Question: Which nutrients do we need every single day? I would say that the top ones to be concerned about from a have-to-get-it-today perspective would be zinc and B12. And both of those have absorption caps that are fairly tight, but B12 is the number one concern.You want to pay decent attention to the zinc rule, and you do want to make sure that your B vitamins are getting in on most of those other B vitamins you could probably, as long as you're hitting the daily average on the weekly basis,...
Feb 01, 2021•10 min
Question: What nutrients does a collegiate swimmer need to look out for?Mainly calories would be absolute number one. Number two would be carbohydrate. So I do think that people can fuel athletic capabilities on low-carb diets, but you might want to look at stress hormones and sex hormones, because sometimes fueling athletic performance on a low-carb diet comes at the expense of elevated stress hormones, which could mess with thyroid hormones and sex hormones. I think those two things, the calor...
Jan 29, 2021•7 min
Question: Is extended fasting the best choice for weight loss when low-carb doesn't work?If someone's on low-carb diet, they're not losing weight, they're not sustaining the caloric deficit at food intake that's satisfying them. So I would try helping the protein and doing something maybe cyclical keto on top of that before I would do an extended fast.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...
Jan 28, 2021•3 min
Question: MK-4 vs MK-7: Vitamin K2 Showdown My default here is that a healthy diet would always have a mix of all of them. And although it's hard to justify a reason for having K1 specifically if you also have MK-7, the justification for having MK-4 is somewhat speculative. I wouldn't say speculative, but it's at kind of the theoretical level. So basically, MK-4 is not very good at supporting blood clotting, but MK-7 and K1 are. And we know that from human trials. And so we can at least say, you...
Jan 27, 2021•7 min
Question: How should someone balance a vitamin D of 80 ng/mL with other nutrients?Let's say the idea is to maintain someone on a lifelong level of 80 nanograms per milliliter. Maybe four times the first year, two times the second year, once the third year and then every few years thereafter, I would measure the urinary calcium and make sure that that level is not associated with hypercalciuria in that person. Because if it is, I think you're putting that person at an increased risk of kidney sto...
Jan 26, 2021•9 min
Question: Can MTHFR cause ADHD?So, methylation will reduce the background level of tonic dopamine. And make you more mentally flexible. And a lack of methylation will generally lead to a higher level of background dopamine and make you not as mentally flexible. So, I really don't think that the ADHD is solely a consequence of MTHFR. Low methylation state and glycine wasting is probably playing into some of the aggravating factors, particularly glycine wasting. If you would like to be part of the...
Jan 25, 2021•6 min
Question: MTHFR, Depression, Irritability, and AnxietySo, if someone has an MTHFR snip, they don't have enough methylfolate. And so if they're treating it with methylfolate, the methylfolate causes the depression, irritability, and anxiety, then that's one thing. Whereas, if they have the MTHFR snip, they're not doing anything about it and they have depression, irritability, anxiety, that's another thing. So, if they're not doing anything about it and they have those problems, then it's probably...
Jan 22, 2021•5 min
Question: Why you have to multiply labeled phosphatidylcholine by 15%Yes. If a lecithin product states the phosphatidylcholine content and you want to know the choline content, multiply by 15%. 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://chris...
Jan 21, 2021•3 min
Question: Is liver OK to eat if raw or if blended in a Vitamix?So, the blending might hurt some really sensitive stuff. There's a lot of glutathione in liver. It might hurt some of the glutathione. I think the majority of the vitamins are going to be okay. And the minerals in general will be fine. And I think it's important to note that, if it makes the difference between whether you eat the liver or not, then it's much more important to eat the liver that you like. My personal choice during tim...
Jan 20, 2021•4 min
Question: If total carnitine is low, should I supplement?Supplementation does increase the acylcarnitine fraction and total carnitine to near normal levels. But I'm not clear about whether it's worth worrying about. So, if the total carnitine is low, but the free carnitine is normal, then total carnitine is low because the acylcarnitines are low. I wouldn't be too worried about the acylcarnitines being low. I would be very worried if the acylcarnitines were very high and overwhelming the total p...
Jan 19, 2021•4 min
Question: Isn't taking copper with zinc self-defeating? No. So, the competition between their absorption is not that bad. And if it was bad, everyone would be deficient in both of them because all foods that contain one, contain the other. 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 exclusi...
Jan 18, 2021•3 min
Question: Insulin resistance from fat invading muscle cells?I think increased free fatty acids in the blood. That's going to be a normal reaction to dietary fat and I think that if you have increased fatty acids than increased glucose, that you have more energy to dispose off. And if you have more energy to dispose of, and you don't dispose off the energy, then that's going to cause insulin resistance.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up for the ...
Jan 15, 2021•7 min
Question: How do carbonated water, magnesium, and potassium affect pH?If you drink carbonated water, the CO2 is going to give up hydrogen ions to become carbonic acid, which is going to give up hydrogen ions to become bicarbonate. So making bicarbonate from CO2 is acidic taking bicarbonate is alkaline. So the thing you have to keep in mind here is that the reason bicarbonate is alkaline is because it makes CO2. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign u...
Jan 14, 2021•8 min
Question: What's the difference between the NADH/NAD+ and the NADPH/NADH ratios?So the NADH to NAD ratio and the NAD pH to NADP plus ratio are things that are having real consequences as ratios and biochemistry that are dictating what's going on in our body. The NAD pH to NADH ratio is physiologically irrelevant, but is used as a biomarker of niacin status. So if you look at a biochemistry textbook, that's telling you how things work in the body you're going to see constant references to the NAD...
Jan 13, 2021•9 min
Question: What if my ferritin is low, but other iron markers are normal?I would first see whether getting more iron in your diet raises your transparent saturation or your iron saturation higher than 40%. If it does, then I wouldn't push it but if it doesn't or if your transparent saturation is significantly below 30%, then I think there's room to try to increase iron further.If pushing iron up isn't the answer, I would try something like milk thistle or sulforaphane, things that are designed to...
Jan 12, 2021•4 min
Question: Menstrual Migraines, Pregnancy, and HRTWhat I think is happening is the estrogen is probably suppressing DAO when it's higher, but because it's staying suppressed, there's compensation that's happening for it to help minimize the histamine level. Whereas when the estrogen is cyclical, it's suppressing DAO when the body hasn't made any adaptations to low DAO. And that's sort of like sometimes women will get very strong problems with histamine coming off of a pregnancy because the DAO ha...
Jan 11, 2021•9 min
Question: How do I know if biotin deficiency is causing my hair loss and fungal rashes?The plasma or serum biotin level is not a good marker of biotin status because it's not very sensitive. And so, if you're in the bottom 10% of it, I would definitely take that as a red flag that you might have biotin deficiency, the best test for biotin, well, the gold standard for biotin deficiency is beta-hydroxyisovalerate in the urine after a leucine challenge. I don't know how you'd get anyone to give you...
Jan 08, 2021•5 min
Question: How do you know if skin problems are from zinc deficiency?I would measure plasma zinc and if the plasma zinc, the sweet spot is around 120. If the plasma zinc is in the 70 to 90 range, that's borderline and if it's below 70, that's very clearly potentially related to skin problems. I think you have your answer right there. If your zinc's at 120, your skin problems, are not due to the zinc deficiency.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrition, sign up ...
Jan 07, 2021•5 min
Question: Anxiety, Neurotransmitters, and NutritionSo there's a few trans neurotransmitters that are particularly relevant. Histamine is a key anxiety neurotransmitter. Another neuro-transmitter that's relevant is dopamine and I don't see dopamine as primarily actually causing baseline anxiety. Measurement of neuro-transmitters is very difficult but you can get some hints and make some inferences. I would say the Genova methylation panel and the Genova ION panel plus sporty would give you more t...
Jan 06, 2021•11 min
Question: What are the best ways to stabilize blood sugar?I would definitely be trying to lower the glucose response. And what I would do in such a situation would be to run a series of experiments on the type of carbohydrate, as well as the amount of carbohydrate, as well as the context of the meal to see. I would use that as the maximum and so define the carbohydrate load of the specific foods that you can tolerate within that range, and then once you have that, then you can experiment with ot...
Jan 05, 2021•9 min
Question: What are the best natural ways to lower cholesterol?The top things that I would think of to lower cholesterol levels are number one, I'd get thyroid status thoroughly checked out. Number two, I would consider experimenting with a diet low in saturated fat or diet low in cholesterol to see how responsive your levels are to those things. Number three, I would experiment with some fiber supplements. Number four, for people who are overweight, then normalizing body composition is an issue....
Jan 04, 2021•5 min
Question: Does high B12 mean it's not getting into the cell?The right way to address that would be to measure serum or urine or both methylmalonic acid MMA, and that's a functional marker that's very specific to B12. If B12 was not getting into the cell, then methylmalonic acid is going to be high.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 fea...
Jan 01, 2021•4 min
Question: What range of folate and homocysteine are good for MTHFR?So 18 to 22 nanograms per milliliter for serum folate and then for homocysteine, I would say seven to nine, I think eight is right smack in the middle and it's fine. No harm in getting down to five, if you can get there but I wouldn't, if you're in the seven to nine range, I wouldn't worry about it.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 ...
Dec 31, 2020•4 min
Question: Do Ketogenic Diets Lower Glutathione?And so what a ketogenic diet does is put you in a low insulin to glucagon ratio longterm and the insulin to glucagon ratio is what is used for the body to perceive whether it has enough energy to invest in making glutathione. And so the reason the liver's glutathione is going to go down on a ketogenic diet is because you're in the fasting state. Glutathione synthesis is a fed state process. It's something that goes down in the fasting state and up i...
Dec 30, 2020•19 min
Question: Why do I have a high LDL-C when my diet is on point?Generally in the presence of insulin sensitivity, more carbohydrates, less fat will lower LDL, but in the presence of insulin resistance, more carbohydrate will sometimes raise LDL. And if the LDL is only a little bit out of range and the HDL is good, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If the total to HDL cholesterol ratio is under four, especially if it's close to 2.0 or underneath that, then I would be worrying about all the elemen...
Dec 29, 2020•5 min
Question: Can protein replete glycogen on a low-carb diet?Yes, it's possible. And I don't know exactly what the dosing is, but I think it's totally possible. It comes at the risk, I don't want to say risk, but at the downside of creating a lot more ammonia. But I think it's quite possible. I think it was Master Nutrition, Energy Metabolism, Lesson 17, it was the one on the evidence around low-carb and athletic performance. And if you look at the studies suggesting low-carb does not compromise at...
Dec 28, 2020•5 min
Question: Creatine: do the benefits outweigh the risks for a mid-30s male?I think that there are borderline no risks to creatine supplementation. I know some people get bloated from it that usually passes. Anecdotally, some people get insomnia. I think if nutrients are balanced and you just stick with it, that'll go away. There's speculation that it could aggravate male pattern baldness, but there's no good evidence of it.If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anything About Nutrit...
Dec 25, 2020•4 min
Question: How important are MAT1A SNPs to methylation?These in principle, could reduce the activation of methionine, but I don't know that there are any studies that have looked at whether that's the case. And so, just because a SNP isn't a gene doesn't mean that it reduces the activity of that gene. In fact, it doesn't mean it does anything even to the protein sequence of a gene because a lot of SNPs don't affect the protein sequence. If you would like to be part of the next live Ask Me Anythin...
Dec 24, 2020•4 min
Question: How to increase red blood cell magnesium content?Well, the first thing you want to do is look at your serum levels. And if your serum levels are low, you want to look at your urinary levels. And if your serum levels are not low or especially, if your serum are high, then you want to focus on promoting magnesium absorbed into the cell. If your serum levels are low, then you probably don't want to focus on that, you want to focus on magnesium intake or retention or absorption. If you're ...
Dec 23, 2020•9 min
Question: Why would ferritin rise on a low-carb diet when iron status is stable?Well, they sound copper deficient because copper is needed to mobilize iron out of ferritin. Copper is most abundant in plant foods, except that it's also very rich in liver. And it's pretty decent in a number of shellfish, but on a low carb, steak and cheese diet, not only are you deficient in copper, but you are also now pushing your zinc levels up, which will lower your copper absorption. Low white blood cells is,...
Dec 22, 2020•4 min
