![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Kalamatianos on December 31, 2003, at 23:15:06
I make no judgement about anyone else. Any and all B vitamins don't hurt in excess doses. Non-alcoholics with good livers won't be effected by the excess. Other physical problems, deficiencies and abnormalities can be worsened by going "100-miles-an-hour" in any direction. I was the one I've been testing for a third of a century and I make no judgements about anyone else.
Too much of any and all B vitamins has an indicator of "yellow river". With adequate water intake, toooo much then gets passed off as waste. Waste costs money. Too much waste costs too much money.
Dr Wiel can recommend what ever he wants and I wish him well. I wish the same for Dr. Atkins. My body, and all my friends and relatives bodies, pass off toooo much as waste. 2 grams of Inositol may NOT be toooo much for my body if I am megadosing vitamin C (1 gram every hour), whereas under other conditions it may. I won't die. I will just pass off a "Yellow River". When I pass a "Yellow River", I waste my money and no one else’s.
In 1982, Dirk Pearson was on all the talk shows because he was the first to use computers to analyse results. He and his "squeeze", Sandy Shaw wrote "Life Extensions" and a couple of sequels. I tend to favor his research along with my own. My best friend's Dad is a yogi who has been teaching health and yoga for 50 years. I add him to my list of folks I prefer to get suggestions from. My Mom passed away or she would be at the top of my list of those who remain OBJECTIVE when suggesting supplements.
All of this is in the realm of opinion. Until I started testing myself 33 years ago, I listened to all sorts of "opinion-ators". Now I am comfortable with the advise of Dirk Pearson, Yogi Shalom, Dr. Bill MacDonald (Nutrition consultant for US Olympic athletes), Dr. Nicolas Perricone for obvious reasons, Dr. Patricia Kane from San Diego (who was recommended to me Yogi Shalom).
Odd Detail: Bill W. who started AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) was starting to promote a megadose B complex regimen to overcome alcoholic cravings and reverse liver damage when he ran out of time and passed away. Go figure! So, B Complex megadoses might be a bargain at any price if it saves an alcoholics liver from cirrhosis.
To recap: When your Physician "green lights" your liver function test and you intake adequate water (I drink a gallon or more per day), once you find a balance for your body of this B versus that B, side effects will be minor as long as you only take up to the dosage of "Yellow River" and then back off slightly. Prolonged "Yellow River" may have a strong odor. What ever you do, follow the advice of Drs. Perricone and Kane, and resist going "100-miles-an-hour" toward using any single supplement regimen. Instead find a balance point for best results.
Posted by linkadge on January 1, 2004, at 6:42:31
In reply to Straight stuff about B Vitamins (long), posted by Kalamatianos on December 31, 2003, at 23:15:06
"Any and all B vitamins don't hurt in excess doses"
This is simply not true. For starters, Niacin does dammage the liver. Infact there are prescription niacin preparations available for cholesterol lowering that must state this
side effect on product inserts.Lecethin, and other supplements that contain choline can percipitate depression. There is quite a lot of evidence to suggest this. Enhancement of cholinergic function can exasperate depression and panic in certain individuals.
B6 in doses higher than 100mg for extended periods of time will lead to nerve degeneration in the extremeties.
Inositol in high doses can trigger manic reactions in certain individuals. Both lithium and Depakote are thought to work by lower inositol levels in the brain.
High doses of Folic acid can worsen insomnia, by lowering magnesium levels.
I urge to to visit the quite informed site.
http://www.acu-cell.com/bx.html
Linkadge
Posted by Larry Hoover on January 1, 2004, at 10:27:51
In reply to Straight stuff about B Vitamins (long), posted by Kalamatianos on December 31, 2003, at 23:15:06
> Too much of any and all B vitamins has an indicator of "yellow river". With adequate water intake, toooo much then gets passed off as waste. Waste costs money. Too much waste costs too much money.
As this seems to be a philosophical point, rather than a physiological one, I hope you don't mind my expressing a slightly divergent opinion.
The yellow river of which you speak, I presume to be the riboflavin yellow-tinted urine which arises following ingestion of B-complex, multi, or pure B2 supplement.
Contrary to your concern about waste, I would argue that the yellow river is the only proof you have of uptake from the gut. Supplements passing in stool are waste. Only those making it from oral intake to kidney excretion are available to the body.
Your kidneys are biological rather stupid machines. They do not discriminate well those substances needed by the body and those that are waste, with the exception of certain electrolytes (minerals) (and a few other special things, but I'm not meaning to get into the details too much). If your kidneys are "seeing", i.e. being exposed to circulating chemicals in your blood, e.g. vitamins from supplements, then so are all the other tissues and organs in your body. That is the whole point of the supplement in the first place, to get your blood concentration up.
I like the compartment theory of body organization. The various tissues and organs of the body can be considered to be separated into 17 different compartments, each surrounded by membranes. The one compartment that touches all the other compartments is the bloodstream. It carries raw materials to, and wastes from, all the other compartments (not considering lymph here), by passing adjacent to all the other compartment membranes. At the same point in time that the kidneys "see" all that riboflavin, etc., and start dumping it into urine (to create yellow river), the muscles and bones and CNS and liver and heart and so on are also seeing the opportunity to have those same nutrients pass across there own membranes, into that particular organ compartment. It is their only chance to do so, before the "stupid" kidneys let the water soluble vitamins leak away.
You need those artificial vitamin concentration peaks to make up for chronic deficiency. That is why Bill W. looked so closely at mega-B therapy. In fact, it is how I got looking at mega-vitamin therapy in the first place, as I came to understand how alcohol-abusers developed characteristic withdrawal symptoms, including depression. Really, the alcohol-withdrawal didn't create the depression, it allowed it to be seen, as chronic alcohol use had its effects long before withdrawal became part of the picture.....but I digress.
What would be wasteful would be to throw vitamin supplements directly in the toilet. Why bother with the intermediate step of the yellow river? No, the yellow river is proof that your tissues are having a shot at taking from the blood what they need. Acute treatment doses would be higher than maintenance doses would have to be, and I do appreciate the distinction you are making there, for maintenance dosing. However, it is impossible to even design a diet that supplies the RDA of necessary nutrients. I have argued that point a number of times before, and I can provide links if you wish. Moreover, the RDA is a level at which demonstrable deficiency effects are still observable (by definition), so even if it was possible to obtain the RDA from diet alone, you could still have deficiency symptoms.
I hope I have not rambled too long, or strayed too far from your thesis, but, I say, "Long live the yellow river."
Lar
Posted by Kalamatianos on January 1, 2004, at 10:54:36
In reply to Re: Straight stuff about B Vitamins (long), posted by linkadge on January 1, 2004, at 6:42:31
Your claim of poisoning is well taken. Picture this: the human body can assimilate a very tiny amount of potassium cyanide without causing death. Am I advocating that experiment? Absolutely not! B vitamins are things that keep us functioning and alive, but like anything else, there is a toxic threshold. I apologize for implying the opposite.
I will stand by what I meant to say and said so poorly, though. B vitamins are not usual poisons. Improper implementation of megadose this or megadose that, is ill advised. First get a liver function screen, especially if you like drinking that known poison, ethyl alcohol; booze.
The B vitamins by themselves are not poisons to the average normal active adult. Please reread my total article with the objective view that I am 4-square against single supplement megadoses. I am also an advocate of timed dosage, i.e. twice daily for most supplements, and hourly for eight hours with vitamin C megadosing.
Communication is something I work on hourly and your points, well taken, drive it home clearly to me that at times I'm not careful about what I say and write. I get away with rewrites for articles and manuscripts but continue to mess-up and struggle with interpersonals.
Posted by Kalamatianos on January 1, 2004, at 11:17:01
In reply to Re: Straight stuff about B Vitamins (long) » Kalamatianos, posted by Larry Hoover on January 1, 2004, at 10:27:51
Posted by linkadge on January 1, 2004, at 11:55:43
In reply to Au-contrar... Points well taken, indeed (nm) » Larry Hoover, posted by Kalamatianos on January 1, 2004, at 11:17:01
THe other things you mentioned are well taken. I should have looked more into the context of what you were saying.
Best of Luck
Linkadge
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Alternative | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.