Posted by Larry Hoover on January 31, 2007, at 11:51:02
In reply to Re: Asking Larry Hoover, posted by ConRon on January 30, 2007, at 15:49:31
> Wow Larry Im impressed!! Thank you for all the advice.
You're very welcome. It's probably best to start at the lowest doses practical, and work up over time to the targets I mentioned, if the supplements you obtain permit that.
> I have my list to take to the vitamin store. What do you think of GNC?
I don't often go to GNC. Their stuff is high quality, I believe, but the prices are also high. I got the distinct impression that their staff works on commission, which directs them to make sales rather than optimize advice. That's just my opinion.
> My son currently kinda eats lo-carb and not really intentionally he just doesn't care for hi-carb foods.
I strongly believe that intuition is not a fluke. I think your son is already developing the adaptive skills needed to manage life.
> He does have a few skin conditions, one being extremely dry skin in the winter and he also has pigment loss on one of his legs, has not yet traveled to other parts of the body so far (thank god)
The dry skin could be a sign of essential fatty acid deficiency. The vitiligo is not something we don't fully understand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitiligo
> I have often thought he could have a absorbption problem because he is soooo thin.
It is quite possible. The nutrient deficiencies tend to progress to become vicious circles. For example, one of the causes of vitamin B12 malabsorption is vitamin B12 deficiency. The same goes for minerals such as zinc.
Absorption issues can sometimes be improved by using probiotics. The microbes which colonize our guts are more than just neutral hitch-hikers. Their metabolic processes improve digestion and assimilation, both. In some cases, active forms of vitamins are produced from provitamin precursors found in food. The best probiotic I've ever used is Kirkman Laboratory's "Pro Bio Gold":
http://www.kirkmanlabs.com/products/probiotics/pro_bio/H_PROBIO_Gold_C_60_Spec042.htmlIt's expensive, but worth every penny.
> He eats pretty good, not enough veggies, for sure...and he is very pale. I recently started giving him B-12 and a multivitamin with iron just in case it was an iron defiency and he became very hyper and one of his teachers asked me to stop giving it to him..lol
Now, here's one of the issues that crops up when getting involved in nutrient supps.....the tendency is to try more than one change at the same time, and it confounds identification of what nutrient does just what. Was the hyper due to B12? Iron? The multi? The lot, taken together? Just a rhetorical inquiry, but you can see the difficulties that need to be addressed. It takes time. It takes intuition. It takes dedication. But, I strongly believe that some people simply need more nutrient intake than the RDA suggests. Not everyone lies at the median intake threshold for nonsufficiency. What about the rest of the normal curve, lying 1, 2, or 3 or more standard deviations from the mean? What intake is sufficient to overcome factors such as poor uptake (intake does not equal uptake), disordered intestinal motility, genetic defects in transporter proteins, excessive excretion in bile or urine, etc. etc.
> Well thanks for letting me pick your brain,
> A concerned parentThanks for picking my brain.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:727846
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20070114/msgs/728437.html