Testing pathways

[Shannon]

AA conjugation -

Acetylation -

Glucuronidation -

Methylation - do raw tomatoes turn your skin red?

Sulfation -

Glutathione - how sensitive are you to caffeine?

[Nessa]

sulfation - in/tolerance to sulfa drugs?

[Nessa]

Glucuronidation - does kombucha give you a head-rush?

[Amy]

Yes, I usually feel a little drunk after having some - the head rush kind of drunk.

[Alison B]

Me too.

[Nessa]

So...

If the answers are yes to these questions, (i.e. red skin from tomatoes; sensitive to caffeine; intolerant to sulfa drugs; kombucha gives you a head-rush) that indicates a deficiency in those pathways, correct?

if so, i'm boned, because all of those things are true for me.

[Pat Robinson]

This link has some description of testing for fast or slow Phase I and Phase II. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZG9glNfif5YC&pg=PA111&lpg=...


Pat

[TanyaL]

re: above the caffeine and glutathione, I think caffeine is more of an indicator of fast or slow phase 1, separate from whether you have enough glutathione to deal with the free radicals that are produced as a byproduct of phase 1 detoxification. So my husband and both his parents can drink coffee right before bed without it causing sleep problems, so it looks like their phase 1 if fast. But I am rather caffeine sensitive and have had jitters/shakes from relatively small amounts (I've never been a coffee drinker), and I think my phase 1 is slow.

re: sulfa drugs, tuberose says it's acetylation, not sulfation, strangely enough, and it's highly variable from person-to-person.

eta: vitamin C can help deal with those free radicals from phase 1, so it _seems_ like it would have a glutathione-sparing effect, and tuberose does say that ingesting vitC in relatively modest doses increases circulating glutathione. I take it to bowel tolerance, but even a smaller amount seems helpful.

[TanyaL]

I want to talk a bit more about phase 1 and phase 2, because it's the interaction between these two that has caused me problems, and yet could've been much more complicated and intense to fix it the fit between the two had been worse.

Our livers have a lot of different chemicals to deal with (both chemicals our bodies make, like estrogen, and various things from outside our bodies). Some of these, like caffeine, are dealt with in one step. That is phase 1 detoxification, and caffeine is ready to leave the body after phase 1 deals with it. But some chemicals are perhaps more complex (not sure why they need 2 steps) and so phase 1 starts the processing on those chemicals, but instead of being ready to exit, the are turned into more reactive chemicals so that phase 2 can finish them off. And phase 2 has the 6 pathways that we've been discussing.

A couple problems can occur with mis-matches between phase 1 and phase 2. I tend to have slow phase 1 (as evidenced by caffeine giving me jitters) and slow phase 2. I may have some phase 2 pathways that work fine, but one thing I've noticed is that heavy duty pain relievers (like after a tooth removal) or cold/allergy drugs seem to make me loopier than most folks, or they just knock me out. I think I'm slow detoxifying them, so they circulate in higher levels than in most people.

An ugly, really problematic thing can happen if phase 1 is fast and phase 2 is slow, because phase 1 will create all these highly-reactive chemicals that will then float around the body and cause havoc. I read about this from Andy Cutler (he wrote Amalgam Illness and one or two other books) and people with fast phase 1 and slow phase 2 who have amalgam fillings tend to end up with complicated, really life-altering illnesses like fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity and stuff like that.

[TanyaL]

Glutathione can be used to deal with the free radicals that are a by-product of phase 1 detoxification, but glutathione is also used during phase 2 to deal with things like heavy metals.

People who are hypothyroid are almost always low in things like zinc and selenium, which are needed for glutathione production. Almost everyone on the mercury chelation yahoo groups has thyroid and/or adrenal problems, usually both (not saying everyone with adrenal or thyroid problems has mercury issues, but it helped form a pattern for me).

[Pat Robinson]

This helped me to have more clarity about the two phases. I get jittery with small amounts of caffeine.

Thanks, Pat

[momofmine]

I have the same thing, that I used to metabolize meds very slowly, because a dose would have a much more profound effect on me. I haven't taken any pharmaceutical meds in over 10 years, but when I did, a small dose ofpain reliever would knock me out. They need to be testing this stuff to determine an individual's dose for a certain med. That may be why my kids had such damage form one round of abx, while most people say, one round of abx won't mess things up that bad. Well, it can if it's hanging around in your system a lot longer than in other folks. It's the same for vaccines.

[elisabeth.mccourt]

do you know how you respond to sulfa drugs?