Mastering Nutrition

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Why do glycine and salt help with sleep? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #245 Jul 29, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: Why do glycine and salt help with sleep? The glycine is probably working primarily by acting as an inhibitory neurotransmitter and lowering core body temperature to promote faster falling asleep and deeper sleep achieved. And then on the salt. The salt is going to stimulate antidiuretic hormone or vasopressin, which is really a mechanism to regulate the concentration of solutes in the blood, and make sure your electrolyte and fluid balance is proper. And so glycine's getting you a deeper sleep. Salt is preventing you from having to pee, and the two of those make you less likely to wake up for that purpose.

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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.

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Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome

Will lowering my PTH with calcium reverse my atherosclerosis? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #244 Jul 28, 2021

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Question: Will lowering my PTH with calcium reverse my atherosclerosis?

And so you will definitely be removing a major source of calcification risk if you suppress your PTH down into the bottom half of the reference range. And generally, I don't know exactly where the point of maximal suppression is, and I suspect that it's different between different people. So what I would do is, however you're approaching that with vitamin D, calcium, et cetera. Try something, re-measure it, try tweaking the dose upwards and see if it keeps going down and find the point of maximal suppression. And if you do that it's hard to say where the difference is between not getting worse and reversing. But I think that will certainly... To the degree that you can reverse it I think that would be, definitely be an important thing to do in order to get reversal, and so I would hope so. And I think there's good reason to hope for that.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome

How long does it take environment to change gene expression, epigenetics, and genetics? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #243 Jul 27, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: How long does it take environment to change gene expression, epigenetics, and genetics? Well, generally speaking, environment mediates, I mean, it depends what you mean by environment mediating, right? So environment mediates changes in gene expression through epigenetics, but gene expression is not SNPs. SNPs are produced through mutations in the heritable genome, and then by environment changing, do you mean the production of the mutation that is the SNP for the first time? Or do you mean the change in the proportion of the population?

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome

What does it mean if you're helped by SAMe? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #242 Jul 26, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: What does it mean if you're helped by SAMe? It could indicate that, or it could indicate that they have an impairment in the conversion of methionine to SAMe, which could be mediated by low magnesium status, low ATP status, or a poorly functioning MAT, methionine adenosyltransferase gene.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

Why would glutathione cause a headache? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #241 Jul 23, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: Why would glutathione cause a headache? Probably sulfur intolerance. I'm guessing that's conversion to sulfite in the gut or something like that. Or production of hydrogen sulfide gas in normal metabolism leading to vasodilation.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

Can antioxidants increase homocysteine? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #240 Jul 22, 2021

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Question: Can antioxidants increase homocysteine?An underappreciated reason that homocysteine could be backed up is because you have good antioxidant status.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

Why is methylfolate the off-switch for the glycine buffer system? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #239 Jul 21, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: Why is methylfolate the off-switch for the glycine buffer system? The reason is that generally in the fed state, you have lots of incoming methionine. And so you have an excess of SAMe in the fed state. In the fasting state, you have no incoming methyl groups from diet, and therefore the fasted state is the low-methylation state. So fed state, high methylation state, fasted state, low methylation state. You basically shut off MTHFR in the fed state, because in the fed state, which is a high methylation state, the incoming methionine makes you not need any MTHFR activity.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

Potassium supplements for salt-sensitive high blood pressure? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #238 Jul 20, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: Potassium supplements for salt-sensitive high blood pressure? So it's best to get potassium from food, if you can. And you want to go through all the medical and health contraindications for potassium supplementation. If you take potassium supplements in doses higher than 100 milligrams, especially if you're going to take high-dose potassium, that is not well-mixed into a meal. Those include diabetes and NSAIDs, especially including potassium-sparing diuretics, but there's a big list of contraindicated medications.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

Can a high-protein diet hurt nitric oxide and raise blood pressure? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #237 Jul 19, 2021

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Plenty more at https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/support! Question: Can a high-protein diet hurt nitric oxide and raise blood pressure? The people with OTC gene do have higher blood pressure because of lower nitric oxide. And they have a problem eating too much protein, but the protein is a problem, because they can exceed the capacity of the urea cycle and generate more ammonia. Whereas the OTC gene being low is what's driving the low nitric oxide to lower arginine production. So you are seeing the combination of this person should not eat too much protein. This person has low nitric oxide, high blood pressure, but I don't think it's the protein that's causing that. I think it's just low arginine synthesis due to low citrulline synthesis. And so they should supplement citrulline to improve their blood pressure. And they probably shouldn't eat too much protein, but I don't think that too much protein is going to be the thing that drives the high blood pressure.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

General supplement recommendations for a physically active male in his 30s | Masterjohn Q&A Files #236 Jul 16, 2021

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Question: General supplement recommendations for a physically active male in his 30s

I don't make general supplement recommendations. My recommendation for anyone would be do a dietary analysis. See what you're not getting from your diet. Either make up for that with foods or with supplements. If the foods are impractical, do nutritional status testing where it makes sense. Comprehensively, if you have enough financial resources or just where it makes sense based on signs and symptoms, fill in more gaps with supplements on an as needed basis.

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.

Chris Masterjohn, PhD, is the Founder and Scientific Director of the mitochondria test Mitome.

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