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Updated on May 4, 2023
Article Summary
For individuals who don’t have a gastrointestinal disorder, gut health is rarely a priority. In fact, many fail to consider the wellbeing of their gastrointestinal system at all, particularly when it is overshadowed by the more ostensibly pressing concerns of supporting the health of their brain, heart, liver, and kidneys. However, the importance of gut health is difficult to overstate because it directly impacts the health of all other of the body’s organ systems.
Aside from causing unpleasant symptoms on its own, gut malfunction can contribute to nutritional imbalances or malnutrition that can subsequently weaken the body’s ability to defend against other problems and to maintain normal life functions. There is also mounting evidence that gut health is a significant component of brain health because of what is now known as the gut-brain axis, which has profound implications for neurological, psychological, and behavioral functioning. But even for individuals who take an active interest in gastrointestinal wellness, many remain at a loss for how to proactively support the health of their gut.
Although countless foods, nutritional supplements, beverages, and fitness routines claim to support the health of the gut, gastrointestinal symptoms and illnesses are ubiquitous, and many individuals are unsure of what will truly help them.
The basics of maintaining gut health are widely known. Modern medicine emphasizes a good diet that is rich in fiber, preventative care like endoscopies, and refraining from consuming substances known to be harmful. However, supporting the gut microbiome enables individuals to take gastrointestinal wellbeing one step further and work to better support their gut health rather than simply maintain it.
The gut microbiome is the collection of trillions of symbiotic and beneficial bacteria that help the gastrointestinal tract to process nutrients. When the gut has a healthy microbiome, the human tissues of the gut are usually quite healthy also; individuals with healthy microbiomes have a lower chance of intestinal leakage into the bloodstream, superior nutrient and water uptake, more regular bowel movements, and increased resistance to pathogens in food.
Researchers also suspect that individuals with a healthier microbiome experience less anxiety and depression because of the beneficial impact the gut microbiome can exert on the brain via the gut-brain axis. On the other hand, a deviant microbiome can be a hallmark of many serious pathologies, ranging from Crohn’s disease to autism spectrum disorder, resulting in a broad range of uncomfortable, disruptive, and even dangerous symptoms.
Increasingly, promoting a healthy microbiome is being regarded as an essential part of both therapeutic and preventative health care. While this is a new frontier in medicine, current evidence suggests the health of the microbiome is improved by consuming nutrients that help the body to better regulate the immune function of the gut.* Butyric acid is a critical component of this, giving the microbiome the fuel it needs to flourish.*
The Basics of Supporting The Microbiome
The gut microbiome plays a critical role in the processing of the food and fluids that enter the body. The effects of these processes are significant; for most individuals, their diet is a greater determinant of the content of the microbiome than their genetics. Daily consumption of foods preferred by particular inhabitants of the microbiome leads to a greater representation of those species of bacteria within the gut, while insufficient consumption of nutrients might detract from the health of some species more than others.
Eating large volumes of meat or cheese, for example, can induce bacteria that are known to cause colitis in immunocompromised individuals; whereas, consuming large volumes of vegetables can suppress the same bacteria and at the same time impair the extraction of nutrients from meat. Generally, beneficial bacteria flourish when a healthy diet is eaten, whereas poor nutrition or malnutrition leads to the proliferation of detrimental bacteria that can secrete pathogens.
Regular alcoholic beverage intake can adversely shape the microbiome, weakening the bacterial colonies at the highest points of the intestines, which are responsible for absorbing most of the body’s hydration. This can lead to mild dehydration further along the intestinal tract, adversely impacting gut motility, and increasing the likelihood of constipation and pain.
Consumption of prescription and over-the-counter medications can also have a profound adverse impact on bacterial populations. In particular, antibiotics are predictably devastating to the microbiome. Antibiotics are intended to eradicate bacteria, but the bacteria that need eradication overwhelmingly dwell outside of the gut. Unfortunately, oral antibiotic medications are not targeted, and treating an infected wound on the arm or leg results in blasting the patient’s entire system with an antibiotic, causing collateral damage to the microbiome. As a result, many individuals experience a range of uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms, including nausea and altered stool formation.
Other medications, like NSAIDs, can disrupt the microbiome via their detrimental effect on the intestinal lining. This is because bacterial colonies adhere the strongest to the intestinal lining because the lining secretes adequate amounts of mucous. When an NSAID, like ibuprofen, causes the cells of the intestines to reduce their rate of mucosal secretion, the bacteria there struggle to remain attached. Subsequently, the bacteria slip off the intestinal walls and are excreted with the feces, leaving the microbiome in disrepair. Given that most individuals will consume NSAIDs at many points in their life, the prevalence of unaddressed adverse microbiome issues is likely very high.
While taking a medication that will negatively affect the microbiome is necessary from time to time, helping the microbiome recover after the fact is not typically a priority for clinicians of their patients. Unfortunately, leaving the microbiome to recover on its own might result in the gastrointestinal tract being without one of its most important defenses against pathogens. Regardless of the cause, a heavily compromised microbiome can also lead to increased intestinal permeability, meaning that pathogens in the gastrointestinal tract might be able to escape and cause problems elsewhere in the body.
A weak gut microbiome can’t support the host by absorbing water and nutrients, nor can it keep the contents of the gut motile, which means that constipation, anemia, and pain can easily result. We aren’t defenseless, however: increasing the intake of dietary fiber or critical microbiome-regulating substances can help the gut microbiome recover far more quickly than other types of diets.
Dietary Fiber and Butyric Acid
The gut microbiome needs the nutrients from a healthy diet to make a positive contribution to the health of the gut, and fiber is the most critical dietary component as far as the gut microbiome is concerned. Fiber increases the rate of gastrointestinal transit and provides bulking volume to stools, greatly reducing the occurrence of constipation. More importantly, when the microbiome encounters fiber, its bacteria consume it and secrete substances that the cells of the gastrointestinal tract use as energy. The most important of these substances is butyric acid.
Butyric acid is the energy source that intestinal cells prefer over others, accounting for up to 70 percent of the energy produced by the cells of the gut, and butyric acid is critical for both maintaining and rebuilding gut health. When the microbiome is wiped out by antibiotic use, for example, consuming an exogenous source of butyric acid has been shown to restore the microbiome to health in mice.*
Although this effect is difficult to test in humans, researchers believe that butyric acid might be helpful in restoring normalcy to a microbiome that has been altered by external factors.* Furthermore, butyric acid benefits microbiome health regardless of whether the microbiome has been recently damaged.* The reason is that butyric acid acts as a chemical signaling molecule that tells the immune function of the gastrointestinal tract that all is well. When the immune cells in the gut encounter molecules of butyric acid, they become less likely to cause inflammation and less likely to recruit other immune cells to generate inflammation.* This means that consuming fiber indirectly leads to a gut that maintains a healthy inflammatory response in the absence of threats to the immune system.*
Maintaining a healthy inflammatory response in the gut is important to maintaining gut health in the long term, as well as preserving health elsewhere in the body.* An imbalanced inflammatory response reduces the efficiency of nutrient uptake.*
Additionally, an out-of-balance inflammatory response in the gut directly stimulates the gut-brain axis, which subsequently sends signals of discomfort to the brain. Signals of discomfort reaching the brain from the gut can contribute to anxiousness and stress.* With a normal level of inflammatory response in the gut, the gut-brain axis is only stimulated when there is genuinely a pressing issue that the brain needs to address, such as excretion.*
Preserving Gut Health Long-Term
Keeping the gut in good condition is easier when the gut has the tools it needs to face threats vigorously. Independent of promoting the health of the microbiome, butyric acid can also help gastrointestinal cells to protect the body against harmful substances by increasing the metabolic rate of gastrointestinal cells.* In a recent study, researchers exposed colon cells to butyric acid, finding that the cells exhibited 10-percent higher concentrations of cellular energy molecules than non-exposed cells.*
This is critical in the context of the colon, because colon cells require high volumes of energy to efficiently move fecal matter into the rectum.* The effect was even larger when cells first had a mild toxin derived from a noxious bacteria applied; in the cells that were assisted with both the bacterial toxin and butyric acid, concentrations of cellular energy molecules were 20 percent higher than in healthy control cells that had not been exposed to butyric acid or the toxin. Cells that were assisted with the toxin alone exhibited six percent fewer energy molecules.
While concentrations of cellular energy molecules are not a perfect predictor of cellular health, increased energy production in the face of a stressor like a bacterial toxin indicates a beneficial and adaptive response.* Likewise, reduced energy production indicates serious problems are afoot.
Rather than becoming inhibited by the presence of the toxin, the cells that had extra butyric acid were able to step up their metabolic rate to respond to the toxin while maintaining their normal rate of activity—the best possible response to a harmful substance.* This means that promoting butyric acid production in the microbiome will help the cells of the gastrointestinal tract weather a suboptimal diet and other potentially damaging chronic impacts.*
Raising Butyric Acid Concentrations in the Gut Is Key to Improving Health*
Most individuals can promote the production and proper distribution of butyric acid in their gastrointestinal tract by consuming dietary fiber from foods like lentils or oat bran, drinking enough water, refraining from alcohol, and limiting their intake of microbiome-disrupting pharmaceuticals to the minimum necessary to preserve health. Especially for individuals who experience chronic gut health issues, working with their microbiome to increase butyric acid production can be extremely beneficial to their long-term gastrointestinal health.*
However, not every individual can tolerate the volume of fiber that might be necessary to produce the quantities butyric acid necessary to optimally regulate their microbiome and intestinal cells. Excessive fiber intake can lead to painful bowel movements, and increasing fiber intake often requires a habituation period before it becomes comfortable.
Although some individuals turn to an encapsulated fiber supplement to carefully control the quantity of their fiber intake, these supplements are rarely as effective as fiber derived from plant matter because their molecular structure becomes too degraded by stomach acid. Additionally, some medical conditions are associated with depressed butyric acid concentrations that might be difficult to address with increased fiber intake alone, regardless of fiber source.
For an individual who has special dietary needs or a complex medical condition, or is intolerant of consuming a high volume of fiber, or who simply wants an easy way to increase their butyric acid level, a butyric acid supplement can be a better option. However, not all butyric acid supplements are alike and it’s essential to select a product that has been formulated to optimize butyric acid’s bioavailability and localize it in the area of the gut that needs support, allowing the individual to directly augment their gut’s level of butyric acid.* As a result of a sophisticated new nutrient delivery system, butyric acid can now be introduced to the gut and bolster its health with ease, allowing individuals to take control of their gut health every day.*
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your gastrointestinal health.*
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Yan H, Ajuwon KM. 2017. Plos One.
Updated on April 13, 2023
Article Summary
Every time someone eats a hamburger, there’s a risk they’re exposing themselves to a substance that might cause or exacerbate autism—so major food companies, like McDonald’s, are scrambling to pull it from their products. The substance is calcium propionate, and a growing body of scientific literature suggests that limiting exposure to it is critical to protecting health.
Calcium propionate is widely used in the food industry as an edible preservative and antifungal agent; products such as fruit, packed meat, cheese, and bread are routinely sprayed with heavily diluted calcium propionate to prevent mold from taking root and causing spoilage. And while it is effective in its antifungal role, research suggests that calcium propionate might contribute to the development and exacerbation of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) due to its adverse impact on the gut microbiome.
Because of the suspected relationship between calcium propionate and autism, many consumers are now avoiding products that contain the preservative, and food producers are reformulating their offerings in response to this changing demand. However, simply limiting intake of calcium propionate might not be sufficient to restore gut health and prevent damage. Instead, individuals seeking to minimize or eliminate calcium propionate exposure should simultaneously support the body’s natural gastrointestinal defenses through butyric acid supplementation.*
Although many consumers are vigilant in avoiding artificial ingredients at odds with our natural physiological processes, calcium propionate might not initially elicit the same level of caution. This is because calcium propionate—while lab-created—is modeled after a chemical called propionic acid, which is naturally produced by the bacteria of the gut microbiome when the digestive system breaks down fiber. Calcium propionate, a solid form of propionic acid, was therefore long believed to be compatible with human physiology.
In the body, propionic acid is not used primarily for its antifungal properties. Instead, it is a precursor to other biological chemicals like succinyl-CoA, which cells use to break down stored energy and prepare it for immediate use. The rate of propionic acid metabolism is affected by a plethora of genetic, microbiotic, and environmental factors, and the majority of people have more than enough of it to support their bodily processes. However, having an overabundance of propionic acid might be a problem—especially for individuals with ASD.
In the laboratory, researchers have found that infusions of propionic acid into the brain tissue of mice cause the mice to develop behavioral symptoms that are consistent with autism spectrum disorder. These behavioral symptoms include reduced propensity to socialize, repetitive motions, abnormal interest in food objects, and perseveration of ineffective actions. Increasing the dose of propionic acid increases the intensity of these symptoms, meaning that additional consumption of propionic acid might do the same to individuals who have ASD.
Individuals with ASD are prone to having excess propionic acid due to ASD-related microbiome abnormalities and highly restricted diets, making them uniquely vulnerable to further damage. However, healthy people might also be affected; while they might not become debilitated by excess exposure to propionic acid, such exposure might cause mild ASD-like symptoms they would not experience otherwise.
These symptoms might not be easy to detect and they should dissipate quickly as propionic acid is cleared from the body. However, lasting damage might be occurring as a result of the substance’s impact on the microbiome and the brain.
The gut is the site of most propionic acid synthesis because it is where bacterial colonies of the microbiome consume dietary fiber and secrete propionic acid or other similar substances. Under ideal conditions, the many different species of bacteria that comprise the gut microbiome have population sizes within a narrow range of proportions; having a disproportionate amount of one species of bacteria might be harmful and lead to starvation of another species. Additionally, having too many of one species might lead to excessive production of the substance that the species contributes when digesting fiber.
Deviations in the proportion of species can occur for various different reasons, one of which is higher consumption of external nutrients that favor certain bacteria over others. When detrimental bacteria are favored, the immune system responds with an increased inflammatory response in an effort to remove them. However, an over-stimulated inflammatory response can contribute to the gastrointestinal problems associated with ASD, while also harming beneficial gut microbiota. Furthermore, an over-stimulated inflammatory response caused by the immune system can over-stimulate the gut-brain axis, which can in turn cause behavioral and psychological disturbances, such as the acute anxiousness observed in ASD.
Excess propionic acid can cause significant disruptions of the microbiome because propionic acid signals the gut’s immune system to activate an inflammatory response. This response can subsequently harm beneficial bacteria that secrete butyric acid—a highly versatile short-chain fatty acid with multiple critical functions—more than it harms the bacteria secreting propionic acid. Under normal conditions, the inflammatory response resolves itself.
However, in individuals with ASD, the conditions of the gut are more variable and require special control. As such, bacteria responsible for producing butyric acid are suppressed, while the bacteria that produce propionic acid become widespread. This can cause a further exacerbation of the individual’s gastrointestinal symptoms because butyric acid is responsible for signaling the immune system to down-regulate the inflammatory response in the gut.*
Furthermore, the non-immune systems of the gut can’t function effectively because they’re forced to use propionic acid, which is an inferior energy source that cells can’t process as efficiently as butyric acid. Propionic acid subsequently accumulates in the gut and elsewhere, inducing an ever greater inflammatory response and further aggravating ASD symptoms.
In addition to increasing the severity of ASD symptoms, propionic acid might also have a causative relationship with the development of the disorder due to its direct neurological impact. Both propionic acid and butyric acid readily cross the blood-brain barrier and are used by neurons as an energy source, with especially heavy usage occurring during early fetal development. Due to the acute sensitivity of the brain at this time, researchers believe that excess propionic acid exposure in early pregnancy might be one of the factors that contribute to the development of ASD.
This means that pregnant women should avoid consuming foods that are known to be treated with calcium propionate. If consuming them is necessary, then an acceptable alternative is to wash the foods to remove as much of the chemical as possible. And although there are no studies documenting newborns or infants acquiring ASD as a result of propionic acid exposure, excess exposure might cause invisible damage nonetheless.
In the brain, propionic acid is a second-class energy source, just as it is in the gastrointestinal tract. Concentrations of propionic acid can thus grow, eventually causing the cellular dysfunction associated with ASD symptoms.
Rising public awareness about the link between calcium propionate and autism is already causing consumers to change their habits and spurring the food industry to choose safer anti-fungal alternatives, reducing the aggregate level of exposure. Although removing dietary sources of propionic acid is essential to optimizing health and can help manage ASD symptoms, fortifying gut health and repairing the microbiomes of individuals who have experienced profound deviations in pH requires outside help.
One of the most promising ways to support gut health is via butyric acid supplementation.* Of particular note are advanced formulations, such as AuRx from Tesseract Medical Research, which is specifically designed to restore the microbiome of individuals with ASD and can possibly create a more beneficial level of symptom remission than removing dietary calcium propionate intake alone.*
Critically, supplemental butyric acid provides the cells of the gut and the brain with their preferred energy source, potentially down-regulating the inflammatory response, easing gastrointestinal distress, and supporting healthy neurological function.* As a result, the user’s microbiome can take time to recover without prolonged exacerbation of ASD symptoms.* And while extant propionic acid might remain in the user’s gastrointestinal tract, providing these cells with butyric acid via supplementation can give them sufficient additional energy to clear the excess propionic acid without leaving the individual to suffer in the meantime.*
Thanks to the innovative repurposing of butyric acid as a therapy, individuals with ASD now have an invaluable resource to help them recover from destabilizing factors like calcium propionate.* Additionally, by promoting the balanced growth of microbiota, the gut is better able to cope with future deviations of pH that might result from diet.* Strategically integrating a high-quality butyric acid supplement might thus be a critical component of ongoing ASD management.*
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in the proprietary science of proven nutrients and unrivaled smart delivery, making them the most effective for supporting gastrointestinal health and neurological health.*
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Updated on May 4, 2023
Article Summary
“Take with food.”
“Take on an empty stomach.”
Most individuals have likely encountered these instructions at some point when using nutritional supplements. Many assume such directives are aimed at preventing gastrointestinal discomfort, and sometimes that is true.
Often, however, they are designed to optimize bioavailability, a critical function that can ultimately determine the success or failure of a supplement’s indication of use. This is because bioavailability dictates how much of a nutrient can interact with an individual’s physiology. High bioavailability results in a more powerful and more immediate physiological response.
Poor bioavailability, on the other hand, means larger amounts of the active ingredient is needed to experience the intended effect, increasing the risk of gastrointestinal irritation, as well as potentially causing a heavier load on the liver and generating more side effects. In some cases, the body will not absorb or make use of the nutrient at all, regardless of the amount taken.
While individuals can maximize the bioavailability of a nutritional supplement by adhering to its instructions, there is a limit to how much user compliance can impact the efficacy of the supplement’s active ingredients. Indeed, the bioavailability of most nutrients are affected by a plethora of factors, including the make-up of the encapsulant and the physical properties of the nutrient itself. Surprisingly, many nutritional supplements are manufactured using suboptimal formulations that fail to enhance both the absorption and the bioavailability of the product, diminishing the possibility of symptom management or maintenance of healthy function.
Additionally, some nutrients have such significant absorption and bioavailability challenges that it has not been possible to harness their therapeutic potential in meaningful ways using conventional formulations. But new technologies, such as cyclodextrin-based delivery systems, are paving the way for improved therapeutic efficacy and giving individuals a better opportunity to manage their health and wellness.
Ubiquitous Supplement Formulations Might Be Poorly Bioavailable
One of the primary determinants of a supplement’s bioavailability is the nature of the delivery mechanism embedded within the product. Unfortunately, the most popular delivery vehicles in the industry—mineral salts—might actually impede bioavailability. As such, an extraordinary number of supplements are unable to provide individuals with the best possible results.
Mineral salts are the most commonly used delivery vehicle because they tend to be palatable, easy to press into tablet format, and readily mix with the substances necessary for fat-solubility. Mineral salts, however, can prevent the active ingredients from being immediately dissolved and exposed to mucosal surfaces unintentionally. In mineral salt-based systems, an active ingredient is complexed with a powdered mineral like magnesium, which is flavorless, edible, and carries no significant health risks. However, some individuals struggle with swallowing powdery tablets.
More importantly, without additional ingredients, powdery tablets can become caked onto internal surfaces after ingestion, substantially delaying their absorption and causing irritation. To avoid this, manufacturers might add a chemical like stearic acid, which causes a tabletted supplement to become slippery, rather than sticky, when exposed to saliva or stomach acids and allows for the active ingredient to become suspended in fat particles. This supports user comfort and the ability of the active ingredients to cross through cell membranes.
Due to its low cost and high tolerability, the combination of magnesium and stearic acid has seen widespread use as the active ingredient carrier in nutritional supplements for more than 40 years. In fact, this practice is so common that it is referenced on ingredient lists as a single compound: magnesium stearate. However, magnesium stearate is problematic when it comes to bioavailability, because the molecular mechanics of stearates do not always lend themselves to efficient delivery.
Al Czap, CEO of Tesseract Medical Research and a pioneer in nutritional supplement formulation, was one of the earliest objectors to the use of magnesium stearate in manufacturing nutritional supplements precisely because of its unpredictable impact on bioavailability. “The more jagged the edges of the active ingredients are, the more they will shear the magnesium stearate, making a little Hershey’s kiss—and the active ingredient will have a shell of the stearate around it,” Czap explains. Significantly, the contents of each shell are not necessarily uniform; isolated active ingredients might be heavily obscured by a massive stearate shell, while other shells might contain large clumps of the supplement’s active ingredient.
When ingested, small clumps are absorbed and metabolized much faster than larger clumps, potentially leading to drastically delayed bioactivity and therefore unpredictable performance. Worse yet, the individual user might experience dips and peaks of the active ingredient’s concentration in their blood depending on how it has been metabolized. Additionally, magnesium stearate can trigger allergic reactions in rare instances, leading to tissue inflammation and breathing difficulties.
Despite such complications, many supplement manufacturers continue to include magnesium stearate and other similar additives to their supplements to provide physical bulk to their tablets. But similar to magnesium stearate, many of these manufacturing aids can impede nutrient efficacy and even cause adverse health effects. “They add hydrogenated oil, calcium phosphate, and magnesium stearate—which turns the product into a rock,” Czap explains.
Additionally, “patients who are environmentally sensitive can’t tolerate them.” In response to these concerns, Czap and other forward-thinking industry leaders have eliminated magnesium stearate and bulking manufacturing aids from their products, relying on safer and more functional alternatives, such as cellulose capsules and non-magnesium mineral salts. But the move away from magnesium stearate isn’t universal. “In the supplement industry, using magnesium stearate leaves you as a pariah,” Czap says. The pharmaceutical industry, on the other hand, has lagged behind in this transition toward better delivery mechanisms. “The pharmaceutical companies believe they can’t be wrong regarding magnesium stearate, but they are wrong.”
Malfunctional delivery systems aren’t the only factor to consider in making highly bioavailable products, however. Although capsules and non-magnesium mineral salts can work around palatability issues and provide a product with a measure of durability in the oral cavity and esophagus, they can’t improve bioavailability in and of themselves, and another delivery mechanism might still be needed to allow the active ingredient to enter the user’s bloodstream. Even for delivery systems that don’t sequester their active ingredient in shells of mineral salts, ensuring the solubility of the active ingredient such that it can enter the bloodstream can also present a challenge.
The Challenges of Solubility
For a nutritional supplement to be biologically active, it needs to be soluble in the fluids of the body to the point where the molecules of the active ingredient are dissociated from the inactive components, absorbed into the bloodstream after digestion, and metabolized by the liver. As Czap explains, “If a product isn’t soluble, then it gets broken down into its native components, which then sit around in the digestive tract until they’re excreted. In the absorption of things, it’s all about solubility.” However, the specific type of solubility matters.
For a variety of reasons, water-soluble nutrients are often particularly difficult to make bioavailable. Due to the high water content of body fluids, water-soluble nutrients can become extremely dilute very quickly, diminishing the probability of the nutrient accumulating at the specific tissues where it is needed. This is exacerbated by the fact that water-soluble nutrients are easy for the body to excrete. Many supplement manufacturers increase the amount of active ingredients to compensate for dilution and rapid excretion.
Unfortunately, this isn’t an ideal solution because it can place a heavier load on the liver, as well as have side effects, like stomach pain or kidney stress, caused by a higher burden of excreting the metabolized nutrient. Furthermore, dilution of water-soluble nutrients in bodily fluids can lead to interactions with other water-soluble physiological molecules, which could prevent the body from using them in some cases. Water-soluble nutrients are also more prone to exhibiting off-target effects; for example, even if a nutrient is intended to only operate on cardiac tissue, it might affect other tissues after it is dissolved in the bloodstream. These off-target effects are well-known for generating a plethora of undesirable side effects.
For most active ingredients in their supplements, manufacturers aim for fat-solubility to avoid the issues attendant to water-solubility and because fat-soluble nutrients can more easily cross cell membranes. But in some cases, fat-solubility alone doesn’t guarantee that the body will be able to utilize the nutrient. According to Czap, “If a nutrient is fat-soluble, then you have to find a way to make it attractive to the body.” Czap is referring to the efficiency of cellular uptake of fat molecules; if the fat molecules are cumbersome or inefficient for cells to internalize, then the active ingredient contained within the fat bubble will be absorbed at a slower rate and in a smaller quantity.
Thus, while fat-soluble nutrients are easier for the body to work with, there is still a strong incentive to create additional measures to improve bioavailability and address the issues which some fat-soluble nutrients might exhibit.
High Bioavailability Technology Opens New Frontiers
Generating a high bioavailability supplement often requires an advanced delivery system that goes beyond traditional formulations. In recent years, the development of delivery systems has been buoyed by breakthroughs in nanomachinery and nanotechnology, which have opened up new possibilities for optimizing therapeutic capabilities and benefits.
Czap’s approach to formulation has been profoundly shaped by these technologies, particularly when it comes to their potential for highly accurate, targeted, and distant delivery. “The question is, can we put these active ingredients in their own little ships so they can be utilized somewhere different where you take them out of the ship?” he asks. The answer is “yes”; Czap has already operationalized advanced techniques to provide stunning bioavailability and targeting.
For Czap, one of the most exciting advances in nutrient delivery is a substance called cyclodextrin, which allows for extraordinary precision of therapeutic action. Cyclodextrin is a group of molecules attached together in the shape of a ring, and it can be used as fiber in the body, which means it can be pressed into tablets or capsules either alone or alongside traditional fillers like the mineral salts. Importantly, cyclodextrin can be complexed with other structures made of cyclodextrin to form larger constructions.
Although researchers first discovered cyclodextrin’s unique chemical properties as early as 1891, turning it into a delivery mechanism required nearly 100 years of advancements in theory, experimental methods, and molecular engineering. In a cyclodextrin-based delivery system, therapeutic nutrients are encapsulated inside a large cyclodextrin structure. Because researchers can control the shape of the cyclodextrin structure that carries the active ingredient, they can make the structure into a shape much like the inside of a padlock.
Like a padlock, the cyclodextrin structure only opens to release the substance inside when it encounters the corresponding “key”—the cellular feature that is the intended target of the therapeutic effect. As such, only the intended target is exposed to the active ingredient, leading to a highly bioavailable therapeutic with superior efficacy, minimal side effects, and tunable duration.
With advances like cyclodextrin, even nutrients that previously presented operational challenges due to poor bioavailability or poor ability to localize to the correct physiological structure can now be used to support multiple structures and functions in the body. For example, chemicals like butyric acid can be complexed with cyclodextrin to achieve high bioavailability and harness butyric acid’s therapeutic potential as a supplement. In the body, butyric acid is a cellular energy source that is produced naturally in the gastrointestinal tract. Because it is an energy source, any butyric acid consumed for the purpose of therapeutic intent is instead rapidly consumed by whichever cells of the gastrointestinal tract encounter the butyric acid first.
Furthermore, butyric acid can affect a plethora of different types of cells in ways that individual users might not need. Historically, these factors have made butyric acid an inaccessible therapeutic nutrient, preventing individuals from experiencing its beneficial immunomodulatory effects.* Fortunately, butyric acid’s unique bioavailability issues can be resolved via cyclodextrin because the cyclodextrin prevents it from being utilized by cells other than the intended targets; i.e., until the butyric acid complexed with cyclodextrin arrives at the correct cell type in the correct tissue of the gastrointestinal tract, it remains locked inside. The molecular motif on the intended target tissue releases the butyric acid, passing it directly to the correct cell for maximum therapeutic benefit.
Additionally, the selectivity of cyclodextrin-encapsulated therapeutics means that nutrients that have historically had too many off-target effects to be therapeutically tolerable can now be used to support and promote health and wellness. Bioactive nutrients can also be delivered in smaller amounts because clinicians can expect fewer of the nutrient particles to be wasted on incorrect targets.
It is important to note that cyclodextrin doesn’t immediately solve major barriers to bioavailability, like solubility. However, the nutrients encapsulated in cyclodextrin are typically fat-soluble, which allows them to permeate cell membranes after they are delivered at their intended destination. This “doorstep delivery” massively increases the efficiency of these nutrients by reducing the chance that they will drift away from their intended target.
In contrast, water-soluble nutrients don’t form complexes with cyclodextrin as easily as fat-soluble nutrients do; instead of sitting neatly within the cyclodextrin’s structure like fat-soluble nutrients, water-soluble nutrients are repelled by molecular forces when they approach the cyclodextrin. Nonetheless, most water-soluble nutrients can still be complexed in cyclodextrin with enough effort, a capability that researchers are continuing to refine.
Ongoing research will continue to develop the potential of cyclodextrin, further honing specificity toward therapeutic targets, while exploring ways of tuning the duration of the therapeutic nutrients disbursed by the cyclodextrin. However, cutting-edge manufacturers like Tesseract Medical Research are already introducing cyclodextrin-based delivery systems and other bioavailability-enhancing features. With these new formulations, individuals can benefit from more—and better—therapeutic options available in nutritional supplement form than ever before.
Tesseract Medical Research offers insights on the leading research related to both gastrointestinal and neurological disorders.
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Updated on April 13, 2023
Article Summary
Cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are both rising stars in the medical community as researchers uncover increasing evidence of their efficacy and the legal barriers to their use are dismantled. However, many individuals are unclear about the differences between the two substances.
This is understandable, given their close relationship; both CBD and THC are produced by the cannabis sativa and cannabis indica ferns and activate the cannabinoid receptor system, leading to partially overlapping mechanisms of action. However, the two substances have significant differences that inform both application and tolerability. For individuals who are interested in integrating cannabinoids in their treatment plans, understanding these differences is essential for optimizing therapeutic benefits while minimizing risk.
THC can produce a broad range of physiological and psychological effects, including euphoria, anxiolysis, calming of the stomach, hunger, divergent thinking, altered perceptions, and analgesia. Although several of these effects primarily drive recreational use, others offer significant therapeutic value for individuals experiencing health conditions like chronic pain, anxiety, anorexia, nausea, and depression.
This has led to widespread use of THC in not only the treatment of specific disorders and illnesses, but also in palliative care and to manage the side effects of chemotherapy. THC has also been found to lower intraocular pressure in individuals who have glaucoma, but the short duration of this effect and subsequent need for frequent redosing precludes it from being a viable treatment option for most.
Although THC is commonly consumed via inhalation of combusted cannabis, many users—particularly therapeutic users—choose to consume THC via oils, food products, or vaporized liquid. The method of administration is a critical determinant of user experience because it informs both the rate of absorption and the duration of action.
When consumed orally, THC can take as long as 1.5 hours to be absorbed, whereas onset can occur within seconds or minutes when it’s inhaled. Likewise, inhaled THC can remain active as quickly as 45 minutes or as long as a few hours, while consuming THC orally can lead to up to eight hours of therapeutic or recreational effects. Methods of administration can also create qualitatively different experiences, with many individuals reporting more intense reactions—both positive and negative—to edibles and oils than to inhaled products.
It is important to note that THC therapeutics rarely contain only THC, but include CBD and other cannabinoids as well. The ratio of THC and other cannabinoids can drastically alter the individual’s experience of relief or of side effects. This is a critical area for individuals to consider, because the side effects of THC can be significant, including suppression of executive functions, restlessness, fatigue, anxiety, mood disturbances, paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations. In some cases, avoiding side effects is simply a matter of finding the right formulation. However, some individuals cannot tolerate any meaningful amount of THC due to unpleasant reactions.
Some populations are particularly vulnerable to negative and even dangerous effects. Consistent THC consumption in adolescence has been found to have detrimental impacts on the developing brain, and even isolated use might trigger the onset of psychosis in predisposed individuals.
Likewise, individuals with mental health disorders—including depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia—might experience aggravation of symptoms from both short and long-term use. Meanwhile, individuals with executive functioning disorders like ADHD might find their symptoms appear to improve during therapy, only to significantly worsen after cessation.
Additionally, while THC is often heralded as a safer alternative to opioid painkillers, recent research suggests that, unlike CBD, THC might increase relapse risk in individuals with existing opioid addictions. This is because THC weakly increases the sensitivity of the body’s sigma and mu-opioid receptors, a property that it shares with opiate-class drugs. Increasing the sensitivity of the receptors causes them to have a larger physiological effect if they are subsequently activated, enhancing the euphoria, analgesia, anxiolysis, and sedation caused by opioids.
In other words, THC potentiates opiate-class drugs. At the same time, this potentiating ability presents possibilities for safer opioid administration in some individuals, because THC can be co-administered with opiates to keep absolute dosages of the opiate medications low. Furthermore, THC might minimize withdrawal symptoms in long-term opioid users who are decreasing or eliminating opioid use.
A more pressing concern for many is the addictive potential of THC. Although it does not carry the risk of physical dependence, some users—including those who initially used THC therapeutically—lose control of their consumption and continue to use it despite negative consequences. Additionally, the psychoactive effects of THC can cause both long-term and short-term cognitive disturbances and behavioral changes that interfere with everyday function and potentially damage emotional, physical, social, and professional well-being.
So what is the difference between CBD and THC?
Although CBD shares its origin with THC and has a broad spectrum of therapeutic applications, it does not have recreational value or addictive potential. Significantly, while CBD targets many of the same endocannabinoid pathways as THC, it does not cause euphoria, disordered thinking, psychosis, or intoxication. Because CBD lacks these effects, many individuals find it to better fit their lifestyle and therapeutic needs compared to THC-based therapeutics. And although CBD-based therapeutics also contain a very small amount of THC, that THC is typically leftover from the CBD’s source and is rarely present in detectable concentrations.
Given the current evidence, CBD’s safety profile is largely superior to THC’s, and it causes only minor side effects, like somnolence and fatigue, and only with comparatively large doses. As such, CBD is preferred by many individuals because it is more suitable for long-term and frequent use, it does not typically interfere with functionality, and it does not carry significant risks for any particular population. Additionally, CBD has a number of beneficial applications that go beyond those of THC.
CBD is an effective analgesic when used in conjunction with THC, but it can also be used alone for both acute and chronic pain. Interestingly, CBD has been found to assist in keeping pain from spreading from its originating location, a feature particularly vital for individuals with neuropathic and/or arthritic pain. Additionally, CBD might lead to a weaker interaction between pain and mood, allowing individuals to tolerate the pain with less distress.
This capability is likely linked to the ability of CBD to manage anxiety. Notably, CBD is far more predictable in its anxiolytic effects than THC, which can sometimes cause individuals to become paradoxically anxious. CBD’s rate of paradoxical reactions is much lower, making it a safer option for many.
Research indicates that CBD might be particularly effective in managing conditioned anxiety, such as in complex psychological trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). More specifically, research suggests CBD might help individuals diminish and better cope with traumatic memories and triggers.
In one experiment, mice were administered a mild shock in conjunction with a common environmental noise they would not find frightening. After several rounds of the shock being paired with the noise, the mice exhibited a fearful response when they heard the noise, even when there was no shock. Next, researchers administered CBD to a group of the mice and played the noise again. Fifty percent of the CBD group exhibited the fear response when they heard the noise, in contrast to 80 percent of the control group. Impressively, the researchers then demonstrated that CBD enabled the mice to disassociate the memory of being shocked with the noise more rapidly; with repeated exposure to the noise without any concomitant shock, the mice in the treatment group exhibited 10 percent fewer fear responses after each time they heard the noise.
This extinguishing response is doubtlessly a result of CBD’s ability to affect neuronal energy utilization, a feature that researchers link to its potential as an antiepileptic. According to a 2018 meta-analysis of 36 studies on the use of CBD in the treatment of epilepsy, more than 44 percent of participants were capable of reducing their frequency of seizures by 50 percent or more with CBD therapy. Furthermore, 8.5 percent of participants were able to become seizure-free using CBD therapy in isolation, and 55.8 percent of participants experienced an improved quality of life on CBD treatment, meaning its utility as an antiepileptic is superior to other drugs indicated for treatment-resistant epilepsy. Participants whose epilepsy resulted from Dravet syndrome appeared to benefit even more, with 89.3 percent reporting positive impacts on appetite, mood, and sleep quality. These results were preserved among the studies examined by the meta-analysis, meaning the case for using CBD to manage epilepsy is very strong.
Significantly, while CBD, like THC, might reduce reliance on opioid painkillers, it might also be safer for individuals currently addicted to opioids. In fact, CBD could be used as an aid to addiction treatment; CBD causes a different sensitization response of the opioid receptors, indicating it would be a more useful tool in helping individuals lower their dose of opiates. CBD might also address drug-seeking behavior and cravings, and it could be effective in assisting with the discomfort of withdrawal from alcohol and opioids.
Importantly, CBD’s ability to affect cravings indicates it can have a beneficial effect on the brain’s dopamine system, a property that has led researchers to hypothesize it might be helpful for disorders like schizophrenia. This stands in sharp contrast to THC, which is associated with earlier onset of schizophrenia and greater severity of symptoms.
CBD is typically consumed as a capsule, an oral spray, a liquid, or within a food product. Most manufacturers of high-quality CBD therapeutics, like Charlotte’s Web, offer CBD in oil format because it is easy to dose and provides a reliable 8-hour duration per dose. This long-lasting effect is critical for many individuals who use CBD to manage the symptoms of chronic disorders, such as epilepsy.
Although CBD appears to be the more clinically promising cannabinoid compared to THC for many conditions, many questions remain regarding their separate or simultaneous usage. The majority of the available evidence suggests that CBD is safe for children, but in-depth investigations have not yet been performed.
THC, in comparison, has no recognized medical use for children and there is evidence that exposure negatively impacts the developing brain, particularly long-term exposure. Furthermore, researchers have yet to characterize the residual social stigma that cannabinoid therapeutics are likely to face in less progressive regions. Importantly, this social stigma is worsened by criminalization of therapeutic THC in some areas. CBD, on the other hand, does not suffer from the same legal implications.
As our understanding of medicinal cannabinoid use grows, the medical community will undoubtedly expand and refine the therapeutic roles of CBD and THC. In the meantime, however, there is undeniable evidence of efficacy for a number of health conditions. Individuals who want to take advantage of these therapies should speak with their medical providers to formulate an appropriate treatment plan and seek out high-quality therapeutics to optimize outcomes.
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your neurological health.*
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Updated on April 13, 2023
Article Summary
Even when taking medication, individuals suffering from Crohn’s disease shoulder a heavy burden of symptoms and side effects that can significantly reduce their quality of life. In addition to the physically uncomfortable symptoms associated with Crohn’s, individuals often experience self-consciousness, anxiousness, and even depression as they struggle to cope with the disease’s impact.
Additionally, the Crohn’s disease medication individuals take to control flare-ups or maintain remission can have profound physiological and emotional consequences and, in many cases, set individuals on a collision course with even more severe side effects after long periods of treatment.
For both individuals and clinicians, it is critical to understand the nuances of the medications available and carefully consider the potential impact on both short and long-term well-being. Each class of medications has a different therapeutic niche, different side effects, and a different efficacy profile. Ultimately, finding the right medication regimen might be a process of coming to terms with the side effects that individuals can bear while controlling their symptoms as much as possible.
It is also important to be aware of options that go beyond conventional pharmaceuticals. For many, combining existing medications with advanced nutritional supplements might be a possible way forward, allowing individuals to preserve their long-term health without additional side effects.*
Although controlling inflammation is key to controlling Crohn’s symptoms, over-the-counter solutions like NSAIDs are typically insufficient. Instead, individuals with Crohn’s disease usually take two classes of specialized anti-inflammatory medications: aminosalicylates and corticosteroids.
Both are considered first-line treatments, although their therapeutic niches differ; the aminosalicylates are intended for daily use to control background inflammation, whereas the corticosteroids are used when inflammation flares up and begins to spiral out of control. Between these two classes of medication, most individuals with Crohn’s can experience a relatively normal quality of life. Nonetheless, there is substantial room for improvement concerning these therapies.
Although aminosalicylates might provide some individuals with durable remission, they are not curative. Furthermore, aminosalicylates might not be very effective in their role. A recently published literature review of 20 studies indicates that many of the clinical trials supporting the use of aminosalicylates are methodologically flawed or fail to show they are more effective than a placebo in preventing flare-ups.
To identify the studies to be included in the review, researchers examined every academic journal article published about the efficacy of aminosalicylates for mild to moderate Crohn’s disease. Across these studies, the review reports that after six weeks of treatment only 23 percent of aminosalicylate users entered remission in comparison to 15 percent of participants taking a placebo.
And, after 17 weeks of treatment, 45 percent of participants taking aminosalicylates experienced remission in comparison to 29 percent of participants taking a placebo. These results indicate that aminosalicylates take a long time to induce remission, and might not ever do so when used in isolation for a majority of participants.
Additionally, 33 percent of users will experience persistent side effects of aminosalicylates, regardless of whether their symptoms are driven into remission. Aminosalicylate-class anti-inflammatories such as mesalazine can cause immune suppression, rash, fever, hair loss, anemia, headache, nausea, and diarrhea.
These side effects are typically of mild intensity and tend to resolve in the hours after the user takes their dose. The gastrointestinal side effects of mesalazine are dose-dependent, whereas the majority of the others are inconsistent from user to user. Critically, the efficacy profile of mesalazine and other aminosalicylates remains stable and their side effects do not become more difficult to bear over time.
Individuals can thus take aminosalicylates as a maintenance therapy without worrying about detrimental long-term effects causing damage to their bodies. However, up to 22 percent of users discontinue aminosalicylates as a result of the side effects and many others continue to struggle with side effects despite choosing to continue treatment.
Although most individuals with Crohn’s disease take aminosalicylates, periods of remission maintained via daily aminosalicylate use might be disrupted by severe flare-ups without warning, a risk that individuals with incomplete remission face in higher proportions. After a flare-up of inflammation, corticosteroids are typically used in concert with aminosalicylates to restore remission. Medications in this class, such as prednisone, can drastically reduce inflammation by triggering short-term genetic changes to the immune system.
Corticosteroid therapy is highly effective; an early clinical trial of 71 participants describes a 27 percent to 48 percent reduction in the Crohn’s Disease Activity Index (CDAI) after six weeks of treatment. However, corticosteroids exhibit a difficult side effect profile that grows in scope and severity with prolonged use. Nearly all participants experience asymptomatic high blood sugar, fluid retention, fatigue, dry mouth, indigestion, hunger, and other relatively minor short-term side effects when they take corticosteroids.
A substantial subset of participants also experiences acute depression or anxiety, joint pain, confusion, severe acne, weakened executive functions, weight gain, blurry vision, thigh and bicep atrophy, hyperactivity, and headaches. Most individuals will have at least one of these less-common symptoms during short-term corticosteroid use. Longer term, corticosteroid use can become quite dangerous. Severe weight gain, mineral insufficiency, glaucoma, depression, type 2 diabetes, dementia, psychosis, immunosuppression, vomiting, and dying bone tissue can become serious risks for individuals who take corticosteroids for longer than 21 days.
Although some have taken corticosteroids for several months without becoming debilitated by these side effects, other issues still preclude long-term use except in extraordinary circumstances. Significantly, corticosteroids very rapidly cause biological dependence; after as few as seven days of taking corticosteroids, the body’s ability to produce anti-inflammatory molecules of its own begins to be down-regulated as a result of disuse.
Once this down-regulation is complete—typically, after three weeks of taking corticosteroids—abrupt cessation of corticosteroids can result in life-threatening withdrawal symptoms that can include severe limb pain, vomiting, fainting, psychosis, and seizures. Because individuals with Crohn’s might not experience sufficient reductions in inflammation after a short course of corticosteroids, they are at high risk of facing these withdrawal syndromes as they pursue longer-term treatment. Thus, practitioners and their patients opt to control flare-ups preventatively as much as possible.
Immunosuppressants might be used to prevent flare-ups by individuals who do not respond to or cannot tolerate aminosalicylate drugs. These medications, such as azathioprine, are used on a continuous and long-term basis, although individuals taking immunosuppressants might still need the help of a corticosteroid to suppress a flare-up.
When a flare-up does occur, however, immunosuppressants tend to make them less severe, potentially minimizing reliance on corticosteroids. Indeed, in a systematic review published in 2016, immunosuppressants helped 64 percent of participants with Crohn’s disease reduce their usage of corticosteroids. The review also found that across 13 clinical trials, 36 percent of participants avoided corticosteroid use entirely when using immunosuppressants instead of aminosalicylates.
Only 10 percent of participants taking an immunosuppressant discontinued them based on side effects, which can include severe allergic reactions, nausea, low white blood cell count, and pancreatitis. However, immunosuppressants were no better than aminosalicylates at helping participants maintain remission over 12 months.
Importantly, immunosuppressants are confirmed carcinogens that are known to cause lymphoma in individuals with inflammatory bowel diseases, which makes their use a calculated risk. Individuals who are at especially high risk for cancer are thus often advised to avoid immunosuppressants even if they might be therapeutically beneficial to maintain Crohn’s remission.
Likewise, individuals with a weakened immune system face a dangerously high chance of infection when they take these medications. But individuals who can benefit from immunosuppression, yet are unwilling to accept the risks can still do so thanks to innovations in using the body’s natural immunosuppressants to control inflammation.
In light of the serious drawbacks associated with the use of immunosuppressant drugs as Crohn’s disease medication, researchers have turned to the body’s set of regulatory chemicals to find an effective immunomodulator that won’t harm individuals. Butyric acid is one such chemical and has been identified as uniquely promising to address the imbalanced inflammatory response associated with Crohn’s.
Butyric acid is a critical short-chain fatty acid produced by the gastrointestinal tract to reduce the activity of the white blood cells. When the white blood cells of the gastrointestinal tract encounter a molecule of butyric acid, they down-regulate their production of proinflammatory molecules, possibly resulting in the mitigation of the symptoms of Crohn’s disease.
Individuals with Crohn’s disease tend to have lower than normal quantities of butyric acid in their guts. Butyric acid supplementation can thus help to provide nutritional support in conjunction with standard Crohn’s disease regimens.*
An in vitro study from 2012 describes the mechanism of butyric acid, indicating that it inhibits the immune cells of the colon from proliferating during periods of immune activation.* Immune activation typically prompts populations of colon-dwelling immune cells to grow by as much as 900 percent, which can cause a significant up-regulation of the body’s normal inflammatory response.
When supplemented with butyric acid, however, researchers documented that the population of immune cells from individuals with Crohn’s disease shrunk by 60 percent.* This means that supplementation with butyric acid could provide important nutritional support in helping maintain a normal inflammatory response in individuals with Crohn’s.*
Although butyric acid has not been used historically for providing nutritional support for individuals with Crohn’s, new formulations, such as those pioneered by Tesseract Medical Research, have enabled this possibility.* Older formulations of butyric acid lacked bioavailability and failed to localize the butyric acid in the gut, meaning that users couldn’t experience its benefits in the location it was needed most.
In contrast, these new formulations are designed to promote optimal absorption, allowing butyric acid therapy to begin exerting its benefits within half an hour and provide its benefits for as long as eight hours.* Importantly, butyric acid’s metabolic profile in Crohn’s disease is not significantly different than in healthy people, and butyric acid doesn’t interfere with the mechanism of action of aminosalicylates or corticosteroids.* This means that it can be safely used in conjunction with these other classes of Crohn’s disease medication while providing its nutritional support in helping to maintain a normal inflammatory response.*
While nutritional supplements like butyric acid can be an important supplementation option for individuals with Crohn’s disease, multimodal therapy will remain necessary for the foreseeable future. Given the high tolerability of butyric acid and its suitability for long-term use, some individuals might find that butyric acid supplementation fits very well when used in conjunction with a standard Crohn’s disease medication regimen.*Additionally, butyric acid is not the only promising supplement for those who want to add nutritional supplementation to their Crohn’s management regimen. Other natural substances derived from the human body, like glutathione, as well as curcumin, have also been linked to helping maintain a normal inflammatory response in individuals with bowel disorders, and it might be possible to combine additional nutritional supplement therapies for greater symptom management.* While research is ongoing, individuals seeking to enhance their Crohn’s management regimen can include innovative, natural therapies in such regimens today.
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your gastrointestinal health.*
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Updated on May 4, 2023
Article Summary
Over the past several decades, awareness of the dangers posed by certain chemicals and the consumer products that contain them has grown exponentially. This awareness has fundamentally changed consumer habits, manufacturing practices, and public policy as individuals are increasingly seeking to protect themselves from harm, whether in the form of drastically falling smoking rates, lead paint bans, or tight regulation on asbestos.
But despite these shifts in knowledge and practice, we remain surrounded by a plethora of environmental toxins that can produce significant damage to human health. For example, a flourishing body of evidence now suggests that common chemicals in household consumer products, like shampoo, canned goods, and water bottles, have the potential to disrupt critical hormonal processes, while also carrying teratogenic risks and potential carcinogenicity. Unfortunately, widespread recognition of these risks has been slow, leading to high-volume exposure and subsequent negative health impacts. Even when following the directives of governmental regulators and environmental authorities, members of the public continue to be at risk, and few health-enhancing tactics are offered. This is where the renowned environmental medicine researcher, Dr. Walter Crinnion, remains an invaluable source of information.
During his lifetime, by scrupulously identifying toxins in our home environments and elsewhere, Dr. Crinnion aimed to raise awareness of the subclinical-scale damage that can be inflicted by pollutants present in our everyday lives and to empower the public to prevent it. Recently, he joined us to discuss the burgeoning field of environmental medicine and the growing need to protect ourselves from the cumulative effects of long-term exposure to certain ubiquitous chemicals.
In part two of an interview that took place before his untimely passing at age 66, Dr. Crinnion expanded his discussion on the most pernicious environmental toxins and shared practical strategies for mitigating their impact, including fortifying our bodies’ ability to cope with inevitable stressors.
Recognizing the Multiple Dangers of Automobile Exhaust
Much of environmental medicine is focused on investigating the dangers of materials found in consumer goods. Indeed, in part one of this interview, Dr. Crinnion explored two such significant culprits—bisphenols and phthalates. However, when asked to identify the most dangerous compound with which the public regularly comes into contact, Dr. Crinnion didn’t name a chemical integrated into a particular consumer product. Instead, without a hint of hesitation, he said, “Vehicular exhaust. Urban air pollution. Without a doubt.”
Vehicle exhaust is a mixture of carcinogenic, toxic, teratogenic, immunosuppressive, and system-disruptive chemicals, yet most people are exposed to it daily in significant concentrations, especially if they live in an urban area. “The sheer number of public health problems—including mortality—associated with vehicular exhaust is overwhelming,” Dr. Crinnion said.
Although the research into the negative impacts of vehicle exhaust thus far has focused on its carcinogenicity, this exhaust can negatively affect nearly every body system, including the highly sensitive structures of the brain involved in cognition and memory consolidation. “Vehicle exhaust is associated with reduced cognition and Alzheimer’s disease,” Crinnion explained. “In one study in the Mexico City area, two-to-five-year-olds were found with Alzheimer’s pathology in their brains, which was associated with the level of particulate matter they are exposed to.”
One of the main reasons vehicle exhaust is so dangerous is that it causes immediately harmful physiological changes, particularly in individuals who are already in poor health. After exposure to diesel exhaust, for example, immune cells secrete proinflammatory cytokines, prompting inflammation in surrounding tissues. At the same time, these immune cells become anergic, meaning they are less capable of responding to new threats—or simply preserving their life—until they recover from their fatigued state.
Elsewhere, the mucosal surfaces of the respiratory tract are rich in T-cells, which means they are especially prone to being aggravated by contact with the airborne contaminants in vehicle exhaust. As a result, Dr. Crinnion believed that chronic exposure to vehicle exhaust contributes toward respiratory disease and allergies, and a substantial body of research agrees. Indeed, pulmonary tissues are the site of the largest amount of inflammation. Vehicle exhaust is also known to be a significant contributor to cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. As Dr. Crinnion noted, “Air pollution is more strongly linked to heart attacks than cholesterol is.”
Some of the risks associated with vehicle exhaust, such as cardiovascular disease, require significant duration of exposure and are therefore primary concerns for adults. Others, such as infertility and in-vitro fertilization failure, typically only become apparent in adulthood. However, vehicle exhaust also poses an immediate and emergent threat to the young, starting at conception, and researchers have consistently found that chronic prenatal exposure to these contaminants is exceptionally hazardous. “The closer a mother lives to a busy roadway with truck traffic with diesel exhaust, the higher her risk of having a child with autism. There have been many studies documenting this,” Dr. Crinnion said.
One systematic review, for example, found that 8 out of 13 studies documented a correlation between maternal exposure to particulate matter in vehicle exhaust and subsequently born children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or ADHD. The review did not find any correlation between the severity of the subsequent ASD or ADHD and the level of exposure prenatally or postnatally, however, a point that other researchers have also raised.
Nevertheless, researchers remain skeptical that the negative results regarding the link between level of exhaust exposure and autism severity are genuine. Despite the remaining questions regarding the link between the level of exhaust exposure and severity of the disorders after birth, the current research is unambiguous: especially for children; i.e., preventing exposure to automobile exhaust promotes healthy development and has the potential to ward off medical problems later in life.
When it comes to preventing exposure to vehicle exhaust, government regulators have long positioned themselves as the first line of defense. Air pollutants like vehicle exhaust are regulated by federal agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which can set caps on industrial emissions and dictate the maximum safe concentrations of chemicals in the air. But EPA regulations are not a panacea, and Dr. Crinnion was always skeptical of the federal government’s ability to protect and inform the public of environmental risks. “If the public doesn’t know about this stuff, how can they avoid it?”
Dr. Crinnion pointed out that some EPA regulations that appear to support public health ultimately do not prevent harm in any meaningful way. For example, nNew requirements for new vehicle-based exhaust filters do not translate into lower physiological damage for those who are exposed. In other cases, regulations are only passed by the EPA years after the pollutants have been linked to poor health outcomes, and enforcement of EPA regulations is inconsistent and often delayed. Other regulations have been rolled back entirely. Ultimately, Dr. Crinnion said, the public can’t rely on the federal government to protect them from environmental threats, so they must take matters into their own hands.
Dr. Crinnion’s Holy Trinity Of Environmental Health
Although the project of protecting public health on a population level can be slow moving, there are important steps individuals can take to minimize damage from environmental toxins. Unfortunately, while avoiding the use of consumer goods containing harmful chemicals is an obvious choice, many feel powerless to avoid omnipresent airborne toxins like vehicle exhaust. To address this, Dr. Crinnion was an ardent proponent of what he called the “holy trinity” of harm mitigation methods:
Using these three methods in conjunction can drastically cut down on the quantity of environmental contaminants present in the home. Significantly, even the most deleterious components of vehicle exhaust will be caught by the right air filters; a 2015 study found that using a high-grade filter reduced indoor exhaust particulates by as much as 40 percent.
Implementing Dr. Crinnion’s “holy trinity” intelligently might require a bit of professional help. Most individuals aren’t able to perform a deep clean of their home’s HVAC system on their own, meaning that unless they have installed multiple sets of filters, pollutants will simply return to living areas when the ventilation system moves air around the ductwork. Likewise, many people do not have access to the parts of their ventilation system that can accommodate the filters. To address these issues, Dr. Crinnion suggested hiring an HVAC cleaning company to vacuum out dust particles laden with contaminants before adding new filters and purchasing an air purifier.
With these recommendations, Dr. Crinnion was significantly ahead of many general practitioners, and consistent with the best practices currently proposed by allergists and pulmonary specialists. Dr. Crinnion also had a cutting-edge suggestion for mitigating the damage caused by inhaling vehicle exhaust and contact with other pollutants: supplementing the body’s defenses.
The Promise of Glutathione Supplementation
One of the primary mechanisms by which environmental toxins cause damage is oxidative stress. Oxidative stress occurs when the body’s cells are exposed to molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are generated by a wide range of stimuli, including vehicle exhaust, bisphenol-type plasticizers, and phthalate class chemicals that Dr. Crinnion discussed earlier in this interview. ROS interfere with cellular function by inactivating the enzymes and other components that cells need to survive. If left unaddressed, then oxidative stress damage can accumulate and eventually cause cells to die.
To prevent this damage, cells naturally synthesize a tripeptide derived from cysteine, glutamate, and glycine – glutathione, whose primary purpose is specifically to handle ROS safely to prevent oxidative stress damage.* When ROS threaten cellular machinery, the ROS will react with glutathione rather than the healthy cell, allowing the cell to dispose of the inactivated ROS by recycling the glutathione later on.*
However, the glutathione produced by the body might not be enough to prevent oxidative stress damage. Dr. Crinnion explained that although “Glutathione is one of the most important molecules for people’s overall health, 25 percent of the public has a mutation that impairs glutathione synthesis.” This mutation means that at least 25 percent of the public is at greater risk of experiencing negative health effects from environmental contaminant exposure, because they will naturally have less glutathione to compensate for oxidative damage. But the scientific literature includes an additional caveat: even those individuals who have normal or augmented glutathione synthesis remain endangered by ROS.
Glutathione has been shown to reduce the negative impacts of inhaled diesel exhaust in animal model studies. However, these studies also showed that free glutathione was heavily depleted from the cells after exposure to diesel exhaust. This is to be expected, because glutathione must hold ROS before it can be recycled by the cell. But even the animals that had been genetically engineered to have five times as much glutathione than normal animals were depleted of roughly 95 percent of their glutathione after six hours of exhaust exposure at the intensity of ambient air in a suburban area, demonstrating how drastically vehicle exhaust can affect the body. Depletion in excess of 90 percent is linked to irreversible vascular injury—a threat to which the majority of the population is exposed regardless of their genetics.
Dr. Crinnion firmly believed that it was possible to mitigate oxidative stress damage caused by pollutants like vehicle exhaust by taking a glutathione supplement, which would boost the body’s level of glutathione to the point where trace exposure to toxins wouldn’t overwhelm cells’ ability to cope. As such, healthy cellular function would be preserved.
To illustrate why he believed that supplemental glutathione could effectively prevent environmentally-induced damage, Dr. Crinnion recalled a clinical study in which people with HIV with very low glutathione levels were provided a glutathione supplement. “When supplemental glutathione was given, the cytokine profile was very close to a healthy cytokine profile,” Dr. Crinnion stated. Given that cytokines are molecules that cells use as signals to regulate their activity or the activities of other cells, the fact that glutathione could restore a healthy cytokine profile means that glutathione was also helpful to restore normal cellular functions and behavior.*
For individuals who want to protect themselves immediately, sophisticated glutathione supplements are currently on the market. Individuals who take a glutathione supplement could potentially avoid the negative impacts of vehicle exhaust, provided they supplemented consistently enough to offset the background level of air pollution in most areas. Although there wasn’t yet human data regarding how effective a glutathione supplement might be at protecting from the negative impact of vehicle exhaust at the time of this interview (nor is there presently), Dr. Crinnion was optimistic. “Repletion of glutathione can help to reverse depletion, but so can avoidance of these common pollutants that can lead to it, and I think that a combination of both is the best way to go.”
Taking the Next Steps
As Dr. Crinnion’s pioneering research continues to expand by those who have followed him, and the field of environmental medicine continues to grow, it is hoped that policy changes aimed at protecting public health by eliminating toxins at the source will be implemented. But given the lack of regulatory ambition regarding air pollution and chemicals used in consumer products, practicing environmental health principles on an individual level will likely remain increasingly necessary.
As such, public health will continue to be a process of teaching people to avoid the hazards present in their environment. With time and enough public involvement, however, promoting environmental medicine perspectives might cause manufacturers of consumer products and vehicles to voluntarily exclude currently identified toxins from their products. For that to happen, the public must recognize that maintaining their health stands in opposition to those who profit from the status quo and subsequently vote for safer products with their wallets, however. Until then, Dr. Walter Crinnion’s legacy, his holy trinity combined with glutathione supplementation can offer a multi-pronged approach to preserving health and wellbeing.*
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your neurological health and more.*
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Updated on May 4, 2023
Article Summary
Over the past several decades, undeniable evidence has emerged that pollutants in everyday life create significant harm to individuals over their lifespans. Stressors, such as particulates in the air, industrial chemicals in the water supply, and preservatives in food, constantly pressure the body, causing nearly undetectable changes that can ultimately result in disease or divergent physiology. Today, although the public generally knows to avoid environmental toxins like lead, asbestos, and air pollution, few individuals are aware of the scientific field responsible for identifying and developing coping strategies for these hazards: environmental medicine.
Walter Crinnion was a naturopathic doctor and pioneering researcher within the field of environmental medicine who had a deep understanding of the ubiquitous and under-acknowledged health hazards present in the modern milieu. While completing his naturopathic medical degree at Bastyr University, in Seattle, Washington, Dr. Crinnion began to recognize that the roots of some illnesses lay in the environmental toxins that surround us every day, and that these roots must be addressed to help individuals live full and healthy lives. To investigate and educate other medical professionals about the impact of these environmental stressors, Dr. Crinnion introduced environmental medicine classes at Bastyr University, the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine in Connecticut, and the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine (SCNM, now Sonoran University of Health Sciences) in Tempe, Arizona.
At SCNM, Crinnion subsequently founded the department of environmental medicine and sat as its first chairman until 2013. Dr. Crinnion also founded the Naturopathic Association of Environmental Medicine, sat on the editorial review boards of Alternative Medicine Review, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Pharmaceutical Biology, and authored several books.
In this two-part interview conducted several years before his passing, Dr. Crinnion shared his thoughts on some of the most pressing environmental hazards of our time and how the principles of environmental science can enhance public health and wellbeing.
Understanding the Goals of Environmental Medicine
At its core, Dr. Crinnion describes environmental medicine as “taking things away that are keeping your body’s natural way of healing itself from doing so.” Discovering what those things are, however, can be difficult. As Dr. Crinnion noted in a seminal 2000 paper characterizing environmental medicine, “Chemical compounds ubiquitous in our food, air, and water are now found in every person.” The overwhelming number of chemicals to which we are now exposed and the pervasive nature of that exposure makes differentiating between the dangerous and the benign a painstaking process because chemicals don’t necessarily have to be present in large amounts to produce harm, and the harm they do create might not be immediate.
Rather, environmental toxins, such as bisphenol A and vehicle exhaust, can be damaging in trace quantities when exposure is constant over long periods of time. As Crinnion said, “The bioaccumulation of these compounds in some individuals can lead to a variety of metabolic and systemic dysfunctions, and in some cases outright disease states.” It is this that serves as the central site of inquiry within environmental medicine, and Dr. Crinnion hoped that his work and the field, in general, would herald a more aware and healthier public.
It is important to note that environmental medicine isn’t simply toxicology. Toxicology deals with acute illnesses caused by high levels of exposure to relatively rare toxins with little emphasis on developmental impacts, carcinogenicity, or the ambient sources of toxins. Environmental medicine, on the other hand, focuses specifically on the development of chronic illnesses, congenital defects, or abnormal physiological functions that individuals are likely to experience as a result of contaminants or toxins that are highly prevalent in the modern lifestyle and modern surroundings. Additionally, where toxicology studies a poison as it impacts individuals at the time of acute symptoms, environmental medicine studies a pollutant as it occurs in populations. This means that environmental medicine can trace the population-level pathologies or physiological deviancies associated with exposure to pollutants so as to make public health policy recommendations, as well as consumer protection recommendations.
Significantly, the core hypothesis of environmental medicine is that a lack of acute illness does not rule out negative impacts of common chemicals. This means that environmental medicine is also distinct from traditional medicine as a whole. “Normal medicine is what I call heroic medicine,” Dr. Crinnion explained. “You have a symptom, and I’m going to give you a medicine to fix it, which rarely looks at the root cause. Environmental medicine is saying, ‘What do I need to take away from the body?’ and, ‘What is poisoning your body?’” In other words, environmental medicine is concerned with removing barriers to peak function rather than adding resources to achieve peak function.
However, environmental medicine researchers don’t claim to provide affirmative prescriptions to solve health issues the majority of the time. Instead, Dr. Crinnion then and others now interpret their role as that of academics and translators, expressing ideas and findings from the scientific literature to physicians and health officials so they might better support the public interest.
The Impact of Endocrine Disruptors
One of the primary projects of environmental medicine is to identify pernicious chemicals that can cause subclinical yet unambiguously negative impacts on the human body. Many of the most dangerous such chemicals are endocrine disruptors, or compounds whose chemical structure is similar enough to human hormones that they behave the same way as those hormones do in the body. Although some endocrine disruptors are ingested orally from contaminated food, the majority appear to be consumed via transdermal contact with everyday objects that contain the disruptive chemicals.
Although endocrine disruptors are rarely toxic, they can carry a bevy of negative health effects when administered chronically because of the way they change cellular functions. This made endocrine disruptors a critical area of investigation for Dr. Crinnion, and they still are for other environmental medicine researchers.
Although the impact of endocrine disruptors varies drastically depending on the hormone mimicked and the host, they are typically especially damaging to neonates, fetuses, and young children because hormones are essential for regulating anatomical and physiological development. In terms of systems affected, endocrine disruptors tend to be the hardest on tissues within the reproductive systems, especially for males. Indeed, chronic exposure to endocrine disruptors in males can lead to a collection of symptoms that Dr, Crinnion equated with “grumpy old men”: low testosterone during peak reproductive age, low sperm count, infertility, and, potentially, asthma.
In females, exposure to endocrine disruptors can induce reproductive cancers, early ovulation, and defects of the mammary tissue. Regardless of sex, low-level exposure to endocrine disruptors increases the chance of birth defects, metabolic disorders like diabetes, cancers of reproductive tissues, neurological problems, and cancers of the mammary tissue in both sexes. Notably, this same constellation of symptoms is caused by a handful of different endocrine disruptors present in everyday objects, meaning that bioaccumulation is all but guaranteed. Because of their persistence, ubiquitousness, and negative health impacts, the public should be aware of common endocrine disruptors and how to protect themselves.
BPA
Among the most prevalent endocrine disruptors, bisphenol A (BPA) is especially pernicious and is generally known to the public. BPA is an omnipresent environmental hazard as a result of the chemical’s use in the manufacturing of many common products, including plastic bottles, canned goods, and thermal paper. It most likely enters the body via oral consumption and skin contact. Significantly, BPA mimics estrogen and might trigger early puberty in girls and delayed puberty in boys. Later in life, BPA exposure might increase the risk of developing breast cancer in both men and women.
For fetuses and neonates, BPA is even more hazardous. Most fetuses are exposed to BPA in the womb as a result of maternal contact with products containing BPA. This prenatal exposure increases the risk of developing reproductive defects. The level of severity of these defects has been linked to quantity and duration of exposure; prolonged exposure at high concentrations while in the womb can cause male fetuses to develop undifferentiated sex organs that do not occur at the same anatomical position appropriate for males. There is also some evidence that neonatal BPA exposure drastically increases the risk of developing behavioral pathologies like autism spectrum disorder and ADHD.
Additionally, prenatal BPA exposure in animal models is linked to profound deviations of the dopaminergic system of the brain, lending further support to the link between BPA and developmental, behavioral, and psychiatric disorders. As Dr. Crinnion noted, “All of these epidemic-scale public health issues are associated with finding these chemicals in the public.”
Unfortunately, BPA is so ubiquitous that it contaminates places where it is least expected. Although some individuals consciously avoid plastics that contain BPA, Dr. Crinnion noted that canned soup can carry a large BPA load despite not containing any plastic, making it a silent hazard that injures even those trying to avoid environmental toxins. Other canned goods also often use BPA as a resin liner to insulate the food in the can from the metal of the can for the sake of preserving flavor and freshness.
Additionally, while many products now claim to be BPA-free, most people don’t realize that BPA is not the only bisphenol compound that exhibits toxic effects; bisphenol S is functionally identical to bisphenol A in terms of its physiological impact, and other bisphenols like bisphenol F also can be found in consumer products and food packaging. The available evidence suggests that all of the bisphenols are equally hazardous regarding their endocrine disrupting activity.
Dr. Crinnion believed that regulatory bodies didn’t do enough to protect the public from products that contain the highest levels of BPA or other contaminants. He said, “People say, if this were a problem, the government wouldn’t let it be produced. But the public can purchase neurotoxic precursors to sarin gas.” Indeed, although BPA is banned in some countries and advertised as absent in certain products, bisphenol S remains unrestricted except for a few municipalities like New York City.
Blanket bans of the bisphenols do not exist in the United States, and the U.S. FDA has repeatedly reaffirmed its overtly counterfactual stance that BPA is harmless, even as evidence to the contrary has mounted for years. Despite FDA claims regarding BPA’s safety, the European Union and other international bodies have banned BPA in a handful of applications. Given the difficulty of getting regulators to protect the public when the threat is well-characterized and relatively old, Dr. Crinnion was a forceful proponent of teaching the public to defend themselves—and the bisphenols are only one major threat out of many others.
Phthalates
Although the bisphenols were among Dr. Crinnion’s chief concerns, phthalates are similarly threatening and carry overlapping health effects. Phthalates are chemicals used to increase the flexibility of plastics, and, like the bisphenols, are endocrine disruptors that are especially dangerous to males. “The higher the phthalates, the lower the testosterone, in men, women, and children,” Crinnion explained. “Now we have the phenomenon of 30-year-old males needing testosterone shots. Did their testicles become dysfunctional all of a sudden? They’ve been working for thousands of years, and now all of a sudden they’re not.”
In addition to their roles as endocrine disruptors, phthalates are believed to also function as metabolic disruptors, making them exponentially more damaging. More specifically, Dr. Crinnion hypothesized that phthalates can disrupt the cellular mitochondria that are responsible for generating chemical energy for cells to use. As a result of this disruption, Dr. Crinnion linked phthalates to adverse metabolic impacts like type II diabetes and obesity, as well as behavioral pathologies. “Moms who have the highest levels of phthalates present have a risk of having a child with ADHD that is threefold higher than those with normal levels,” he explained, referencing a 2018 population-level study.
That study, which examined a cohort of 553 children, indicates that a mother who had high urinary concentrations of phthalates during her pregnancy was three times more likely than those with low concentrations to have a child with ADHD. As Dr. Crinnion bleakly stated, “All she has to do is wrap all of her food in Saran wrap, and her child can have ADHD.” Other researchers agree: phthalates are linked to the metabolic conditions, as well as developmental and behavioral disorders, that have spiraled into veritable public health crises over the last 20 years.
Unfortunately, exposure to the phthalates is nearly constant. Unlike with some environmental contaminants, phthalates readily permeate through the skin, and a plethora of products, including shampoo, nail polish, and laminated flooring, are common sources of phthalate exposure. In urban areas, individuals are also commonly exposed to phthalates in the air. In his interview, Dr. Crinnion pointed out that household dust is often rich in phthalates owing to its use in flame-retardant ductwork. Indeed, environmental exposure to phthalates is so pervasive that most individuals never experience a total absence of it in their blood.
Dr. Crinnion claimed that most U.S. adults have at least 11 of the 13 most common phthalates circulating in detectable quantities in their bloodstreams at any given time, and the CDC agrees. While avoiding phthalates altogether might not be possible, individuals seeking to minimize their contact should avoid flexible plastic products, insulation, laminates, paints, and epoxies wherever possible.
Perfluorocarbons and Other Threats
Although the scientific community generally recognizes the dangers of chemicals like BPA and phthalates, there are some other chemicals whose hazards are only beginning to be recognized. Perfluorocarbons, for example, have maintained a reputation for being both safe and biologically inert for decades. Found in an abundance of different products, ranging from cosmetics to surgical tools to drinking water, perfluorocarbons were long thought to be biologically inert, and little research was performed regarding their effects.
Well ahead of his time, Dr. Crinnion referred to 2014 research suggesting that perfluorocarbons might have bioaccumulative effects, including the development of pancreatic cancers, liver cancer, and kidney cancer. Furthermore, although the U.S. EPA has regulated the amount of perfluorocarbons in municipal water supplies since 2009, recent research indicates that the presently established limits are most likely far too high.
The endocrine disrupting capability of the perfluorocarbons is unclear. Forthcoming research will elaborate on the risks of exposure, but at present, Dr. Crinnion’s typical environmental medicine suggestions still apply: foresighted individuals should avoid products with perfluorocarbons whenever possible, although the public might not be able to stay clear entirely due to the presence of perfluorocarbons in groundwater.
The shift in understanding of perfluorocarbons from harmless substances to potential cancer risks is significant because it so starkly underlines how much we don’t know about our chemical environments. Indeed, Dr. Crinnion’s warning from several years ago regarding perfluorocarbons is only one of several that he offered regarding poorly characterized environmental threats to human health. “If you’re living a standard American lifestyle, what does that do to your risk? We don’t know,” he said. “There have been very few studies examining multiple factors because that doesn’t work with scientific theory well.” This means that chemicals that appear to be safe in isolation might, in fact, be harmful when synergistically paired with other common substances—a daunting prospect for any health-conscious member of the public.
Using Environmental Medicine To Protect Public Health
Dr. Crinnion’s overarching message from several years ago is still clear: people need to be aware of the chemicals in their environment, and they can’t expect the government to tell them what is safe and what is not. Pointing to the regulatory fiasco surrounding the U.S. Government’s failure to timely ban the pesticide chemical chlorpyrifos, Dr. Crinnion’s skepticism then appears more salient now than ever. Despite a long history of well-documented negative health impacts on adults, children, and fetuses reaching as far back as 1999, as recently as 2017 the U.S. EPA declined to ban chlorpyrifos in contradiction to the standards established previously by the World Health Organization.
Although the U.S. Government’s federal courts ultimately issued an order to the U.S. EPA requiring them to ban the chemical in late 2018, until that point consumers could purchase household pesticides containing chlorpyrifos. This means that nearly 20 years after chlorpyrifos was first identified as causing autoimmune disorders and dysexecutive syndromes in children, Americans were still in harm’s way due to their government’s unwillingness to act on the evidence.
If banning even the most dangerous environmental contaminants can take decades when the data are unambiguous, what should the public do when the safety data are less clear or totally absent? Given that there are far too many unknowns regarding the chemicals people interact with every day, mere vigilance regarding new findings might not be enough to protect people. Recognizing this, Dr. Crinnion sought to ward off fatalism in the public by providing a set of best practices regarding environmental health.
First among these is removing that which is known to cause harm. Whether by avoiding products containing plasticizers that are endocrine disruptors or by installing filtration devices in the home to prevent inhalation of ambient contaminants, the public stands to be empowered by following Dr. Crinnion’s still timely advice closely.
To protect health in the face of ambiguous, unknown, or unavoidable threats, Dr. Crinnion advocated making the most out of the things that science knows to be healthy: eating vegetables, spending time in the sun, and getting plenty of exercise. However, performing normal health practices is not enough to provide total protection from environmental hazards, particularly when many of those hazards are not yet fully understood. As such, many individuals are interested in proactively providing themselves with a measure of prevention beyond the basics of healthy living.
For them, Dr. Crinnion suggested incorporating a number of nutritional supplements to improve the body’s ability to maintain normal function in the face of toxins.* Especially for individuals with a compromised immune system or an autoimmune disease, a science-backed nutritional supplement regimen could make the difference between chronic illness issues and long-term health and wellness.
The greatest value of environmental medicine comes from the way it enables the individual to take personal initiative against environmental threats. In the second half of the interview with Dr. Walter Crinnion we will learn more about protecting oneself from environmental toxins and implementing what Dr. Crinnion called the “holy trinity” of sound environmental medicine practices in your home. In the second half of his interview, Dr. Crinnion also disclosed the nutritional supplement he considered to be the most promising for the purposes of environmental medicine, explaining how it can combat the negative impact of the number-one most destructive environmental contaminant: vehicle exhaust.
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your neurological health and more.*
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Updated on April 13, 2023
Article Summary
As the world population ages, more people than ever before are struggling with significant loss of cognitive function or endeavoring to prevent it. Recognized as cognitive decline beyond that which is normal in the course of aging, the toll of significant cognitive decline weighs heavily on those affected and their loved ones; from its starting point as mild cognitive impairment, significant loss of cognitive function slowly and unstoppably progresses until patients have only minimal cognitive capability.
Declining cognitive function as an aspect of aging has been known to medical science for more than two thousand years. Although there are several therapies intended to address loss of cognitive function, these are of limited efficacy. While researchers try to develop new therapies, those affected are often left to fend for themselves using questionably effective tools that address neurocognitive symptoms temporarily but don’t slow the progression of loss of cognitive function. For patients and caregivers who are not content to accept only the current standard of care, however, a number of natural compounds might address this situation. Of these, the compounds quercetin, butyrate, and glutathione are especially promising natural remedies for addressing the loss of cognitive function.
Quercetin is a phenolic compound that is a constituent of many vegetables and red wine. As with many other phenols, quercetin is an antioxidant, although this property is negligible in the quantities typically consumed in food. More significantly, quercetin in a nutritional supplement format might be helpful in providing nutritional support for helping to maintain cognitive function owing to its numerous interactions with critical proteins responsible for initiating cellular signaling pathways. Currently, the strongest evidence comes in the form of in vivo animal research.
In a particularly intriguing study published in 2009, researchers induced vascular dementia in rats, then administered quercetin to the treatment group. All the rats were then introduced to the Morris water maze. The rats who received quercetin exhibited the same ability to complete the maze task as healthy control rats, while the rats who didn’t receive quercetin were incapable of completing the task.
There are reasons to believe the effects of quercetin supplements wouldn’t be as profound in humans as in rats. First, although quercetin was shown to be effective at mitigating vascular dementia in the rats, the dementia was caused by the researchers externally. Outside the laboratory, loss of cognitive function occurs gradually and can’t be measured consistently in the same person across short time periods. This means that quercetin is likely more effective at mitigating “acute” cognitive loss caused by experimentation than it is at warding off the natural loss of cognitive function experienced by human patients. Likewise, if the loss of cognitive function is caused by a chronic condition, for example, diabetes, quercetin might be able to offer more to patients than to those with loss of another origin. The assumed basis for this difference is that vascular damage to the brain caused by diabetes is assumed to be easier to repair than chronic degeneration.
Furthermore, rats are not sound experimental models to derive the magnitude of therapeutic efficacy. Although rats are effective at modeling very basic indications of cognitive function, like the ability to navigate through their environment, human behavior is substantially more complex. In other words, restoring the ability of a rat to navigate a maze doesn’t translate to restoring the ability of an individual with lost cognitive function to remember how to perform important daily tasks. However, the results of this in vivo study are promising and justify future research in humans.
Part of the reason quercetin is a compelling potential therapy for addressing loss of cognitive function is that it is proven to be bioactive via a handful of mechanisms.* These mechanisms include binding to critical transcriptional regulators—the mediators of gene function—and other essential biological signaling molecules like phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI-3K).* The exact impact of what these mechanisms might be on loss of cognitive function is difficult to speculate on. Indeed, binding to a signaling molecule as fundamental as the PI-3 kinase would likely have systemic effects completely distinct from the other therapies on the market. Although the experimental PI-3 kinase pharmaceutical therapies are too toxic to be used in patients, quercetin is not similarly destructive. Because loss of cognitive function entails a number of physiological deficits ranging from weaker axonal myelination to neuroinflammation and protein plaque formation, leveraging genetic and metabolic mechanisms increase the chances of beneficially affecting multiple pathologies. Addressing neuroinflammation via a genetic regulator, for example, could lead to improved short-term memory functionality, while improved metabolic control of myelination could lead to improved motor control and arousal. As research in this area progresses, we will gain greater insight into how quercetin affects these critical variables to support brain function.*
Although quercetin is a promising natural remedy for addressing loss of cognitive function, it is not the only molecule capable of doing so. Butyrate is now widely regarded as another possible approach to maintaining cognitive health.* Butyrate, also known as butyric acid, is an intracellular signaling chemical produced by the body that has mechanisms of action that are likely to be beneficial to cognitive health. These beneficial effects are substantiated in the scientific literature, although, like with quercetin, large clinical trials are still forthcoming. Nonetheless, butyrate’s diverse physiological roles mean that it can potentially play a role in providing nutritional support for maintaining cognitive function during aging.*
Butyrate is naturally produced in the gut, where it is used to nourish beneficial gut microbiota and upregulate the activity of white blood cells.* Because it’s common to the digestive system, butyrate is generally well-tolerated and produces few side effects. Butyrate can cross the blood-brain-barrier and exhibit similar beneficial effects on white blood cells in the brain as well. This means that patients whose loss of cognitive function might be caused in part by neuroinflammation could benefit from a well-formulated, highly bioavailable butyrate supplement that promotes healthy brain tissue.*
Although trials in human dementia models are lacking, there are several studies in animal models that support the idea of using butyrate to address loss of cognitive function. In one study with rats, rats with artificial diabetically-induced loss of cognitive function experienced substantial improvement in a short-term memory consolidation task when administered butyrate. This experiment was similar in setup to the earlier experiments investigating quercetin’s ability to mitigate loss of cognitive function. The promising results of the butyrate study were later substantiated by a similar experiment examining rats performed by a separate research group.
Unlike quercetin, butyrate has been shown to be associated with faster learning of operant conditioning responses in rats. In one study, rats that received a butyrate supplement learned to associate a stimulus with an action that they could take to receive food as a reward with less than a third as many trials as the non-supplemented rats. This means that butyrate might have the potential to support the cognitive abilities that are affected negatively by aging.* Whether or not these results could carry over to human patients remains to be seen, but researchers are currently investigating if and how butyrate could be used in that role. With further research, physicians and patients will soon better understand the extent of butyrate’s benefits for maintaining cognitive function during aging.
Butyrate, for all its potential benefits, hasn’t been studied for its benefits for brain health as extensively as another physiological molecule: glutathione (GSH). Glutathione is a molecule produced by the body to use as an antioxidant, especially in the liver and the brain. Dietary glutathione intake does little to improve health because it is readily destroyed by metabolism. This means that cells must synthesize their own glutathione supply from precursor molecules, or, alternatively, receive glutathione that has been formatted such that it survives digestion and liver enzymes. Due to the difficulty with delivering glutathione to patients intact, research on glutathione has only recently taken off with the advent of sophisticated new delivery systems designed to optimize bioavailability. In light of these new advancements, researchers believe that boosting glutathione’s antioxidant activity can be a critical boon to brain health; unlike butyrate and quercetin, glutathione is a powerful antioxidant.
Under normal circumstances, most individuals have a high concentration of glutathione in their bodies and in their brains. This glutathione protects cells from damage caused by oxidative stress.* Oxidative stress occurs when molecular byproducts of metabolism—like reactive oxygen species—clutter cellular machinery and prevent cells from performing their task. When cellular machinery can’t perform its purpose, the cell can’t perform basic self-maintenance and gradually takes on more and more wear and tear. Eventually, this wear and tear can kill the cell. In most cases, however, the wear and tear is only extensive enough to make the cell less efficient at performing its physiological purposes. In the case of a neuron, a cell suffering from a high amount of oxidative stress might be incapable of signaling other neurons with the same strength or frequency that is necessary to maintain normal cognition.
Glutathione has been studied in the context of supporting brain health a number of times, with consistent results.* One study, for example, linked the concentration of an enzyme responsible for trafficking glutathione to problem areas in cells with the risk of developing cognitive deficits. The researchers found that when levels of the trafficking enzyme glutathione s-transferase omega-1 were low, patients had 2.2 times the normal risk of developing cognitive deficits for any given age. Likewise, patients with high levels of this enzyme typically had low levels of biomarkers indicating oxidative stress, meaning they were healthier than those with lower levels. Notably, the researchers didn’t explicitly examine glutathione, only the cellular machinery responsible for moving glutathione to problem areas. Nonetheless, the study was one out of many linking increased levels of glutathione to better outcomes for maintaining healthy cognitive function.*
Another study explicitly examined glutathione levels in relation to deficits in cognitive function. Healthy control patients had an average of 5.1 micromoles of glutathione per milliliter of blood. Patients of the same age with cognitive deficits had an average of 3.4 micromoles per milliliter of blood—only 66 percent as much. The authors of the study summarized the meaning of their findings succinctly: “Our results suggest that there is a defect in the antioxidant defense system [in cognitively deficient patients] that is incapable of responding to increased free radical production, which may lead to oxidative damage and the development of the pathological alterations that characterize the neurodegenerative disorder of patients.” Interestingly, the researchers found that this effect varied depending on whether the patient was male or female; men without loss of cognitive function had higher glutathione levels than women without loss of cognitive function, but this was reversed in the case of patients who had cognitive function loss. The significance of this difference might indicate that men would benefit more from glutathione therapy than women, but further research is necessary. Glutathione therapy for maintaining cognitive function is under active investigation, and future findings will determine the precise symptoms of cognitive function that glutathione could benefit most.
For patients seeking natural remedies that can provide nutritional support for maintaining neurocognitive function, quercetin, butyrate, and glutathione are exciting options that will be fleshed out further by researchers. Clinical trials with butyrate in a number of different neurocognitive applications are ongoing. Likewise, researchers are examining whether quercetin might be more useful in being supportive in instances of vascular issues caused by diabetes rather than other forms of cognition loss with less certain causes. If patients wish to incorporate these compounds into their natural therapy regimens now, then there are already a number of state-of-the-art supplements on the market. Although researchers will continue to endeavor to answer the many questions regarding the way that these supplements might be beneficial for maintaining and supporting cognitive health, including how these natural substances can be used to forestall the loss of cognitive function, those individuals who try using them early will have the advantage of better maintaining their cognitive health before those who wait for the final research verdict. Given that there is no current medical consensus, the potential benefits of acting early are difficult to overstate.
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your neurological health.*
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Updated on April 7, 2023
Article Summary
Autism spectrum disorder drastically shapes the lives of patients and caregivers, often presenting challenges that greatly compromise quality of life. Despite years of research, there are presently no curative therapies nor combination of therapies that can address the root causes of the disorder. However, there might be new hope for autistic individuals. Although autism has historically been considered a predominantly behavioral disorder, more recent perspectives are incorporating gastrointestinal dysfunction and metabolic aberrations into the disorder’s pathology.
As a result of this new understanding, gastrointestinal symptoms, like diarrhea and constipation, are joining behavioral features, like social withdrawal and repetitive behaviors, as primary symptoms that signify the disorder. However, some researchers are going one step further: they believe that gut dysfunction might play a causative role in several of autism’s behavioral symptoms. In light of this hypothesis, new therapeutic strategies are being designed around the idea that it might be possible to address autism symptoms by rectifying an autistic individual’s GI difficulties. A growing number of researchers are now suggesting that butyric acid supplementation is a particularly promising therapeutic option, potentially opening the door to improved quality of life.
Gastrointestinal difficulties and poor gut health are a common complaint among autistic individuals. According to a 2003 study of 137 autistic children, 24 percent experienced chronic gastrointestinal problems, most commonly diarrhea and constipation. Chronic diarrhea was reported by 17 percent, suggesting that autistic children experience excessive gut motility or an inability to successfully absorb liquid from their food. Constipation, on the other hand, would signal a deficit of gut motility. These conflicting symptoms might occur at different times in the same patient, making identification of disease pathology difficult. No matter the cause, inconsistency in the data is common owing to autism’s multifactorial complexity.
Other research suggests the number of individuals with GI issues and autism is likely greater than 24 percent. A 2002 study found that 41 percent of autistic children chronically experienced an average of four or more gastrointestinal symptoms without an identifiable cause—36 percent more than healthy controls. In contrast to the 2003 study, the 2002 study found that generalized abdominal discomfort was the most common symptom. The consequences of these gastrointestinal symptoms were often behavioral symptoms, such as irritability or unexplained crying, both of which chronically co-occurred in more than 40 percent of the children with GI symptoms.
But the prevalence and severity of gastrointestinal symptoms are only one part of the story; the intestines of autistic individuals are dysfunctional in ways that patients might not directly perceive. Significantly, the 2002 study found that 23 percent of autistic children experienced rapid cycling between diarrhea and constipation from day to day. This would suggest there is more than one pathology implicated in the gut symptoms associated with autism. To understand what one of these pathologies might be, researchers are now examining the gut microbiome.
The gut microbiome is a critical factor in determining a potential connection between autism and gut health. A growing body of research shows the gut microbiomes of autistic individuals are markedly different from those of healthy people. Under normal circumstances, the gut microbiome is populated by hundreds of different species of beneficial bacteria. These bacteria are responsible for facilitating digestion and, by virtue of occupying the habitable areas of the gut, preventing other bacteria that might be harmful from becoming established. On the other hand, a disproportionate representation of healthy bacteria might still be detrimental.
Another 2002 study found that of the bacteria species most common to the microbiome, autistic individuals had far greater numbers of each species than healthy individuals. Using stool samples, researchers found that autistic individuals had roughly 2.1 million bacteria for each of the common microbiome species in their stools, whereas, individuals without autism had only 160,000 specimens of each bacterial species in their stools. Additionally, autistic individuals had a proportionally larger population of bacteria within the Clostridia genus than healthy individuals.
The same study also found that autistic individuals had strains of bacteria in their microbiome that are not found in the microbiome of healthy individuals. 80 percent of autistic individuals had non-spore-forming anaerobic and microaerophilic bacteria, whereas zero percent of the healthy controls had similar colonies of these types. For 50 percent of the autistic study participants who experienced the divergent bacteria, there were upwards of seven different species of microbiota that were not found in the healthy controls. The remaining subjects had fewer variant species. These discoveries provide compelling evidence that autistic individuals have difficulty a normally healthy microbiome.
Microbiome irregularities can easily throw the entire GI system out of working order. Fifty percent of the autistic individuals had a highly acidic pH level in their stools, although the degree of acidity beyond normal ranges varied significantly from individual to individual. This acidity was likely the result of the stools being heavily laden with microbiota. An acidic pH within the gut itself could cause any number of adverse symptoms, including bloating and gas, and it’s likely that the magnitude of deviation dictates the magnitude of the symptoms experienced by the individual.
One fecal sample registered a pH of 1.8; normal ranges in the gastrointestinal tract are between 7.4 to 6.7, depending on where the sample is taken. The consequences of this difference were substantial, primarily leading to significant gastrointestinal distress. Overall, the vast majority of the autistic subjects (67 percent) reported more frequent episodes of diarrhea and constipation than the healthy subjects. Considering the extreme disparity in microbiome makeup that correlates to these symptoms, restoring a normal microbiome might be the key to easing gastrointestinal distress.
Presently, there are no FDA-approved medications designed to target the gut microbiome of autistic individuals. However, new therapies isolated from natural substances produced by the body are increasingly promising avenues of research. Among these new therapies, butyric acid has achieved early analytical successes in the laboratory.
Researchers have long known that butyric acid is an intercellular signaling molecule and immunoregulator; the body produces butyric acid to use in these capacities. More recently, however, butyric acid was identified as a modulator of gene expression in autism in a 2015 study published in Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease.
This study revealed butyric acid’s ability to govern the behavior of cells in the gut by linking the level of butyric acid to intestinal cells’ ability to produce energy. In the estimation of the study’s authors—and their peers—80 percent of autistic individuals exhibit abnormalities in their cellular mitochondria, the component of the cell that produces cellular energy. These abnormalities can range from excessive throughput of energy to significantly inhibited energy production. Depending on the cell that has malfunctioning mitochondria, the resulting impact on organ tissues can vary.
For example, in white blood cells, abnormal energy production can result in an inability to ward off infection, or, alternatively, excessive inflammatory response. An excessive inflammatory response can cause intense discomfort and bloating for patients, while also reducing the ability of the intestines to absorb nutrients and water. More importantly, butyric acid can modulate these mitochondrial extremes and bring them toward a healthier level of activity.* Thus, it might be possible to manage ASD-affiliated gut dysfunction utilizing butyric acid by virtue of its direct beneficial impact on immune function.*
Butyric acid can also improve the health of the gut via another mechanism; i.e., by modulating the behavior of the white blood cells in the colon the microbiome of autistic individuals can be normalized with regard to the proportions of the bacterial colonies. Because the white blood cells affected by butyric acid will generate a more normal inflammatory response, the normal and healthy bacterial populations of the microbiome can flourish.*
When the normal bacterial populations in the gut are given optimal conditions for them to grow, they can generally out-compete the potentially harmful aberrant bacteria and thus promote better gut health, alleviating GI symptoms. Significantly, for some autistic individuals, this positive reduction of gastrointestinal symptoms might also produce meaningful emotional and behavioral changes as their physical distress is alleviated.*
Microbiome therapeutics is a rapidly developing field, and many questions remain regarding butyric acid’s beneficial impact on the microbiome and the cells responsible for the microbiome’s cultivation. At present, although researchers are unambiguous that butyric acid can induce beneficial genetic changes in colonocytes that modulate their metabolic activity, the nature of these changes is an area of active investigation.
However, the current evidence combined with the knowledge that autistic individuals are typically deficient in butyric acid suggest that it would be prudent to begin butyric acid supplementation even now. Although rigorous clinical trials of butyric acid supplementation are still in progress, taking advantage of the anticipated benefits is likely to achieve multidimensional symptom support and, ultimately, enhanced quality of life.*
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your gastrointestinal health.*
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Updated on April 13, 2023
Article Summary
Although oxidative stress might not be the most dangerous form of cellular damage, individuals should still take measures to protect themselves. And while oxidative stress has long been recognized as a part of many pathologies, newer perspectives have begun to see the utility of nutritional supplements for oxidative stress as a means of symptom management.
Damage caused by oxidative stress is implicated in a broad array of adverse health conditions. For individuals with conditions exacerbated by oxidative stress, gaining control of oxidative stress through a therapeutic oxidative stress supplement could be the key to experiencing better symptom management while avoiding further damage.
At the same time, healthy individuals can benefit from reducing their level of oxidative stress as a result of its subclinical negative impact on the body. While healthy maintenance control is not yet in the mainstream medical consensus, there is reason to believe that lowering oxidative stress via glutathione supplementation could help individuals optimize their health and well-being. Understanding why glutathione supplementation might be beneficial requires diving into the biological details of oxidative stress and exploring how the body reacts when its abilities to compensate for this stress are exceeded.
Oxidative stress is the process by which reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by normal metabolic processes undergo chemical reactions with proteins, DNA, or lipids, which in turn inhibits the cell from making use of those molecules normally. The high-level impact of ROS reactions with physiological molecules includes tissue damage and dysfunction, potentially contributing to a wide variety of health complications.
Although the physiological basis for why this is the case is far from simple, medical science has begun to understand the most common risk vectors for oxidative stress.
Most individuals are exposed to oxidative stress on a regular basis without any noticeable adverse health impacts occurring. Nonetheless, the risks of oxidative stress are enduring, and individuals can benefit from taking preventative action to protect themselves. Ultraviolet radiation, which causes oxidative stress at high levels in the event of a sunburn, is the most common source of oxidative stress. Cigarette smoke and alcohol consumption are important contributors to oxidative stress, because both contain primary ROS in the mixtures themselves and also secondary ROS, which is generated by the body breaking down the toxic chemicals in the mixtures.
However, individuals who avoid getting sunburns and abstain from smoking and drinking alcohol can still experience oxidative stress because normal aerobic metabolism is the primary source of oxidative stress. This means that individuals simply cannot rely solely on good health habits to protect them nor can they assume their levels of oxidative stress are low.
Additionally, for individuals who have health issues linked to oxidative stress, such as autism, the body’s ability to cope with the baseline level of metabolically-induced oxidative stress is totally insufficient. Thus, autistic individuals can experience an abundance of oxidative stress-related symptoms, like executive dysfunction and irritability, as well as gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea. Meanwhile, individuals with neurological conditions might see further neurodegeneration and subsequent loss of function as oxidative stress rises.
In the course of metabolism, the body breaks down energy sources, then uses a series of chemical reactions to synthesize the metabolized molecules that cells use for energy or other essential functions. Some of these metabolic chemical reactions leave behind unwanted waste products in the form of ROS. Thus, higher metabolic activity generates more oxidative stress.
In healthy individuals, the oxidative stress created by metabolism is tightly controlled by the body, and minimal damage results. In fact, many endogenous molecules are made in the body specifically for the purpose of lowering oxidative stress and repairing the damage it causes. These molecules are critical because if ROS are left unchecked, then they can readily cause damage to DNA.
This means that each ROS in circulation carries with it a very small possibility of causing serious illness. When antioxidant molecules and DNA damage repair molecules are depleted or their synthesis is inhibited by malnutrition or an underlying medical condition, the reactive oxygen species balloon in number, and cells suffer.
When cells experience very high levels of ROS, their self-destruct mechanisms are triggered to prevent the ailing cell from causing damage to its neighbors through its malfunctions. For cells like neurons, the consequences of self-destruction can wreak havoc on one’s quality of life. Neuronal death is implicated in several adverse neurological health conditions. For other cells, self-destruction is detrimental to the functioning of the tissue in which the cell resides. In liver tissue, dying cells leave the individual with a reduced ability to clean their blood of toxins, causing other downstream problems.
However, cellular damage can occur without causing the death of the cell. In the case of non-fatal cellular damage, ROS often react with enzymes, reducing their ability to catalyze chemical reactions that the cell needs to survive. This can have serious consequences. Because the mitochondria are the organelle in which oxidative stress is the most likely to occur, it is the mitochondria that bear the brunt of enzymatic malfunction caused by ROS.
Because the mitochondria are responsible for producing the chemical energy the cell needs to perform its job, oxidative stress that damages enzymes can reduce the efficiency of the entire cell. Liver cells, for example, might experience a decrease in their rate of blood purification, whereas neurons might find it more difficult to activate themselves and relay electrochemical messages to other neurons. Each of these outcomes results in poorer health.
Additionally, oxidative stress causes inflammation when uncontrolled. In the neurological context, neuroinflammation is thought to be linked to cognitive dysfunction and deficiencies of the working memory. More broadly, inflammation tends to reduce the effectiveness of whatever tissue in which it occurs regardless of the initial cause. This means that oxidative stress could hypothetically reduce the efficiency of any tissue in the body which can experience inflammation; it also means that disorders that are aggravated by inflammation might benefit from supplements for oxidative stress.
Given that oxidative stress is deleterious to cells, most people are eager to reduce the amount of it their cells experience. However, using the metric that less oxidative stress is better can lead to undesirable results; surprisingly, total prevention of oxidative stress incidents might not be desirable.
In animal models, for example, low levels of oxidative stress were found to improve lifespan. And research also shows that eliminating oxidative stress entirely via excessive amounts of antioxidants ended up decreasing the animals’ lifespans. The explanation for this effect is relatively straightforward: much like the way muscle fibers cannot grow larger and stronger without first experiencing some tearing damage, small amounts of oxidative stress are necessary to keep various systems smoothly functioning.
More concretely, researchers know that certain white blood cells use cached free radicals as part of the lethal cocktail they deliver to bacterial pathogens. Without any oxidative stress whatsoever, these immune cells couldn’t do their job and the immune system as a whole would be weakened. There is evidence that other cells can make use of oxidative stress in similarly beneficial capacities. Notwithstanding this positive aspect, there is no evidence that high levels of oxidative stress are beneficial, so there is still a strong scientific basis for reducing oxidative stress, including through an oxidative stress nutritional supplement.
But how should individuals go about managing oxidative stress in a way that doesn’t leave them deficient in the baseline level of ROS they need? Although science currently lacks a definitive answer to this question, there is reason to believe there is a way forward nonetheless. Indeed, if an individual could provide their cells with the antioxidant molecules their cells can use only as needed, then there is a much smaller likelihood of completely depleting the necessary ROS.
This means the ideal antioxidant molecule would be something the cells already use in that capacity. With this aspect in mind, the antioxidant glutathione might be the best of the available nutritional supplements for oxidative stress for individuals who don’t want to risk weakening their systems.
Glutathione is an appealing choice for individuals seeking to reduce their level of oxidative stress safely because cells already use glutathione prolifically. Animals, plants, fungi, and many bacteria synthesize glutathione from several essential amino acids and use it to defend themselves against oxidative stress by exploiting its ROS-receptive chemical structure.
Because most life forms synthesize glutathione for themselves, it is often consumed in food, although it is not a nutrient. Stomach acid typically breaks down orally consumed glutathione into its constituent parts, which are later re-assembled by cells for the purposes of regulating oxidative stress. When cells detect high levels of oxidative stress, they direct glutathione molecules to the problem area. Once there, glutathione reacts with the ROS, safely removing them from circulation and preventing them from damaging cellular machinery.*
Afterward, the cells direct the newly oxidized glutathione molecule elsewhere to be recycled safely. Excess quantities of glutathione are safely stored in several different cellular holding vaults, which keeps them from causing excessive reduction of oxidative stress.
Although cells rely on glutathione as their first line of defense against oxidative stress, in conditions of very high oxidative stress, glutathione supplies can run low and damage can result. This means that providing one’s cells with an extra supply of glutathione via supplementation could mean the difference between experiencing oxidative stress damage and remaining healthy.*
Increasing the proportion of glutathione’s chemical precursors in the diet doesn’t solve the problem, because synthesizing glutathione from its precursors takes precious time, which can allow oxidative stress to cause damage before the newly produced glutathione can be brought to bear. Additionally, people are unlikely to anticipate when their body’s glutathione supply is running low; glutathione levels are known to decrease with age and low levels are associated with a number of serious health conditions.
Significantly, an insufficient glutathione supply has no early symptoms, although individuals might begin experiencing symptoms of inflammation stemming from the damage caused by oxidative stress. Maintaining a larger supply of glutathione preventatively through an oxidative stress supplement is thus a good strategy for individuals who want to avoid gaps in their protection.*
Glutathione supplements currently on the market are readily used by cells to improve their ability to combat oxidative stress.* Using sophisticated delivery systems, these supplements are guaranteed to reach where the body can use them, unlike with glutathione in food form.*
This could have significant benefits for individuals; for example, research has shown that oral glutathione supplements can increase cellular glutathione concentrations by as much as 260 percent in immune cells.* Glutathione as an oxidative stress supplement is also highly tolerable, and in clinical settings, most individuals find the side effects of glutathione supplements to be transient and mild. Of those who do report side effects, headache and minor nausea are the most common complaints.
Although the clinical impact of glutathione supplementation is still under investigation, preliminary participant accounts indicate it could reduce the intensity of oxidative stress-related symptoms, which means that supplementation could be broadly applicable for a range of neurological and gastrointestinal conditions. For individuals beginning to experience cognitive deficits, evidence suggests that a high-quality glutathione supplement might help manage their oxidative stress levels sufficiently for an improved level of cognition.*
Future research will shed greater light on the details of how glutathione supplementation should be used clinically. In the meantime, individuals who suffer from oxidative stress-associated conditions can be confident in the safety of glutathione as an emerging oxidative stress supplement that has the potential to significantly improve quality of life.*
The power of Tesseract supplements lies in enhancing palatability, maximizing bioavailability and absorption, and micro-dosing of multiple nutrients in a single, highly effective capsule. Visit our website for more information about how Tesseract’s products can help support your immune health.*
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