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Re: Homocysteine

Posted by Larry Hoover on April 4, 2003, at 18:55:51

In reply to Re: Homocysteine » Larry Hoover, posted by Ron Hill on April 4, 2003, at 17:37:07

> > The adenosine is recycled, freeing homocysteine. Here's where problems occur in depressives. Stress blocks the normal recycling of homocysteine to methionine. Homocysteine accumulates while SAMe is depleted. You could take SAMe, but that doesn't fix the homocysteine problem. In fact, it makes it worse.
>
> Larry,
>
> I hope we do not wear you out with our questions. Feel free to tell me to go away if it gets to be too much.

If it gets too much, *I'll* go away.

> As I mentioned to you previously, about a year ago I had five months of good results using 200 mg/day of SAM-e to treat the atypical depressive phase of my BP II disorder. But then, rather suddenly, it started to make me VERY irritable (GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!).
>
> I took plenty of B-6, B-12 (sublingual, bioactive), and folate in an attempt to prevent the build up of homocysteine. As I understand it, when the body has proper levels of folic acid, vitamins B6 and B12, the enzymatic break-down of homocysteine occur either through remethylation, which converts it into methionine, or through transsulfuration, which turns it into glutathione.

Quite correct, and your supplements were quite appropriate.

Two thoughts occur to me. Folic acid, the typical folate supplement, must pass through two enzymatic transformations before it is useful as a coenzyme. If you have a defect or inefficiency in one of those two steps, you may have been functionally deficient, even with routine intake. That's probably unlikely as an explanation, though, and I doubt it would take months to show itself.

The other possibility involves the whole concept of taking fully active exogenous substances, such as SAMe (or 5-HTP). In doing so, you bypass the normal regulatory processes which govern the concentration of these potent molecules. Perhaps, over five months, you gradually increased the concentration of one of the products of SAMe-dependent reactions because you kept taking it every day, and that product led to irritability. Your body will have a number of feedback inhibition signals which would have been activated by the increased product concentration; these would have been to no effect because the daily SAMe supply was independent of feedback control. My intuition lies with this latter explanation. Maybe you took too much/over too long a period of time.

> > Stress blocks the normal recycling of homocysteine to methionine.
>
> What stress related compound is the suspected culprit? Is it cortisol? In other words, does cortisol push the reaction equilibrium to the left?

No, stress depletes B-vitamins, and increases oxidative stress (leading to enhanced SAMe demand). You looked after that with your supplements.

> Do you think that elevated levels of homocysteine could cause irritability?

I've never heard of that connection before. I'll look into it further.

> Thanks Larry.
>
> -- Ron

Welcome.

Lar

 

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poster:Larry Hoover thread:215282
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030402/msgs/216302.html