Mastering Nutrition

Latest Episodes:

What determines the absorption of nutrients? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #145 Nov 26, 2020

Show notes

Question: What determines the absorption of nutrients? This is a gigantic question because what determines the absorption of any given nutrient is independent for that nutrient. And so, it's different for every nutrient. And we just don't have that level of data to drive modeling of absorption of other nutrients in an accurate way.

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.

Do low serine levels require IV supplements? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #144 Nov 25, 2020

Show notes

Question: Do low serine levels require IV supplements?You're probably just depleting serine through the CBS pathway and just eat more protein and consider supplementing glycine or collagen along with it. I don't see why that would require IV supplements.

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 to fix high iron and calcium, low copper and magnesium, without blood donation? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #143 Nov 24, 2020

Show notes

Question: How to fix high iron and calcium, low copper and magnesium, without blood donation? Your only options for decreasing iron levels are to eat a low meat vegetarian diet high in vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. That's probably your best bet. But the thing is, a very vegetable rich diet is gonna be pretty high in copper. And it's going to be high in iron too, but it's gonna be very poorly absorbable iron. And you know, especially if you eat a lot of whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes, you can get a lot of phytate. When doing that, you should probably supplement with zinc. You could consider supplementing with copper. The preferred copper for me would be liver or liver capsules, which I think provide copper way out sized to the iron that they provide. I think that's your best option when you don't have giving blood as an option to get rid of iron. If needed, you can do supplemental phytate, but I would use that as a last resort rather than a first one.

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 much time should separate my zinc supplements and nut consumption? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #142 Nov 23, 2020

Show notes

Question: How much time should separate my zinc supplements and nut consumption?

So, phytate primarily inhibits absorption of zinc and iron. I think you're gonna have a much lower probability of zinc encountering phytate if you take the zinc 2 hours after eating the phytate than if you take the zinc while you eat the phytate. But you know, if you're trying to be maximally conscientious, 3 hours after the meal.

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's the safe use of an iodine nasal spray? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #141 Nov 20, 2020

Show notes

Question: What's the safe use of an iodine nasal spray?So, the iodine in the food and supplement guide for the coronavirus most recent version, I included iodine as a nasal spray. It's very important to look at the percentages. And so, 0.5% is the concentration recommended and that means that if you get a 10% solution, which is the most common one, you want to dilute it down 20-fold, which means taking one part of the 10% solution 19 parts water. If you have a different percentage starting solution, you wanna dilute it differently. And it's critically important that you dilute it properly. And so, you should have someone double check your work if you're doing your own math or triple check your work because higher concentrations can cause damage to the nasal tissue. But in terms of how often what I recommend doing is using it as a before and after in potential exposures. For additional important safety information please see here:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/povidone-iodine-safety-efficacy-and-lugols

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 ferritin be extremely high when transferrin saturation is low? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #140 Nov 19, 2020

Show notes

Question: Why would ferritin be extremely high when transferrin saturation is low?

Ferritin as a potential indicator of iron overload should not be anywhere near the level that was set to try to rule in biopsy provable hemochromatosis that is just a profoundly negligent approach to setting the range for ferritin. Now, I think part of what has stopped, you know— This mostly is a problem of the binary diagnostic mindset of conventional medicine. So, I'm not saying that this mindset is not useful. It is tremendously useful, but too many people confuse it for a reality when in fact it is a reality distortion filter meant to more efficiently triage people through various treatments or nontreatments.

It may be inflammation as you very well tried to feather out. And if it's not that, it's probably oxidative stress. So, I'm not gonna say that's the only other thing it could be. And for the record, you cannot rule out hemochromatosis genetics with 23andMe or any other genetic test by anyone because there are a small percentage of hemochromatosis genetics that are not in the HFE genes and no one has a panel for them. And so, it's improbable that it's hemochromatosis based on 23andMe. You can't rule it out, but I would say it's probably not hemochromatosis because his iron is low. And so, you know, I'm highly suspicious of oxidative stress, which also upregulates ferritin. If you have Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet, I would measure everything in the oxidative stress section.

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. For the remainder of 2020, 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.

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

Can carnitine be used for fatty liver instead of choline? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #139 Nov 18, 2020

Show notes

Question: Can carnitine be used for fatty liver instead of choline?

The role of choline and the role of carnitine have nothing to do with one another. Choline is going to help move fat out of the liver. Carnitine is going to help fat get into the mitochondria to be burned for energy. So, first of all, I think one thing that's important to note is that you're gonna get more bang for the buck by fixing the things that are wrong rather than pulling on levers that are working perfectly fine.

For the remainder of 2020, 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.

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

Is it OK to drink a pint of Gerolsteiner mineral water a day? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #138 Nov 17, 2020

Show notes

Question: Is it OK to drink a pint of Gerolsteiner mineral water a day?It's significantly less than a bottle. I guess conceivably if you're also drinking a lot of milk, or eating a lot of cheese, or supplementing with calcium, or taking bone meal powder, I guess you can get too much calcium. I wouldn't really worry about it from 1 pint. I do think that the main concern with carbonated beverages of any type is that you have too much acid running over your teeth a lot. So, I think it's wise to drink this in a way that tends to bypass your teeth. You can do it more effectively if you use a straw, but I think you can manipulate the bottle in your mouth to kind of pour it beyond your teeth, which I think is a good thing to do. Probably the best thing that you can do for that is before you brush your teeth, make sure that you swish with water or baking soda.

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.

Cataracts: what are the roles of methylglyoxal and polyols? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #137 Nov 16, 2020

Show notes

Question: Cataracts: what are the roles of methylglyoxal and polyols?Is the polyol pathway activation and methylglyoxal independent causes of cataract formation or are they related to one another? And the answer is a little bit of both. You know, if independent means unrelated, then they're related. Not independent. But they are independent in the sense that you could have more of one. You know, you could do something that increases one and not the other or at least disproportionately increases one versus the other. So, the polyol pathway, I think the best way to describe that is under conditions of severe hyperglycemia where you have too much sugar to be disposed of in the normal routes. You can use the sugar to synthesize polyols.

Glutathione is needed, among other things, to detoxify methylglyoxal. And methylglyoxal causes cataracts. Now, that's not to say that there aren't other things going on. I mean, certainly glutathione is also needed to defend against oxidative stress. But then again, this might not be the only way that oxidative stress contributes to cataracts, but oxidative stress increases methylglyoxal generation in part by decreasing the activity of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase or GAPDH, which is the enzyme within glycolysis that is responsible for clearing what are known as triose phosphates. 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.

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.

Is the sugar in Life Extension Enhanced Zinc Acetate lozenges a problem? | Masterjohn Q&A Files #136 Nov 13, 2020

Show notes

Question: Is the sugar in Life Extension Enhanced Zinc Acetate lozenges a problem?In that kind of protocol attuned to the progress of the potential cold, I find no alternative is more effective than the zinc acetate lozenges. And so, therefore, I'm willing to consume 40 or 60 grams of sugar for like 1 day or 2 days and then have it taper off granted— I might have a totally different attitude if I had diabetes. But from a cost-benefit analysis, I don't think consuming 40 grams of sugar once for a healthy person is going to cause any permanent damage. It's not the ideal thing, but the problem is that all the alternative zinc lozenges have generally involved factors that decrease the zinc ionization in the mouth.References:

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/podcast/2016/12/26/zinc-definitely-fights-colds-youre-probably-using-wrong-kind

https://chrismasterjohnphd.com/covid-19/treatment-of-covid-19-with-high-dose-zinc-4-cases

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.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected