’t name the variation, so I can’t tell if the variation measured in this test is actually ApoE4, but the test shows a gene variation on the ApoE gene that has a disadvantage for the carrier. Again, this emphasizes that some lifestyle choices impact your husband more than others. It is not a guarantee for the development of certain disease states!
The test shows also a genetic disadvantage in producing an enzyme called SuperOxide Dismutase (SOD2 it is called in the test). This enzyme is a powerful enzyme that is needed to remove a special type of free radicals called Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).
Everybody produces ROS because ROS is created when we burn energy.
‘Slower’ working variations in genes that produce superoxide dismutase are also associated with higher levels of cholesterol as well.
There is definitely a genetic component.
What can you do?
To a degree, you can overcome this problem by providing the body with more nutrients to build superoxide dismutase. Manganese is one of those nutrients. Having a diet rich in antioxidants becomes also very important. Having a diet rich in Omega 3s is something he could benefit from as well. I usually recommend my clients take 1000 mg of EPA+DHA.Exercise increases energy burning. In his case, if he is working out aggressively, you can recommend him to focus on moderate medium-intensity workouts. His body can benefit from this since the free radical production goes up when we exercise.
There are more genes involved in cholesterol metabolism of course, but the ApoE disadvantage and the SOD2 disadvantage can contribute.
In his personal case, choosing organic foods will impact his health more as well. There is another gene (GSTM1) which usually helps detoxify pesticides, but your husband is missing this gene. It is a regularly often occurring deletion of this gene, but this cocktail of genes plays into each other and can create an extra impact on his health with certain lifestyle choices.
GGT
His GGT lab value is in the lab values consistently elevated. Statins can cause elevations in GGT. So does oxidative stress. It is therefore hard to see if the elevations of GGT are triggered by statins or oxidative stress from some other source.GGT usually elevates when the body is in need of more glutathione. Supplementing with Glutathione can be something you could consider.
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For the cholesterol issues I would first work on the low-hanging fruits: remove cigars, reduce(but preferably eliminate) the fat & alcohol.
Since he didn’t have any physical symptoms, was this blood test done as a regular check-up? Or was there another reason?
I am suspicious of mold/yeast issues. Perhaps you could first watch this movie and answer this questionnaire and share your findings. It will provide us with a better judgement of what we could recommend!
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Hey ,
A lot of pearls here..! There is definitely some immune system activation. A rash or irritation on the foot can be a sign of a fungus. I recommend that you take a look at that.
His ferritin (which is the storage form of iron) is at the high end of the normal range. This can happen when the body for example tries to protect itself against infections since microbes can use iron for their advantage.
Immune system activation could cause explain a drop in platelets. So does a folate and vitamin B12 deficiency – it might be something you could check.
Cheese and wine are also often great food sources for yeast and fungi in the gut, which might also be at play here.
High Cholesterol
Cholesterol is transported in molecules that taxi them around. These are called HDL and LDL. To understand cholesterol problems it’s good to realize that these molecules aren’t the same as cholesterol. The main function of HDL and LDL is to transport fatty-like substances (and cholesterol is one of them).This means that diets that are high in fat can cause elevations in LDL or HDL. Depending on the amount of cheese and other fats in the diet, his LDL levels could be elevated because of that. High-sugar diets can also raise cholesterol since the liver transforms the abundant sugar into saturated fats so the fats can be stored in fat cells.
If his immune system is struggling, this could alter cholesterol values as well. Make sure your husband at least gets enough nutrients to support his immune system (check this handout). Getting enough vitamin D, A, zinc and vitamin B12 are needed for the production of white blood cells (and platelets by the way, which are low on your husband’s lab value report). His serum vitamin D looks alright, but his B12 levels look on the low side. I usually recommend my clients to aim at serum levels above 600.
You mentioned he doesn’t have any symptoms. I would be curious to know how his blood pressure is by numbers. Do you know?
Cholesterol is leaving the body through bile. Most of it is reabsorbed though. It is the fibre in plant foods that can bind to cholesterol so reabsorption gets reduced. A lot of people don’t get that, so it might be worth checking. With men, I usually aim for between 30-38 grams of fibre. Do you know if he gets that?
Creatinine
He could be a little dehydrated after sitting in the plane for 9 hours. This could cause his creatinine to be a little higher. Still, it would be a good idea to retest in a while to rule out problems with the kidneys.Cigars
Saved this one for last. I know he likes it, but cigars can fore sure elevate cholesterol values, unfortunately!I hope this helps!
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Hey ,
In addition to Bernadettes excellent tips & questions, sometimes stress related causes can cause hair loss 2-6 months later (for example with telogen effluvium). Don’t only look at the current stresslevels, but check also stresslevels from a few months ago!
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Hey ,
There are some unique pearls to these labs, but before we dive into that, recently a community member posted the same question. You will benefit from reading those comments for sure (just click here).
It would be interesting to know if he has other symptoms. Does he also experience high blood pressure? How is his weight? Is it stable? Is it low or high? Other things that are interesting to know are: how is his current diet? And is his current diet something he is doing for a longer time? A final question I have for you: is he using any medications?
Insulin resistance and a slow thyroid both can elevate cholesterol (besides dietary factors of course). Read the comments of the previous question if you like to learn more about that.
Is your husband currently experiencing any symptoms? His immune system seems to be struggling with something. His ferritin is also on the higher end of the normal range. Is or was he recently by any chance on iron supplements? These questions will help to interpret the lab values.
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Hey ,
I will take a look at your labs more thoroughly later. I did see fasting insulin was measured in 2022. That’s great! I often recommend my clients to have a fasting insulin between the 4-7 mIU/L. Back then his fasting insulin levels were 14.
I didn’t see a thyroid panel somewhere (I could have missed it of course, I didn’t see all the lab tests yet), but it would be worth looking into.
You did mention you thought the fatty liver could be the cause of his high cholesterol and I agree. If he has been weight stable over all these years, if he never really gained weight and if he was mostly physically active his whole live, I do believe it is worth checking his genes.
Many people believe the main function of LDL and HDL is to transport cholesterol, but LDL and HDL main function is to transport phospholipids and fatty acids. High LDL and HDL also means more fat transport. When fat is dropped in the liver, this could then cause a fatty liver as well.
There is something called cholesterol induced fatty liver disease (click here if you like to learn more). It would be interesting to know the variations of your husband’s APOB, LDLR, LDLRAP1 and PCSK9 genes. Some variations cause elevations in cholesterol.
If he uses statins, he will benefit from Coenzyme Q10 as well. CoQ10 is critical for endothelial function in the lining of blood vessels. I usually recommend 100mg of the ubiquinol form. Having serum vitamin D levels up in the 50 ng/mL.
Again, I need a little time to work through all your labs and I will come back to you later!
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Hey ,
Thank you for sharing his labs! Since you mentioned your husband does a check up every 6 months, perhaps you could share his previous cholesterol and GGT values as well.
Billiary congestion can cause high cholesterol values. Genes as well. If there is a genetic component and if he has trouble lowering cholesterol with a healthy lifestyle, with these numbers, checking for genes could provide you more insight into how well he can manage certain lifestyle factors.
Other factors play a role as well. For example insulin resistance can elevate cholesterol and is often seen in patients with NAFLD. We can’t directly see insulin levels on your lab, but HbA1c an glucose are often used to get a sense of insulin levels. Through a functional medicine lens, his glucose and HbA1c do show insulin resistance is at play to a degree. Unfortunately, the best way to measure insulin is still, measuring insulin. Having fasting insulin levels measured is something I would recommend. Here you can find more information.
An underactive thyroid could also contribute to elevations of cholesterol, since the liver slows down breaking down cholesterol as well. Has he ruled out an hypothyroid state? If not here is a video about how to test for that.
Could you tell us more about his life? How long is he struggling with this? How does he eat & drink? How is his sleep? Is he stressed? Does he have an active lifestyle? Is or was he sick? How has his weight changed over the years? Are there other symptoms present?
Billiary Congestion & Inflammation
Fortunately the echo exam doesn’t show traces of gallstones, but there is inflammation. I would advise you to make sure his serum vitamin D levels are in range. Vitamin D influences a lot of the inflammation regulating genes and genes related to his immune system. Do you know if they have been measured recently?DHA & EPA can help resolve inflammation. Omega 3’s might be helpful in reducing the inflammation as well.
Low normal White Blood Cells(WBC)
The WBC are low normal which might be indicative for some kind of infection. His eosinophils on the other hand are high. Eosinophils elevate with allergic reactions or parasites. Also nutrient insufficiencies can cause lower WBC. Nutrients like vitamin D, zinc and vitamin A.If you could tell us a little more about your husbands life, it would help us to provide you with some more customized advise.
