A personal blog, named in honor of the novel Petticoat Government by a favorite author, Emma Orczy. The novel is about a fictional woman, Lydie d'Aumont, who attempts to inject some fairness and good governance into the court of France's Louis XVth despite the corruption and selfishness there.
My thirteen year old daughter has been trying topical application of UHT milk--for its alkaline phosphatase enzymes--on her face twice a day for just over a month now. (I explain why in part one of this series.) At the one-month mark, I checked the acne-prone areas of her face and found that her acne looked about bad as it had at the experiment's start a month earlier. That was weird, for her skin had been doing better several days before that.
I went to the refrigerator and smelled her liter of UHT milk, and it was quite sour. She'd been using the same liter container for a whole month. I did check it around the 3-week mark and it was still sweet then, but it soured since without her realizing it.
When milk goes sour, its pH decreases, meaning it becomes more acidic. (https://thedairydish.com/is-milk-acidic/) Alkaline phosphatases are so named because they have optimal activity when the pH is alkaline. Skin itself is acidic. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489300) My daughter's sour milk applications thus probably didn't result in much alkaline phosphatase activity.
She is using a fresh liter of UHT milk now, and her face is doing better, too. I need to find a source of small UHT milk containers so that she can use a fresh one every week or so without it costing so much. Not that $1/liter is expensive, but it can add up if one has to open a new milk container every week or two.
However, I feel like I should give the UHT milk alkaline phosphatases a week or two more of trial time before changing the type of phosphatase we use. It's not the milk's fault that I didn't notice it had gone sour. When I do switch to wheat germ acid phosphatase, one thing I need to remember is not to mix the acid phosphatase with alcohol; ethanol inhibits acid phosphatase. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15762484)
Almost two years ago, I was starting to worry about how to help my daughters with the inevitable onset of teenage acne and wrote about how manganese might be able to help: https://petticoatgovernment.blogspot.com/2016/07/skin-care-and-manganese.html. Now I have a thirteen year-old child, and she is dealing with some acne. It started to get quite bad up around her hairline. So she tried some lotion with some chelated manganese mixed in, but if the manganese helped her, it wasn't obvious that it did so. She also cut her milk consumption, since milk consumption is related to acne. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21335995) That did help a little, but she likes her morning glass of milk. And she likes peanut butter, which always tended to increase the number of pimples for me and my siblings. So I looked for recent research on what causes acne breakouts, and found that much has been discovered:
In the last years, a clear link between the endocrine signalling also influenced by Western diet and the pathogenesis of acne has emerged. In this context, a crucial role has been attributed to the hyperactivity of the conserved serine/threonine kinase mTORC1. mTOR is a nutrient-sensitive regulator of cellular growth, proliferation, lipid synthesis and protein translation, exerting its effects through two distinct signalling complexes: mTORC1 and mTORC2. In particular, the rapamycin-sensitive mTORC1 promotes cell growth and proliferation whereas mTORC2, rapamycin-non-sensitive, is involved in the regulation of cell polarity and in the functional phosphorylation of cytoskeleton actin fibres. mTORC1 is able to integrate multiple intra- and extracellular mediators such as growth factors (insulin, IGF-1) and energy-sensing signals (glucose, AMP/ATP-ratio), controlling the adequate availability of amino acids, especially the BCAA leucine, necessary for its own activation. Multiple diseases, either neoplastic, dysmetabolic or inflammatory, show dysregulation of mTOR pathway, which might be also involved in inflammatory skin diseases such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and allergic contact dermatitis. Enhanced levels of leucine [peanut butter is really high in leucine] and other amino acids, insulin, IGF-1 and glucose, deriving from meat, milk/dairy intake and high glycaemic load, permit mTORC1 activation through specific mechanisms. Consequently, by the phosphorylation of 4E-BP1, the lipin1 activator of SREBP-1 and S6K1, mTORC1 is able to enhance protein and lipid synthesis, as well as growth and cell proliferation. This could be translated into proliferation of acroinfundibular keratinocytes and increased lipid biosynthesis in sebaceous glands, responsible for seborrhoea. In two recent elegant papers, Melnik integrated mTORC1 signalling into the complex scenario of acne pathogenesis, highlighting the antagonistic interaction between the metabolic transcription factor FoxO1 and the nutrient-sensitive kinase mTORC1 . Nevertheless, either for the role of FoxO1 or for the modulation of mTOR in the pathophysiology of acne, direct evidences in humans are lacking.
"Mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) expression is increased in acne patients' skin." Monfrecola G, et al. Experimental Dermatology 2016(25):153-155. online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/exd.12885/full (references omitted).
In the Monfrecola publication, the researchers show that activated, i.e., phosphorylated S6K1 (P-S6K1), is more prevalent in the acne patient skin and is even more prevalent in the lesional skin than in the non-lesional skin. That points to the possibility that reversing the phosphorylation of S6K1 could decrease acne, which reversal could hypothetically be accomplished by topical application of phosphatase enzymes, for phosphatases remove phosphate groups.
Not being a funded research scientist, I looked around for inexpensive, readily available sources of phosphatase and came across just one: UHT milk. Milk has alkaline phosphatases (so named because they have optimal activity at alkaline pH) which are deactivated by pasteurization. However, the UHT process allows for subsequent reactivation of the alkaline phosphatases in the milk (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/988062, https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/41912/Ninios%20AI_Master%20thesis-1.pdf?sequence=1), and the longer the UHT milk sits around in its carton, the more active the enzymes become. The idea of using milk enzymes to promote clear skin has some historical backing for it: Cleopatra used to take milk baths, and for centuries milkmaids, despite high milk consumption, were praised for their complexions (some people think that was because of cowpox-caused immunity to smallpox, but that reason has apparently been debunked--http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/articles/the-origins-of-vaccination-no-inoculation-no-vaccination/).
I happened to have a liter of UHT milk in our pantry that was approximately a year past the "best by" date, so my teenage daughter and I are now doing an experiment with it to see if it helps her have less acne. On February 18, 2018, she started applying UHT milk to her hairline twice daily and all over her face once a day; she also stopped applying the lotion with manganese. This is what her hairline looked like:
Not terrible (although much of the skin damage is hidden by hair), but this was also taken when she was restricting her milk intake.
After a few days of the topical UHT milk treatment, she didn't have any new pimples forming, so I said she could drink as much milk and eat as much peanut butter as she wanted to. Then her father chimed in with concerns about whether she was washing her face enough, so I told her to use Cetaphil cleanser on her face every day. Unfortunately, she is not good at rinsing her face all the way off, and Cetaphil cleanser takes a lot of rinsing to remove completely. I think the Cetaphil residue blocked her pores, for she soon got pimples in places she hadn't had to worry about before, including one on the tip of her nose. So now she is washing her face with just water most days. Her hairline looks much better, but she is still dealing with pimples on other parts of her face. So yesterday, I instructed her to apply the UHT milk to her entire face twice daily. I hate to restrict her diet, but if the UHT milk phosphatases don't stop the acne, she will have to go back to restricting her milk intake. One thing we will not do is turn to coverup/foundation; if just Cetaphil residue can cause pimples in her skin, imagine what foundation would do to it!
I'll post follow-up pictures in a couple of weeks. She doesn't have cyclic eruptions, so if her skin is clear, then maybe we'll have found an easy intervention to save her from the teenage curse of acne. If not, it might be worth looking into what acid phosphatases are available; after all, skin pH is acidic, not alkaline.
I have many new ideas swirling around in my head these days--and making it so I have too many browser tabs open--because I've been trying to keep my blog focused on molybdenum recently in case some gastroenteritis researchers (I emailed hundreds of them in the past couple months) come across my blog during an internet search. Here's one of the new ideas, a result--as is often the case--of something thought-provoking posted by Glenn Reynolds at his Instapundit blog.
If garlic consumption can help rejuvenate old bodies, then we should be able to see some sort of correlation between countries with high garlic consumption and longevity. One such piece of evidence has been apparent for some time: the life-extending effect of a "Mediterranean diet." (https://www.livescience.com/19868-centenarians-longevity-mediterranean-diet.html) People living around the Mediterranean Sea use a lot of garlic in their cooking. But the all-time highest consumers of garlic appear to be the South Koreans, who eat as much as 8-12 cloves per day. (https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/unlocking-the-benefits-of-garlic/) South Korea, interestingly enough, is forecast to lead the world in life expectancy for women:
There is a 90% probability that life expectancy at birth among South Korean women in 2030 will be higher than 86·7 years, the same as the highest worldwide life expectancy in 2012, and a 57% probability that it will be higher than 90 years. Projected female life expectancy in South Korea is followed by those in France, Spain, and Japan.
I think it's safe to say, at least on a population-wide basis, that eating large amounts of garlic can help rejuvenate our bodies without the necessity of turning to vampirism. That's amusing and ironic in light of the traditions about garlic supposedly being able to repel vampires. (http://www.garlic-central.com/vampires.html)
As I've often discussed here on my blog and outlined in my published hypothesis about sulfite, "morning sickness," and molybdenum, I think that increased hydrogen sulfide (H2S) usage in the body leads to excessive sulfite levels during pregnancy, and the sulfite excess then causes nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP).
Today while researching a different topic, I came across an article talking about how the organosulfur compounds in garlic are H2S donors. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691516302368) I think I finally know why I couldn't stand the smell of garlic during early pregnancy! We often tend to avoid --the scientific term for it is "conditioned taste aversion"-- things that have made us throw up in the past. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1985.tb27082.x/full; https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080450469001121) If garlic made me more likely to throw up during my early pregnancies, then it is logical that I would have developed an aversion to garlic that manifested during subsequent periods of morning sickness. Even now, years later and not pregnant, I cringe a little internally at the sight of a ranch dressing bottle because of pregnancy memories of hating the smell of the garlic-containing ranch dressing within.
I found some good quotes about discovery by an author/writer named Steven Magee. His current areas of focus appear to be what many would consider "fringe" because he warns of dangers from ubiquitous electromagnetic radiation. Some of his ideas aren't out of the mainstream, though. For instance, talking about toxic effects of certain kinds of light is warranted in light of what has been learned about blue light suppressing melatonin at night. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26017927; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29101797) And then there are the recent mysterious injuries to US diplomats in Cuba, which some think might have been a result of radio waves. (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/12/cuba-attacks-cold-war-technology-244787)
Regardless of whether every one of Magee's warnings about electromagnetic radiation exposure is warranted, he has some good things to say about why medical science exists:
“The human mind and body contains a myriad of secrets awaiting discovery.”
“Sickness is the motivator for research by those that recognize
improved health is just a discovery away.”
“Curiosity is what powers discovery.”
“When walking alone on the path of discovery, have faith that you are
illuminating the way for others to follow.”
“Research is an endless loop of failures interspersed with occasional
profound discoveries.”
I like that he recognizes that a multitude of failures is an inevitable part of research but is still optimistic about all that awaits us as we continue to reach for more knowledge.
I like to research many things that don't have clear answers. I have only been taking so much time to post about molybdenum because it's relatively unknown and quite effective for nausea/vomiting and migraines. But the headlines these days have some scary stories about influenza and its toll. A friend lost her uncle a few days ago to post-influenza pneumonia. So here's what I've dug up on an overlooked nutritional intervention that appears to help protect against dying from influenza-caused pneumonia:
1) The flu infects chondrocytes, the cells in cartilage. They are the only cells in hyaline cartilage, which type of cartilage is coincidentally found in places--joints, rib ends, nose, larynx, trachea, bronchi--that are among the hardest hit by influenza. (https://www.britannica.com/science/cartilage)
2) Influenza-infected chondrocytes don't seem to actually experience obvious damage until the body's immune system goes on the attack. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC422866/; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2567.2003.01621.x/full) [Edited 2/17/2018: Someone pointed out to me that chondrocytes are within an extracellular matrix that has no blood vessels, so other cells, including attacking immune cells, can't reach them. I looked more into that issue and found a 2015 cartilage transplant study which found that cartilage isn't as immune-privileged as it used to be believed it was (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4522233/). I suspect that chondroblasts--the immature chondrocytes next to the blood-vessel-containing perichondrium--are the first chondrocytes which the immune system cells attack, and then due to their destruction the cartilage matrix becomes compromised; if that compromised state becomes severe enough, immune cells can then gain access to the mature chondrocytes within, as well.]
5) Damaged cartilage in the trachea/bronchi could allow for more penetrating infection by viruses/bacteria that normally would not be able to do much harm and in that way make flu sufferers much more susceptible to pneumonia. Most of the people who died from the 1918 flu died because "bacteria that normally inhabit the nose and throat invaded the lungs along a pathway created when the virus destroyed the cells that line the bronchial tubes and lungs." (https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/bacterial-pneumonia-caused-most-deaths-1918-influenza-pandemic)
So if you're worried about influenza, it might be worth it to buy some glucosamine and take it when you're exposed to influenza so you can protect your hyaline cartilage and thus make yourself less likely to develop pneumonia. I tried glucosamine myself last week (I teach part-time, and influenza has been going around my classroom), and I never coughed at all despite having slight nasal secretions and some very short episodes of mild chills. I bought the glucosamine in loose powder form, mixed it into water, and sipped or gargled it, for the point was to protect my respiratory tract, not my intestines.
At the very least, drink some animal broth--which should typically contain a little glucosamine--when sick with influenza. I don't think it's prudent to be a vegetarian when dealing with influenza. A few years ago, a China-Diet-following relative of mine got the flu, then pneumonia, then barely survived ARDS. Also, India's 1918 flu statistics could be read to support the existence of some sort of protective effect correlated with acceptance of beef consumption.
Here's the timeline for something that happened in our family almost a month ago. Enough time has elapsed that I feel pretty confident that it wasn't a norovirus, so I'm posting a blog entry about it now (February 24, 2018):
Jan. 29, 2018, Monday afternoon: I went shopping and bought some clearance produce, including a 2-lb package of pre-washed whole green beans. As I put them in the cart, I thought to myself, "I'd better wash or cook those before we eat them." The expiration date on the green bean bag was stated to be January 31, 2018.
Jan. 31, 2018, Wednesday afternoon: My teenage daughter needed treats for an activity that were supposed to be red and green colored. I said she could take the bag of green beans and a bag of red apples out of the refrigerator. I thought to myself, "I hope she remembers to wash them," but never said it to her.
Jan. 31, 2018, Wednesday evening, 7:00-8:30 pm: My teenage daughter ate 2-3 medium-sized handfuls of the green beans at the activity. She didn't notice anyone else eating them.
February 1, 2018, Thursday morning, 8 am: My teenage daughter made herself a sunny-side-up egg and did not cook the yolk all the way through.
February 1, 2018, Thursday morning, 11:25 am: My teenage daughter noticed "a faint, black rectangle pattern that was shimmering on the edges of her left eye." She thought it was due to looking at her computer screen for too long. It continued for about 15 minutes.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 11:30-12:00: She ate a large lunch.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 12:15 pm: While driving in the car, she was suddenly hit with a headache.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 12:30 pm: While still in the car, her stomach began hurting and she asked for some molybdenum. I gave her some.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 12:40 pm: I had to pull over because she felt like she was about to throw up. Fresh air and getting out of the car helped her not to throw up. I gave her more molybdenum.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 1:15 pm: After getting her to our house (with a break for her to sit in a parking lot for a while and try a piece of hard candy to increase saliva), I gave her more molybdenum, a container to throw up in, and a blanket to cover her while she rested on the sofa. She fell asleep on the sofa. She woke up about thirty minutes later and threw up. And then she felt much better. She still had a very mild headache and her stomach didn't hurt anymore.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 3:30 pm: She was acting normally and eating (practically dancing around in the kitchen next to all the family food preparation surfaces, to my chagrin). She says she had "the faintest headache [she'd] ever had." I gave her some more molybdenum since she'd thrown up the contents of her stomach earlier.
February 1, 2018, Thursday, 6:00 pm: She thinks she was totally recovered by then. She has not had diarrhea at all. To the contrary, she was constipated for a day or two afterward, which makes me wonder if excessive molybdenum can cause constipation.
Based on her headache and gastrointestinal symptoms and the suddenness with which they hit her, the most likely culprit for her illness appears to be listeriosis, i.e., infection with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes. The incubation period fits (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23305174), the visual disturbance symptom sounds similar to what one of her aunts experienced from suspected mild listeriosis in the past, and the apparent source--fresh produce--is a moderately common source of listeria (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5368540/).
My daughter has since checked with other people who were at her Wednesday night event, and only one other person recalled even eating any of the green beans, and that person ate just a few of the green beans. No one else got sick except for my daughter, who ate handfuls of the green beans.
I am fairly confident in ruling out norovirus or a similar virus because of the brain-related symptoms (e.g., visual disturbance and headache) and the fact that no one in the family has had an illness anything like this. After the past few months, we unfortunately have a good knowledge of how the more common gastrointestinal viruses affect our family.
I find it interesting that she hasn't had any diarrhea, as that is the one of the most common symptoms associated with mild listeriosis. (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199701093360204) Maybe the molybdenum she took helped prevent it. But molybdenum didn't stop the initial vomiting episode, even if it might have helped delay it. I suspect we've just run up against a limitation of molybdenum. This is the first time, to my knowledge, that we've used molybdenum for a probable bacterial illness. We have since watched this little animation of how the listeria bacteria infects and poisons our cells, and it made me very grateful for my child's well-functioning immune system:
I contacted the customer service hotline of the store and told them about her symptoms. They asked many questions and directed us to freeze the bag of green beans in case it becomes necessary for them to send someone to collect it and test it. I'm happy to see they take possible listeria in their produce so seriously. The green beans are still in my freezer. I wonder how long they expect me to hold on to them?
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
This is not a blog about feces. I think about feces as little as I can, as do most humans. A sure way to create a political firestorm appears to be mentioning feces. If you can't stand feces discussions, ignore this post.
When my sister and I first started trying molybdenum in our families and getting successful results in dramatically shortening and averting gastroenteritis symptoms, we did not discuss stools much. It seemed to me that we still had a little diarrhea sometimes in my family, but I didn't care that much about it. Diarrhea gets flushed down the toilet and so is less messy than vomiting, and as a mother of five children, the level of messiness was what I cared about. Well, that and my kids not going through the misery of vomiting.
In fall of December 2016, a friend from church who successfully tried molybdenum for migraines reported that it gave her really bad diarrhea and so she wasn't going to use it very often. But later, she said she'd "fixed her diet" and could now take molybdenum for her migraines and that diarrhea had ceased to be an issue. I don't know what diet changes she made.
Then a few weeks ago, another friend started giving her adult post-traumatic-brain-injury son molybdenum because his medications made him feel sick to his stomach. She was surprised and very pleased to discover that the molybdenum ended his diarrhea; he'd been having diarrhea constantly and required 6-7 clothing changes per day. Now he doesn't require any clothing changes outside the usual.
After I started emailing researchers, one responded back and mentioned that molybdenum, if as effective as I'm reporting, could help many young children. That gave me pause. I'd been thinking of molybdenum as more of a convenience intervention, something to end the gross vomiting. I looked into what he was talking about and realized that each year norovirus kills around 50,000 children < 5 years of age. That is a large, sad number! But the way it kills is dehydration, of which diarrhea is the major cause (although vomiting certainly doesn't help). Can molybdenum help all these little kids not die of diarrhea?
I went back and asked my sister and friends who were using molybdenum for gastrointestinal viruses and had young children whether molybdenum was having an effect on the presence of diarrhea. The answer was a clear "Yes!" Loose stools sometimes still, but the molybdenum is somehow helping them avoid most of the diarrhea which they would normally experience from these viruses. That indicates molybdenum has the potential to be a significant life-saving intervention in poorer countries.
How is molybdenum helping prevent diarrhea? I'd really rather leave that puzzle for the diarrhea experts. If pressed to state a hypothesis, I would suggest that sulfite might induce diarrhea and so molybdenum--by aiding the conversion of sulfite to sulfate--decreases diarrhea. Why? Because of my migraineur friend above. Molybdenum gave her diarrhea until she changed her diet. Why did molybdenum do so? I suspected back when she first reported it that molybdenum was helping her more quickly convert sulfite to sulfate in her stomach and so resulting in more sulfate reaching her small intestine. A sudden increase in sulfate ingestion has been observed to cause diarrhea. (http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/wells/waterquality/sulfate.html) That indicates to me that she might have had an excess of sulfate-reducing (i.e., changing sulfate to sulfite and then hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which the body can turn around and catabolise, creating sulfite again) bacteria in her small intestine previously and that her diet shift changed her gut microbiome so as to substantially reduce the amount of sulfate-reducing bacteria. But that's just a guess.
One issue though: In poorer countries, they tend to eat a lot of beans and lentils, and yet they still have serious pediatric diarrhea issues. If molybdenum--which is highest in beans and lentils--is helpful against vomiting and diarrhea from gastrointestinal viruses, then shouldn't it already be protecting the people there? I think it does. There is a prevalence of asymptomatic* norovirus in many countries (which also means a lot of people are passing around viruses without knowing it--https://www.news-medical.net/news/20171106/Research-suggests-asymptomatic-infection-as-source-of-norovirus-outbreaks-in-Indonesia.aspx), and those countries seem to be ones where the diet has a higher whole bean and lentil content. Young children may be eating more starch and less of the pulses than are the older children and adults. Also, I've noticed that the effects of molybdenum appear to be dose-dependent. The larger the dose I give, the more dramatic the relief from gastrointestinal virus symptoms. I now often give my family the upper tolerable intake level of molybdenum when viruses come to visit us, and that makes a bigger difference than the smaller doses I used initially.
Naturally, I'd like to know when the doses are too high, and so I really need the professionals to research this and make official recommendations and protocols based on more evidence than I currently have. But my children's lives don't depend on whether I'm using molybdenum properly. That is unfortunately not the case in many poorer countries, so I hope that some researchers will energetically research and then effectively promote molybdenum as a viral gastroenteritis intervention.
* Or mostly asymptomatic. Many taxis in Manila advertise medicines for "LBM," which means "loose bowel movement."
[Edit: My friend with the post-TBI adult son also has a diabetic husband who constantly suffers "digestive issues" and diarrhea. She told me today that she started her husband on 150 mcg molybdenum every other day, and it has greatly alleviated his digestive issues and diarrhea.]
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
In the past week or two, I've sent off around 40 emails about molybdenum's helpfulness with gastrointestinal virus-caused nausea to 60+ researchers/public health officials and cruise lines. I've had one cruise line respond and three researchers so far. I'm actually very pleased with that number of responses because I know how much spam mail I get inviting me to bogus conferences and asking me to submit papers to sketchy journals, and I expect many of my emails go immediately to spam folders due to my lack of an .edu or .gov email address. There are drawbacks to being an independent researcher.
Yesterday, as I was responding to one researcher, I had to laugh a little because I was literally taking a molybdenum tablet as I wrote to him. Remember my complaints about how "stomach bugs" keep circulating in my church and school circles? Monday, I visited a friend whose son was home sick with a vomit-causing virus and helped her wash dishes. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't feel so great. I think I took around 2000 mcg in 250 mcg doses over the past two days because my stomach kept feeling "wrong," for lack of a better word. I found out Wednesday night that my friend and her daughter were homebound with a "stomach bug," probably the same one her son had on Monday.
It's Thursday now. The weird feeling has moved to my lower abdomen, so I'm apparently nearly done passing this virus. I never threw up. My friend does know about molybdenum and uses it to shorten the duration once the vomiting hits, but I think I'm quicker to take molybdenum than my friend because I've had more experience with it (my 18 months versus her 1 month). If I recall correctly, I took some molybdenum right after leaving her house on Monday because I knew I had likely been exposed to her son's virus.
By taking molybdenum earlier on, I escape vomiting entirely and go merrily on my way, no doubt shedding viruses at some point. So I make a conscious effort to wash my hands thoroughly after using the toilet and before preparing food because I don't want to pass this to the rest of my family or anyone else. So here's a question: Is it better for society for me to stay home vomiting and isolated for a day or two or continually out in society due to being mostly asymptomatic? Considering we let children go back to school a mere 24 hours after vomiting and that viruses are being shed for weeks or more afterward (https://experts.umich.edu/en/publications/heterogeneity-in-norovirus-shedding-duration-affects-community-ri), I don't think it makes a difference as long as I am aware that I am potentially shedding viruses and so practice thorough handwashing.
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
Primum non nocereis a Latinphrase that means "first, do no harm." The phrase is sometimes recorded asprimum nil nocere.
Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethicsthat all healthcare students are taught in school and is a fundamental principle throughout the world. Another way to state it is that, "given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good." It reminds the health care provider that they must consider the possible harm that any intervention might do. It is invoked when debating the use of an intervention that carries an obvious risk of harm but a less certain chance of benefit.
In October, I reported that my husband's co-worker had seen a 2/3 reduction in her chronic migraines since she started taking a mere 70 mcg of a molybdenum supplement at bedtime. The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for molybdenum is 45 mcg for an adult woman, and she wasn't even doubling that.
For three months she took molybdenum, during which she had only one major headache and only a few little ones. It was a dramatic lessening of migraines from what she had been experiencing before she started taking molybdenum. Then she told her doctor that she was taking supplemental molybdenum.
The doctor's response was, "That's a metal! Stop taking it." So she stopped taking it. And now her migraines are back.
This doctor's directive appears to be based on incomplete information, and it manifestly did harm to my husband's co-worker. Molybdenum is an essential trace nutrient. It is included in Pediasure and Centrum multivitamins. It is relatively high--for a micronutrient--in lentils and beans, meaning billions of people eat it regularly. Can molybdenum be harmful in excess? Yes, particularly if inhaling it in an industrial setting. (http://www.imoa.info/HSE/environmental_data/human_health/molybdenum_toxicology.php) Anything--including water and oxygen--is harmful in excess. But not getting any molybdenum at all will put a human in a coma. (https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/nutritional-disorders/mineral-deficiency-and-toxicity/molybdenum) Blanket restrictions are inappropriate where a nutrient is clearly contributing to better health; at the very least, performing some extra investigation is appropriate before intervening in such a way.
Having experienced three months of substantial relief from migraines due to molybdenum, my husband's co-worker is now going to look into taking the Centrum multivitamin formulations that include 45 mcg molybdenum, as well as increasing her intake of lentils. She says she's "a believer" about molybdenum's effectiveness to decrease migraines.
I wish the researchers I've been emailing about molybdenum for migraines (and nausea/vomiting from gastrointestinal viruses) would take my reports seriously so that news about its effects would spread in the medical community. I'll keep sending out emails until it does. Come on, medical world! Don't let me down!
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
Last weekend, I told a group of people about how molybdenum has been preventing nausea and vomiting from gastrointestinal viruses in lots of people. The listeners seemed interested except for one woman. She said, "Isn't that a heavy metal?" (Yes, as are iron, zinc, and selenium.) She reacted with horror when I said I'd given it to my children. "You gave it to your toddler?" (Yes, this oh-so-sketchy substance which is an added ingredient in Pediasure. I gave it to my toddler as-needed and at doses around the established tolerable upper intake level.) My attempts to protest in favor of molybdenum's nutritional value, for it is in many foods and has a set Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), were ineffective. And here's the strangest part of the story: she is a physician.
Molybdenum is essential--in the right amounts--to human health, and she apparently knew nothing about it except that it was a heavy metal. I thought she might just be an outlier. Surely her lack of information about molybdenum is not representative of what's going on widely in medicine, right? Unfortunately, she appears to have much company in ignorance about molybdenum. I'll tell a similar such story about another doctor (at least, it's statistically unlikely to be the same doctor) in my next post.
I'm not trying to be harsh toward anyone. Ignorance is a normal state of affairs until something has been learned. After all, I was totally ignorant of molybdenum two years ago. I still remember seeing it listed as a nutrient on a webpage about barley and thinking, "Molybdenum? What's that?" (And I definitely didn't know how to pronounce it. It took a couple of months before I could easily say it, which was rather comical when I tried to tell people about it.) I addressed my ignorance by seeking out more information about molybdenum. I clicked on the first webpage's hyperlink to a page on molybdenum, and as I looked at the second page's list of foods considered good sources of molybdenum, I recognized that they were the same foods as those correlated with less "morning sickness."
Rates of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy were correlated with high intake of macronutrients (kilocalories, protein, fat, carbohydrate), as well as sugars, stimulants, meat, milk and eggs, and with low intake of cereals and pulses.
The only reason I knew about the 2006 diet study was because of my prior pregnancies, during which I scoured the internet for information about how to not suffer so much from my "morning sickness." When I saw the list of foods high in molybdenum, my brain made the connection between the 2006 study findings and those foods. It was one of the coolest "Eureka" moments of my life. And given how molybdenum has ended up being helpful for both nausa/vomiting and migraines, it was probably the most impact-making "Eureka" moment I'll ever have. I stumbled on something big because I was willing to learn about something I hadn't known about before. I hope others are also willing to learn. Just because ignorance is a normal state of affairs doesn't mean we have to remain there.
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
My kindergartner's classmate threw up at school yesterday. I was really hoping that the Christmas/New Year break would stop the sharing of gastroinestinal viruses that was going on for much of the first half of the school year. Oh, well. At least I can help my own family and friends. I sure wish researchers would get on this.
This past week, I emailed two kinds of organizations about the effectiveness of molybdenum supplements to avoid vomiting from gastrointestinal viruses: 1) academic/government researchers who specialize in viral gastroenteritis, and 2) cruise ship lines. I sent them all the information in the past two posts, and told them about the 70+ gastroenteritis-infected people who have thus far experienced relief as a result of taking molybdenum, an overlooked-but-essential micronutrient. (It's now 71+ successes due to yet another friend trying it yesterday, incidentally.)
Now we will see who takes this information seriously and spends the $7/bottle to buy some molybdenum and test it, and who doesn't take it seriously. Will it be the profit-motivated cruise lines who suffer public relations nightmares every time they have a norovirus outbreak sickening hundreds on a voyage? Or will it be the government- and university-paid researchers who the public gives money to in order to find solutions to health problems? I don't know.
I lean towards thinking that the cruise line doctors/nurses will be the first to realize that molybdenum is dramatically effective because I think that, in general, profit is a more powerful motivator than altruism. (I have nothing against altruism, of course; I teach it to my children all the time, and I wish everyone were motivated regularly by it.) However, cruise line medical staff are likely hired for non-research skills more relevant to their jobs, and they probably tend to do everything by their protocols in order to avoid lawsuits. Still, they have a perfect place to look at whether consumption of molybdenum-rich foods is associated with lower nausea and vomiting from viral gastroenteritis infections because their workplace also supplies their patients with nearly all their food. There's nothing controversial about putting more lentils on the menu in a few dining rooms.
On the other hand, what academic/government researcher wouldn't want to be part of a discovery this big? Also if the CDC and Johns Hopkins don't care about a report that there is a cheap, safe way to stop vomiting from norovirus-type infections, then every US taxpayer has a reason to feel sorely let down.
So, we'll see.
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
Gastrointestinal
infections, Hydrogen Sulfide, and Sulfite
A typical part of a viral gastroenteritis infection is
damage to the mucosa (lining) of the proximal small intestine (the part of the
small intestine closest to the stomach).[1]
Our bodies make and use hydrogen sulfide (H2S) while working to protect the
gastric[2][3]
and intestinal mucosa.[4]
It is still being investigated exactly how H2S is afterward
transformed in the body, but one of its catabolic products is known to be sulfite.
Moreover, it was recently discovered that there appears to be a previously-unknown
H2S oxidation pathway using neuroglobin.[5]
Neuroglobin has been discovered to be expressed in the cells of the stomach
fundus and the small intestine after hypoxia.[6]
I suspect that neuroglobin-assisted H2S catabolism results in more net sulfite
than the better known sulfide:quinone oxidoreductase catabolic pathway and that
it could be a major contributor to the presence of sulfite in the stomach and
small intestine at levels high enough to trigger vomiting.
In most people, sulfite oxidase typically seems able to
handle the amount of sulfite resulting from endogenous hydrogen sulfide
metabolism. However, in the absence of sufficient molybdenum, magnesium,[7]
or P5P (active vitamin B6 is involved in making heme, which is part of sulfite
oxidase),[8]
sulfite oxidase might not reach necessary levels of activity, for those three
nutrients are needed to form sulfite oxidase and the molybdenum cofactor. The
main result of insufficient sulfite oxidase activity is a buildup of
nausea-inducing sulfite. It thus follows that supplemental molybdenum can
reduce nausea.
mARC 1 and mARC 2
Two relatively recently discovered molybdenum-utilizing
enzymes are the mARC 1 and mARC 2 enzymes. They appear to be involved with
nitric oxide (NO) production,[9]
and NO and H2S cooperatively interact in many ways.[10][11]
Thus mARC1 and mARC2 might also be involved in the pathophysiology of nausea
and vomiting.
Conclusion
I have written this because I have seen molybdenum
dramatically prevent nausea and vomiting from gastrointestinal viruses, as well
as shorten the duration of gastrointestinal virus symptoms even after vomiting
has already begun. I think current research supports a hypothesis that
molybdenum does so by supporting optimal activity of the molybdenum-utilizing
enzymes sulfite oxidase and possibly mARC1 and mARC2.
Because this discovery has great potential for improvement
of public health, I think it urgent for professional researchers to explore
molybdenum’s effect in alleviating gastrointestinal virus-caused nausea and
vomiting and establish appropriate dosage guidelines for its use.
- CT
References
[1] Widerlite
L, Trier JS, Blacklow NR, Schreiber DS. Structure of the gastric mucosa in
acute infectious bacterial gastroenteritis. Gastroenterology 1975;68(3):425-430.
[2] Bronowicka-Adamska
P, Wróbel M, Magierowski M, Magierowska K, Kwiecień S, Brzozowski T. Hydrogen
sulphide production in healthy and ulcerated gastric mucosa of rats. Molecules
2017;22(4). pii: E530.
[3]
Souza LK, Araújo TS, Sousa NA, Sousa FB, Nogueira KM, Nicolau LA, Medeiros JV.
Evidence that d-cysteine protects mice from gastric damage via hydrogen sulfide
produced by d-amino acid oxidase. Nitric Oxide 2017;64:1-6.
[4] Wallace
JL, Caliendo G, Santagada V, Cirino G, Fiorucci S. Gastrointestinal safety and
anti-inflammatory effects of a hydrogen sulfide-releasing diclofenac derivative
in the rat. Gastroenterology 2007;132(1):261-271.
[5] Bilska-Wilkosz
A, Iciek M, Górny M, Kowalczyk-Pachel D. The Role of Hemoproteins: Hemoglobin,
Myoglobin and Neuroglobin in Endogenous Thiosulfate Production Processes. Int
J Mol Sci 2017;18(6). pii: E1315. doi: 10.3390/ijms18061315.
[6]
Emara M, Turner AR, Allalunis-Turner J. Hypoxic regulation of cytoglobin and
neuroglobin expression in human normal and tumor tissues. Cancer CellInt
2010;10:33.
[7] Mendel
RR. The Molybdenum Cofactor. J Bio Chem
2013;288:13165-13172.
[8] Heinemann
IU, Jahn M, Jahn D. Arch. The biochemistry of heme biosynthesis. Biochem Biophys 2008;474(2):238-251.
[9] Sparacino-Watkins
CE, Tejero J, Sun B, Gauthier MC, Thomas J, Ragireddy V, Merchant BA, Wang J,
Azarov I, Basu P, Gladwin MT. Nitrite reductase and nitric-oxide synthase
activity of the mitochondrial molybdopterin enzymes mARC1 and mARC2. J Biol
Chem 2014; 289(15):10345-10358.
[10] Farrugia
G, Szurszewski JH. Carbon Monoxide, Hydrogen Sulfide, and Nitric Oxide as
Signaling Molecules in the Gastrointestinal Tract. Gastroenterology
2014;147(2): 303–313.
[11] Szabo
C. Hydrogen sulfide, an enhancer of vascular nitric oxide signaling: mechanisms
and implications. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 2017 Jan 1;312(1):C3-C15. (Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
Molybdenum
supplements for nausea and vomiting from gastrointestinal viruses
During the first part of 2016, I authored a medical
hypothesis connecting less severe “morning sickness”—nausea and vomiting of
pregnancy (NVP)—with high regional intake of foods containing relatively high
levels of the essential micronutrient molybdenum.[i]
My sister purchased a bottle of the molybdenum supplement
“Moly-B” to have on hand in case she became pregnant. She did not get pregnant,
but she and a friend contracted a gastrointestinal virus, and she decided to
try the molybdenum for the nausea and vomiting caused by the virus (her husband was already vomiting from it). As a result
of taking the molybdenum early in the course of the infection, she and her friend completely avoided any vomiting
and passed the virus quickly.
Since my sister’s serendipitous discovery, approximately 70
people (at least that I know of) have used molybdenum supplements
to either completely avoid vomiting from “stomach bugs” or to cut short the duration
of vomiting from “stomach bugs” after it had already begun. The effects are
clear and dramatic and go far beyond what one would expect from a placebo
effect. Molybdenum, if taken during the early stomach cramping stage
of a gastrointestinal virus infection, has been to my knowledge uniformly
successful at preventing vomiting. Furthermore, molybdenum taken during the
vomiting stage has also shown itself effective to shorten the duration of the
vomiting stage, although larger doses seem to be required than if molybdenum had
been taken earlier.
The dosages people have been taking for this purpose are typically
10-20 times larger than the established RDA for molybdenum, yet still
below the established tolerable upper intake level. Moreover, the molybdenum is
only used on as “as-needed” basis, not chronically. Two other brands of
molybdenum supplements have also been used by people I know, and all three molybdenum supplement
brands show approximately the same effectiveness.
How is molybdenum having this effect? Correlation argues
best for causation where there is a plausible causative mechanism, and below is
a suggestion of how I think molybdenum might be alleviating nausea and vomiting
from gastrointestinal viruses.
The Molybdoenzyme
Sulfite Oxidase and Sulfite
There are only five known enzymes in the human body that
incorporate element #42, molybdenum,[ii]
an essential trace mineral in the human diet. The most interesting of these
molybdenum enzymes to my research on NVP was sulfite oxidase. Sulfite oxidase
catalyzes the conversion of sulfite to sulfate, which is then recycled or
excreted from the body. Sulfite is toxic to humans; it was formerly used in
salad bars to keep cut produce fresh-looking until it sent many restaurant
patrons to the hospital with severe symptoms that included anaphylactic shock, nausea,
abdominal pain, seizures, and death.[iii]
Feeding rats in such a way as to make them deficient in
molybdenum results in a loss of sulfite oxidase activity.[iv]
Supplementing them with molybdenum, on the other hand, increases sulfite
oxidase activity up to a plateau.[v]
Molybdenum is essential for human health, as was discovered when a man kept on
molybdenum-less total parenteral nutrition developed headaches, vomiting, and
heart rhythm abnormalities, and then became comatose; his condition was
reversed when he was given molybdenum.[vi]
[i]Taylor CE. A novel treatment for “morning
sickness”: Nausea of pregnancy could be induced by excess sulfite which
molybdenum can help alleviate. Med
Hypotheses 2016;95:31-33.
[ii] Mendel
RR. Cell biology of molybdenum. Biochim
Biophys Acta - Mol Cell Res 2006;1763(7):621-635.
[iii] Yang WH,
Purchase EC. Adverse reactions to sulfites. CMAJ
1985;133(9):865-867, 880.
[iv]Cohen HJ, Drew RT, Johnson
JL, Rajagopalan KV. Molecular Basis of the Biological Function of Molybdenum.
The Relationship between Sulfite Oxidase and the Acute Toxicity of Bisulfite
and SO2.Proc Natl
Acad Sci USA 1973;70(12 Pt 1-2):3655-3659.
[v]
Wang X, Oberleas D, Yang MT, Yang SP. Molybdenum requirement of female rats. J Nutr 1992;122(4):1036-1041.
[vi]
Abumrad NN, Schneider AJ, Steel D, Rogers LS. Amino acid intolerance during
prolonged total parenteral nutrition reversed by molybdate therapy. Am J Clin Nutr 1981;34(11):2551-2559. (Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
The vocabulary term for today is "snake oil." From wikipedia:
Snake oil is a fraudulent liniment without snake extract.
Currently, it has come to refer to any product with questionable or
unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone
who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is a fraud, quack, or charlatan.
A snake oil recipe from 1719/1751 (Juan de Loeches,
Tyrocinium Pharmaceticum), printed in Spain: "The viper oil of Mesues.
Take 2 pounds of live snakes and 2 pounds 3 ounces of sesame oil. Cook slowly,
covered in a glazed pot, until meat pulls away from bone. Strain and store.
Uses: Cleans the skin, removes pimples, impetigo and other defects."
The use of snake oil long predates the 19th century. In
Europe, viper oil had been commonly recommended for many afflictions, including
the ones for which rattlesnake oil was subsequently favored (e.g., rheumatism
and skin diseases). In China, oil made from Chinese water snake (Enhydris
chinensis) fat is a traditional liniment used for treating joint pain. Chinese
water-snake oil contains 20 percent eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which has
strong analgetic and anti-inflammatory properties.
I can tell that many think I am selling snake oil when I tell them about what I've seen of molybdenum's effect on alleviating nausea/vomiting and migraines. But I'm not selling it. I'm actually often giving it away for free in order to help people not suffer. And then it works.
Also, I'm not saying it works for many afflictions. As far as I've seen, molybdenum clearly helps with only two things: 1) nausea and vomiting, and 2) migraines. Both of these ailments are affected by diet in what (till now) have been mysterious ways, and molybdenum is in some foods. If you read my other blog posts, you'll see that current research supports plausible explanations for how molybdenum could help with both of these two ailments.
The answer to the post title is "No." Molybdenum is proving itself by repeated observations in different people to actually be a genuine help. I think that, far from being a placebo, molybdenum acts on a molecular level to relieve a physiological cause of migraines and nausea/vomiting.
(Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
The air pollutant sulfur dioxide, a sulfiting agent, appears
linked to migraine occurrence.[1][2]
Chemically induced sulfite oxidase deficiency is toxic to the brain, primarily
to the cerebral cortex and striatum,[3]
which first area is connected to migraine susceptibility.[4]
Sulfite is a catabolic product of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), an gasotransmitter
found in the brain[5]
that is connected to vasodilation,[6]
and vasodilation has been repeatedly observed in connection with migraines. It
is still unclear exactly how H2S is
broken down in the body; it was recently discovered that there appears to be a previously-unknown
H2S catabolic pathway using neuroglobin.[7]
In most people, sulfite oxidase typically seems able to
handle the amount of sulfite resulting from endogenous hydrogen sulfide
production. However, in the absence of molybdenum, magnesium,[8]
or P5P (active vitamin B6 is involved in making heme, which is part of sulfite
oxidase),[9]
sulfite oxidase might not reach necessary levels of activity, as those three
nutrients are needed to form sulfite oxidase and its component, the molybdenum
cofactor. Moreover, when sulfite oxidase is dealing with a high level of
sulfite, nitrites also are substrates of the enzyme;[10]
the connection between nitrites and migraines has much evidence behind it.[11]
There is also evidence connecting sulfite consumption to migraines.[12]
mARC 1 and mARC 2
Two relatively recently discovered molybdenum-utilizing
enzymes are the mARC 1 and mARC 2 enzymes. They appear to be involved with
nitric oxide (NO) production,[13]
and nitric oxide has long been reported to be involved with headaches,
including migraines.[14]
Molybdenum supplementation might, by facilitating optimal functioning of the
mARC1 and mARC2 enzymes, contribute to appropriate NO production and possibly
less migraine incidence. There is also evidence that interaction of NO and H2S is
connected to migraine pathophysiology,[15]
and NO and H2S cooperatively interact in many ways.[16]
Conclusion
I have written this because I have seen molybdenum help with
migraines in several women with different etiologies (for example, one
connected to hormonal fluctuation, one connected to neck injury and exacerbated
by air pressure changes, and one of unknown causation), and I think current
research supports a hypothesis that molybdenum does so by supporting optimal
activity of the molybdenum-utilizing enzymes sulfite oxidase, mARC 1, and mARC
2. Because chronic migraines could be causing brain damage,[17]
I think it urgent to explore whether molybdenum has potential to alleviate
migraines.
References
[1] Szyszkowicz
M, Rowe BH, Kaplan GG. Ambient sulphur dioxide exposure and emergency
department visits for migraine in Vancouver, Canada. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2009;22(1):7-12.
[2] Szyszkowicz
M, Porada E. Ambient Sulphur Dioxide and Female ED Visits for Migraine. ISRN Neurology 2012;2012:279051.
[4] Lang
E, Kaltenhäuser
M, Neundörfer B, Seidler S. Hyperexcitability of the primary somatosensory
cortex in migraine--a magnetoencephalographic study. Brain 2004;127(Pt 11):2459-2469.
[5] Gheibi S,
Aboutaleb N, Khaksari M, Kalalian-Moghaddam H, Vakili A, Asadi Y, Mehrjerdi FZ,
Gheibi A. Hydrogen sulfide protects the brain against ischemic reperfusion
injury in a transient model of focal cerebral ischemia. J Mol Neurosci 2014;54(2):264-70.
[6]Bhatia, M. Hydrogen sulfide as a vasodilator. IUBMB Life 2005;57:603–606.
[7] Bilska-Wilkosz
A, Iciek M, Górny M, Kowalczyk-Pachel D. The Role of Hemoproteins: Hemoglobin,
Myoglobin and Neuroglobin in Endogenous Thiosulfate Production Processes. Int
J Mol Sci 2017;18(6). pii: E1315. doi: 10.3390/ijms18061315.
[8] Mendel
RR. The Molybdenum Cofactor. J Bio Chem
2013;288:13165-13172.
[9] Heinemann
IU, Jahn M, Jahn D. Arch. The biochemistry of heme biosynthesis. Biochem Biophys 2008;474(2):238-251.
[10] Wang J,
Krizowski S, Fischer-Schrader K, et al. Sulfite Oxidase Catalyzes
Single-Electron Transfer at Molybdenum Domain to Reduce Nitrite to Nitric
Oxide. Antioxidants & Redox Signaling
2015;23(4):283-294.
[11] D'Amico
D, Ferraris A, Leone M, Catania A, Carlin A, Grazzi L, Bussone G. Increased
plasma nitrites in migraine and cluster headache patients in interictal period:
basal hyperactivity of L-arginine-NO pathway? Cephalalgia 2002 Feb;22(1):33-6.
[12] Millichap JG, Yee MM. The diet factor in pediatric and
adolescent migraine. Ped Neurology 2003;28(1):9-15.
[13] Sparacino-Watkins
CE, Tejero J, Sun B, Gauthier MC, Thomas J, Ragireddy V, Merchant BA, Wang J,
Azarov I, Basu P, Gladwin MT. Nitrite reductase and nitric-oxide synthase
activity of the mitochondrial molybdopterin enzymes mARC1 and mARC2. J Biol
Chem 2014; 289(15):10345-10358.
[14] Thomsen
LL, Olesen J. A pivotal role of nitric oxide in migraine pain. Ann N Y Acad
Sci 1997;835:363-372.
[15] Wild
V, Messlinger K, Fischer MJ. Hydrogen sulfide determines HNO-induced
stimulation of trigeminal afferents. Neurosci Lett 2015; 602:104-109.
[16] Szabo
C. Hydrogen sulfide, an enhancer of vascular nitric oxide signaling: mechanisms
and implications. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 2017 Jan 1;312(1):C3-C15.
[17]
Asma Bashir, Richard B. Lipton, Sait Ashina, Messoud Ashina. Migraine and
structural changes in the brain: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurology
2013;81(14):1260–1268. (Disclaimer: I do not prescribe the use of pharmaceutical drugs in any way. I am not a physician, and I reject out of hand any attempt to hold me liable for what boils down to a discussion of food. Any use of a molybdenum supplement should be prudent and guided by the tested tolerable upper intake levels for its usage (see http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/minerals/molybdenum for those limits). Any use of an isolated molybdenum supplement during pregnancy should be under the direction of a medical professional as such supplements have apparently not been tested during pregnancy.)
I research regional cuisine differences and juxtapose them with medical research and epidemiology. Sometimes, I end up with new hypotheses as a result, which I revisit to modify or refine from time to time. Molybdenum glycinate's efficacy for treatment of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and migraines is my hypothesis that has the most evidence (real-life) for it.
