For me, ICES PEMF works the best to permanently restore feeling in my big toe which became numb. Peripheral neuropathy runs in my family. It works way better than red/infrared light.
In my view, after the human genome was decoded, a good 10 years was spent by the functional medicine community chasing supplements for genes after recommending gene tests. Now, on average, the functional medicine community is getting wiser and realizing that was foolish. The good ones are focusing not on gene tests but on lab tests to understand how genes are expressing. Then they use this information and a multi-organ systems approach to finding and solving for the root cause. For the average human, gene expression is more important and low stress, clean air, clean food, clean water, good sleep, good activity, good gut health, good community, and meditation/prayer/etc go a long way to changing our gene expression.
Thank you so much for your extra info on L-lysine and NAC. I’ve got so much on my plate that I had not researched that properly. Son and in-laws were touting the miracle of glutathione. Now I can understand why the effects seemed to have slowed down - with cells getting inappropriate amounts.
Thank you for having this forum and sharing your knowledge so freely!
Too many people don’t think for themselves any more, including doctors, many of whom are just useful cogs in the giant pharmaceutical machine. They follow prescribed “protocols.” That’s it!
Thank you for your contribution!
For us, the info on the MTHFR gene helped us understand why my husband was getting blood clots in spite of a very healthy lifestyle. Right now (at age 83), blood tests for him show low homocysteine levels, which is not “normal” for heterozygous MTHFR persons. Our doctor, who takes a more wholistic approach said, “That’s because you supplement appropriately.”
@Bob Which Glycine brand/product and which NAC brand/product are you purchasing that has the quality and best price value given you are taking 10g glycine per day (how much NAC are you taking per day)? Also shocked that in my 6 years of diving deep in the functional / integrative health space, I have not come across references on the superiority of Glycine/NAC versus Glutathione until your post. Thanks for sharing this. Indeed upon searching pubmed, I see great research as you mentioned. Seems like this is under represented on top functional practitioners’ sites.
I agree. I think this is vastly under appreciated. I essentially take glycine as a food, not a supplement (kidding, but true). I tend to mix and match supplement brands among the good ones IMO, that way not much harm is done by a bad or deficient batch, so these will change from time-to-time. What I take right now is:
Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides Powder with Hyaluronic Acid and Vitamin C, Unflavored, 20 oz from Amazon:
I get this as a powder but I fill my own size 0 gel caps because I do not like to mix it with food. I take 7 or 8 grams per day as a capsule, but I am gradually ramping that amount up because I seem to tolerate it extremely well, and there is no indication that there are negative side effects. Excess GLY seems to be cleared very easily, but I doubt any of us really has an excess unless your diet is made up mostly of skin and tendons. About 1/3 of any collagen (usually skin) derived peptides will be glycine, but this amount is needed for collagen turnover, so to account for all other metabolic needs of GLY, I also take L-Glycine:
Nutricost L-Glycine 1000mg, 120 Capsules, Vegetarian, Non-GMO and Gluten Free
from Amazon:
I take 2 or 3 capsules (2-3 grams) of L-glycine three times per day: morning, noon, and night.
Another great benefit of GLY that I forgot to mention is that it counteracts the negative effects of too much methionine from meat protein (elevated homocysteine levels, depression, longevity concerns apparently, and others)
NAC:
For reasons I cannot fully explain, I like this one the best:
I got into the habit of taking this specific brand because when Amazon and others withdrew it during the pandemic SNAFU, it was still available at iHerb.com.
One reason I like it is that NOW provides it as a compressed solid tablet, not as a powder in a gel capsule, which I find preferable for NAC, as it makes it much more palatable, with much less of a sulfurous odor and taste. And I suspect it is also more chemically stable in this form for long-term storage, but I could be wrong,
I take two grams of NAC per day, one in the morning, one before bed, when also taking my L-GLY at those times.
I honestly think NAC and especially GLY are both serious deficiencies for people over 40, impacting both glutathione metabolism and collagen remodeling. I agree @TajD, I can’t believe that this is not more widely publicized in every health-related community. I stumbled across it in bits and pieces.
I think our need for glycine goes up as we age, while our ability to absorb it from food goes down, and since we eat less total bulk as we age, we also get less total in our diet. A triple bad-whammy. It may also be true that endogenous glycine production in the liver decreases with age, but this is apparently limited to 3 grams anyway, so it is definitely not enough by itself. The more I think about it, the more I feel like this should be the number one non-vitamin, non-micronutient recommendation for dietary supplementation as we age.
I am really glad that some people are finding this opinion to be helpful.
My mother and I are into alternative medicine, and when my dad and grandmother were alive, they both suffered swelling in lower legs and feet too. My mother gave them herbs which brought it down completely in just a few days. No compression socks, nothing, no food supplements, drugs or creams.
She combines notoginseng and salvia root to treat them. The combination is also good for cardiovascular disease which runs in both sides of my family. My grandmother had a heart attack at age 59, and when she was sent to the hospital, they also found she had an enlarged heart (in those days, that was pretty much a death sentence). She took western drugs the hospital prescribed for her for a week and then stopped taking them because of the side effects and started to take these two herbs instead.
Fast forward exactly 48 years later: she broke her hip trying to run with her walker on carpeting(!) Originally, the hospital didn’t want to do surgery on someone her age, but she was so healthy, they gave her partial anesthesia and went ahead with it. Before surgery they asked us if she had any heart issues, we told them about her heart attack and they immediately had her checked out and then came back to ask us if we were sure she had had a heart attack because her heart checked out as good as that of a 60 year-old! We completely attribute that to her taking the notoginseng and salvia all these years (once a month).
Notoginseng (aka pseudo ginseng or panax notoginseng) comes in a wide range of quality, but do not buy the flower or tea (that’s not effective). We buy the best in original unprocessed state, but I think you have limited sources in U.S. and can only access through Amazon. The best quality should have taken minimum five years to grow but many are just 3 years now. Best quality would be a dark brown (almost black). They often sell in capsule form and you would not be able to verify its quality. On the other hand, capsules would be much more convenient to take because you don’t have to prepare it through cooking, just take according to instructions as you would any food supplement. Apparently Amazon also sells the unprocessed form, but just looking at the pics, they look to be of inferior quality.
As for salvia, it’s also known by the Chinese name danshen root, sage root, or by its Latin name Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma. Both herbs should be taken together for best results. If you’re taking western prescriptions, you should take these at least one hour apart from other drugs to prevent interactions.
BTW my mother and I also dabble in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine). According to TCM, eczema is due to “dampness of the spleen,” which often peaks around spring and autumn. TCM suggests several herbs for that to make into a stew. Most people like it, me not so much, but it works. Not a cure, but usually, I take it only once and it lasts for the entire season.
Eczema is especially aggravated with spicy hot foods, but also avoid cantaloupes, honeydew melon, eggs, anything sour, and sweet, refined processed foods, at least until flare ups subside and then wait about a month afterwards to prevent further aggravation.
Other way to do this is to grow a shrub called rue. It’s a hardy annual shrub that puts out these small leaves. Pick a handful, cover with just enough water to boil and simmer for about 10 minutes and then apply the water directly on the affected skin. it gets rid of the eczema irritation almost immediately. Great on bruising and other skin inflammation as well. When cooked, it has a distinctive odour, a few people say it’s fragrant, but most of us find it stinky! However, when applied on, you won’t smell anything.
Bob, you shared the brands you used for NAC and L-lysine, and I’m really interested in what Lumbrokinase supplement you use. For our initial trial I used the Buluoke brand, because of the research they sponsored, but that’s really expensive. Wondering if other brands work as well.
I cycle between them and rotate through them. I do not have one favorite brand. But as a qualitative rule-of-thumb, if I use a fibrinolytic enzyme I will generally pay very close attention++ to the effects it has on me, in particular, if my hands and feet feel better perfused (slightly warmer, reduced swelling, better digit flexibility, better skin sensitivity and coloration), then that is a brand that I will continue to use.
++Note, the only solid, immutable, uniform advice that I give to every person in response to every question for all applications is this:
Individual responses vary Pay attention
That being said, I tend to find that the lumbrokinase sold by Mercola works for me. He and I talked about its potential uses and formulation before he began to offer it a few years ago, so I know something about the thinking that went into that product.
On an absolute scale, admittedly it’s probably not the best option, and I also use several others (generally the mid- to higher-priced ones available on amazon), but I usually rotate those with the Mercola brand. But this is only what works for me, with my biases and inevitable placebo effects.
For me my thinking about supplementation is very long-view, statistical, and risk-ratio based. My assumptions are:
1- Batches vary, single brands are not necessarily consistent.
2- Brands are subject to “quality fade”: reduced quality over time, thus newer brands/products will tend to start out with a quality advantage.
3- Inferior or otherwise flawed batches are more likely to be less effective, and less likely to cause direct harm (though there are rare exceptions to this).
Therefore:
When taking the long-term view of the benefits of supplements, I conclude the most effective approach is to use several different brands of at least good quality, not necessarily the best or optimal, rotating between them to achieve the averaged benefits of the better quality batches of each while minimizing the accumulation of negative effects and the avoidance of prolonged periods of the use of ineffective supplementation due to a single bad batch of an otherwise good product.
And I also do not hesitate to throw away a bottle of supplements if they seem a bit off for any reason. I recently tossed a bottle of NOW brand because one bottle had an unusual whiff of a cleaning solution IMO. Once I do that, I tend to avoid that brand.
But please understand, I have zero expertise in the area of nutritional supplementation. I am only trying to apply common sense and a bit of fact checking research and careful observation of my responses over time to the use of supplements for my own personal needs.
I just got into the habit of buying and tying a few different brands and cycling through them. For me its actually easier than grinding through the research to try to find the one mythical optimal best brand.
Hi people, purusing thiis topic (looking for something else: an alert setting for sleep diprivation) and this imight be just what I need. Supplements? I bought the C5 to use the pad under my thighs ,calves, etc for muscle spasims especially in my toes when I stretch during sleep, I pull back and they cramp. Only remedy is to stand on the cold tile bedroom floor. Once when napping, I put the Ml with large flat coils on top of my feet and had a restful sleep, however the calves cramped when I stood up - go figure!
A major cause of leg/foot/thigh night cramping is a magnesium deficiency especially in older folks. I have had the same type of cramping problems and found that when I forget to take my magnesium supplements (Magnesium glycinate and Magnesium L-Threonate ) the cramping returns. On those nights I take Hylands Leg Cramps homeopathic remedy. Three tabs dissolved under the tongue works for me and it works rather quickly (within a few minutes). When using magnesium supplements be aware that taking to much can cause diarrhea; I take magnesium glycinate and Magnesium L-Threonate to minimize that problem.
Thanks Guys! So kind of you to take the time to reply. I do take Magnesium Oxide, 300 mg, at night time and obviously not enough. I’m pretty careful about my water intake BUT if i slip up and forget - trouble. I’ve heard about Magnesium L-Threonate so I’ll give it a try. I’m also more attentive to my gut health which a kind person reminded here on this forum. BUT for security I always sleep with the large pad under my legs in bed and I have stuck the small M1 in my sock and wrapped my leg just to ensure i can relax and go back to sleep after a sever cramping episode. So again I must say I am very grateful to Bob for these different devices which have helped me in so many ways with my aging issues. Thanks Dr. Dennis, you are so appreciated!
here’s a good reference for the different forms of magnesium:
i prefer threonate for its bioavailability and ability to get past the blood brain barrier… but have also benefited from other forms such as glycinate… check it out if you haven’t read about the other forms of magnesium out there
Dear Bob, I saw your earlier comment in this string and I just want to say THANK YOU! Your products have been so helpful and I will continue to spread the word. You ARE making a difference and I know enough of us don’t tell you that.
Thanks for this magnesium link, good to know. I’m experimenting with L-Threonate and keeping my gut healthy. I’ve decided to consult a sleep specialist because my condition appears to be sleep apnea.