Comment by Pat Robinson on February 19, 2009 at 12:47pm

So, if you have high homocysteine, should you avoid foods with methionine?

How do we speed up the CBS break down of homecysteine? Where can we get more CBS enzyme?

If the methyl cycle leads to more methionine (thus more homocysteine!), should we avoid opening that blocked pathway?? ie. avoid B12, folate, betanie, and the phospho-whatchamacallits?

Thanks, Pat

Comment by Pat Robinson on February 19, 2009 at 12:48pm

The explanation and visuals are spectacular at helping me to understand the pathways! Thank you so much for constructing them!!

Pat

Comment by Shannon on February 19, 2009 at 1:08pm

"If the methyl cycle leads to more methionine (thus more homocysteine!), should we avoid opening that blocked pathway??"

It makes more methionine, but it also uses up homocysteine. So you cycle the collection of homocysteine, but don't increase it. In the process, you make more methyl groups. Some people have too many methyl groups (symptoms of low dopamine/serotonin, ADD and depression) and for them, making more methyl groups will not be so helpful.

To speed up transsulfuration/CBS, I'm not really sure. Lots of people have upregulations and so it's not an issue. The nutrients that are required are magnesium and B6, so those would probably be helpful to encourage activity.

Comment by Pat Robinson on February 19, 2009 at 1:24pm

But, I thought you needed more methyl (ie. animal protein) (and B12 & folate) when you have high homocysteine, in order to get more methionine (from the food) to break down the homocysteine?

I'd say dh has high homocysteine (intrinsically, but normal with folic acid supplementation per the cardiologist) and low dopamine (tends toward depression, family hx, etc.). But, I wonder if the low dopamine is resulting from increased meat (which he likes), or folic acid (not folate) supplementation not helping the methylation pathway?

Seems that folate would be the preferred choice to help the methylation cycle. And avoid meat, allowing the methionine to come from the byproduct of the methyl cycle (rather than food). Am I following correctly, or totally confused. (???)


Thanks, Pat

Comment by Shannon on February 19, 2009 at 1:42pm

Folic acid vs folate has to do with what your MTHFR enzyme looks like. Most people don't have an issue with converting folic acid to active folate - if that's working to lower homocysteine, then there's probably no MTHFR 677 mutation.

Methionine (from food) can be converted straight to methyl groups to homocysteine, without folate or B12.

Right now I think I have low dopamine, and I'm really, really liking meat. It's making me crazy to increase my folate. I think it's because I'm breaking down my dopamine faster than I can make it. When the transsulfuration process goes, it actually suppresses the formation of dopamine. If my vitamin D deficiency is the limiting factor on my manufacture of dopamine, then suppressing it with transsulfuration isn't that big of a deal.

Comment by Pat Robinson on March 9, 2011 at 9:45am

tons of references here: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mthfr-1

general info here: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/forum/topics/mthfr-c677t-folate

more extensive lay explanation: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/profiles/blogs/folate-vs-folic-acid

great tutorial (video) about homocysteine: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/video/homocysteine-1

The Basics: http://www.detoxpuzzle.com/mthfr.php

chart of folate pathways: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/group/nutritionbiochemistry/forum/topics/folic-acid-cycle

food sources: http://heal-thyself.ning.com/forum/topics/folate-1

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