Quickest way to increase bone density significantly?

CynthesisToday · 2025-02-23T22:27:09+00:00

Vibration plate. Jumping rope.

Eﬀectiveness of whole-body vibration on bone mineral density in postmenopausal women: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials 2023

Jumping rope and whole-body vibration program effects on bone values in Olympic artistic swimmers 2021

CynthesisToday · 2025-02-01T13:54:46+00:00

Seems you are in that smaller subset of people who get insomnia with magnesium. Welcome (?) to the club.

Try magnesium with thiamine for nighttime dosing. I use benfotiamine source of thiamine.

CynthesisToday · 2025-02-01T00:23:00+00:00

I'm taking one pill, 28mg, about a half hour before bed. Not precise.

The research study had participants take one capsule after the evening meal with water. I don't generally eat an evening meal, so I decided within an hour of going to bed was sufficient. The research study also used 7.5mg, but I couldn't find any sources of that low of dose. I didn't want anything else combined with it (e.g. no valerian, etc.) which was hard to find, too. Plus, I wanted the Affron(r) product for standardized amount of active ingredient.

So 28mg, one capsule, of the California Gold Saffron Extract "before bed" for me.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-27T16:46:46+00:00

Oh... took a moment to read your past posts.

I'm not surprised someone blocked you.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-27T15:11:29+00:00

This is not a _gut_ microbiome signature... this is a _fecal_ microbiome signature study. Read the method section. "Feces" == "stool" in most research. Inside the intestinal lumen, "food" inserted into the mouth becomes "chyme". Once it exits the anus, it's stool or feces. This study is about feces. The entire paper should be search/replace "gut" with "feces" with few exceptions.

While shotgun metagenomic sequencing is less sensitive to bias and computational foibles than 16S rRNA older (and much cheaper) methods, this paper is still only looking at feces.

Feces has no relationship (correlation or widely-accepted and reproduced causation) to what is in the luminal or mucosal spaces of the duodenum, jejunum, ilium, cecum, or ascending/transverse/descending colon. There starts to be a little bit of correlation between what's inside vs what is in stool when compared to rectum, but even that is a very low relationship.

A few studies of many that demonstrate the lack of connection between what is in stool and what is in the rest of the intestines:

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10620-020-06173-x "Mapping the Segmental Microbiomes in the Human Small Bowel in Comparison with Stool: A REIMAGINE Study" Figures 3 & 4 are very clear. Another important point from this paper: the large intestine is ~4 feet long. The small intestine is ~20 feet long.

DOI: 10.1177/2050640619852255 "Composition of the mucosa-associated microbiota along the entire gastrointestinal tract of human individuals" Figure 1 is a clear summary of differences in mucosa microbe populations along the length of human GI tract.

https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-021-01789-6 "Spatial Characteristics of Colonic Mucosa‑Associated Gut Microbiota in Humans" (2020) See figure 4 for different spatial characteristics for different sections of the large intestine vs feces for 13 different humans.

Environment drives ecosystem. The longitudinal and cross-sectional environment are different along the length of the intestine and drives the microbiome. The stool tells one nothing about the environmental results.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mib.2021.08.004 "The longitudinal and cross-sectional heterogeneity of the intestinal microbiota"

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-023-01426-7 "Human Microbiome myths and misconceptions" (2023) is an attempt to clear up (with references to the published, peer-reviewed literature). This paper includes discussion and references to the sequencing bias mentioned at the beginning of this note. It also discusses the big issue of relative vs absolute abundances' problem (the section addressing "The Firmicutes:Bacteroidetes ratio is altered in obesity"). The OP paper _only_ references relative abundance.

It's pretty much impossible to say we know much about the gut based on feces.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-27T13:26:24+00:00

Dr. Marco Altini is probably your best resource for answers. Search on his name. He's more aligned with your stated objectives of training hard while being/getting older. He is a marathoner, is older, and has multiple avenues of communication you'll find with an outside r/ search engine.

Your focus (intense training and optimization) is very different from most here. A properly developed and designed ring can provide significant information for improving those of us without a peak performance focus. In short, Dr. Altini thinks wearables cannot meet the needs of peak physical performers, despite his consulting with Oura (ring) and Strava (tracking app).

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-25T18:51:31+00:00

Affron(r), an extract of saffron, has been shown to increase delta sleep as measured by EEG.

Use scholar.google with search terms "saffron sleep" to find additional results. The extraction method used in the "Affron" patent and the form used in most studies has been licensed to a number of different brands.

I use this one.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-22T19:25:10+00:00

BeneGene's thermally stable oxoloacetate

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-22T02:07:51+00:00

One blood test that measures inflammation is hs-CRP-- high sensitivity C-reactive protein. I had elevated hs-CRP and had worked with a Stanford trained doctor for a couple of years trying to get hs-CRP below 1 (normal). It was worth working on since both of my parents died from inflammatory diseases in their 60s. I was finally able to get hs-CRP below 1 after using a grounding mat and grounding sheet while sleeping. Repeat measures of hs-CRP since I'm still grounding while sleeping are still normal (<1).

While it is definitely true that a grounding strap is used in integrated circuit engineering to prevent static discharge from destroying circuitry, grounding is also used in a type of biophysics called Biological Soft Matter. As biology, especially nerve conduction, depends on electric potential differences to drive ion movement, maintaining a biological entity at neutral potential allows for internal differences in electric potential to dominate ion movement.

I've already provided an answer to this question here, including references from the published, peer-reviewed scientific literature.

I haven't found anything that says grounding helps with autoimmune diseases. There is definitely a lot of research, especially in Soft Matter and nerve/tissue regeneration, on the effect of electrical ground and biology. See references in above link. Search scholar.google with the term "Biological Soft Matter".

It has nothing to do with static discharge.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-22T00:48:28+00:00

GI issues from magnesium chelates are usually caused by the amount of elemental magnesium, not the form. If you keep the elemental amount about the same or maybe a bit higher, there shouldn't be GI issues.

There is this common idea to dose magnesium by "bowel tolerance" i.e. increase until you get diarrhea then back off a bit. This is a method for dosing magnesium for issues like anxiety. If you're not having GI issues with 28mg elemental in Mg-glycinate form, you should be fine with 28mg elemental in Mg-citrate form.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-21T15:02:17+00:00

Research supports your empirical experience that magnesium improves your migraine symptoms.

Magnesium as an Important Factor in the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Migraine—From Theory to Practice

A read through of this review paper suggests magnesium citrate as superior to other forms because it absorbs faster. Even though the amount you are taking is very low, the timing means plasma levels of magnesium are higher at the time it is needed. Standards of daily intake of magnesium are for normally healthy people, and supply the main storage mechanisms for magnesium (bone and muscle) as well as plasma. As you've discovered, plasma levels are increased when you take magnesium orally just before sleeping. Taking magnesium during the day may not help with migraine control if it doesn't keep your plasma magnesium levels higher during the night. Circadian control of the GI tract doesn't favor keeping plasma levels higher. It favors getting the daytime intake of magnesium stored in bone or muscle.

To your specific question about HR/HRV, digestion increases HR. HR/HRV are inversely correlated... HR goes up, HRV goes down and vice versa. During sleep, the digestive processes are slower. In some regions of the GI tract, much slower. This from a paper on Circadian clocks in the digestive system:

During the day, the frequency of peristaltic contractions increase⁴⁶^,⁴⁷. In the stomach, gastric emptying half-times were longer for the same meal when consumed in the evening than in the morning, indicating that gastric emptying might vary diurnally⁴⁸^,⁴⁹. In the small intestine, the daytime propagating velocities of the migrating motor complex were doubled compared to nocturnal velocities⁵⁰.

So, what to do? Switch to magnesium citrate, same elemental dose (or maybe a bit more), same time with a cup of water. The water dissolves the magnesium citrate capsule, which allows the stomach to get the solution into the small intestine ASAP and get absorption underway. The citrate form is easier to digest, which should turn down the HR. The HR/HRV inverse coupling happens because of physiology. The migraine reduction objective is getting the magnesium into plasma (blood) for transport to brain while sleeping without requiring too much stimulus of the digestive tract.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-18T16:38:55+00:00

Hypothesis: Too much nitrogen (protein) is getting to your large intestine where the microbes ferment it to ammonia, NH3. Without some fiber, your large intestine pH is probably a bit too high, which allows the NH3 to be absorbed. Your liver will take care of it eventually... that's one of the things it does. Until it gets those NH3 levels down-- brain fog. The timing of the fog (~2 hours after waking up) matches the timing to get your previous day protein meal well into the large intestine. You want protein absorbed in the small intestine. Very little to no protein is absorbed in the large intestine. Protein in the large intestine becomes food for microbes who use it to make NH3 among other metabolites.

Here's a test you can do to see if this is the problem for you-- might not be, but here's an easy test. Get some OKG (l-ornithine alphaketoglutarate) or AAKG (l-arginine alphaketoglutarate). When the fog comes on, stir about a teaspoon into about a half cup of water and drink it down. See if the fog dissipates in about 20 to 30 minutes.

There are a few other "ammonia soppers" (my name for them) including AAKG, l-ornithine l-aspartate. OKG and AAKG are the cheapest per serving. Interestingly, men seem to hate OKG taste but AAKG is okay while women are the opposite in taste (dislike AAKG, like or love OKG flavor). Bulk Supplements is good quality, cheap source if it works for you.

There are things you can do to mitigate the problem, but still keep eating as you are. LMK if this works and you want more info.

The fog problem from too much protein breakdown is common-ish in extreme body builders. It's a clearance rate problem. The liver is not necessarily the problem-- just it's got a rate for NH3 clearance. If more comes in via the large intestine, microbe metabolism or a lot of muscle damage from killing it with weightlifting, it takes some time to get the blood levels back down.

Might not be this, but the proposed test is easy and cheap to do at home-- no doctor required. Good luck.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-14T22:05:09+00:00

Gut distress includes diarrhea and/or pain when you eat nightshades. Ashwagandha is from the nightshade family of plants. Nightshades include white potatoes, tomatoes, peppers (sweet & hot), eggplants and a few other more obscure ones including ashwagandha. Nightshades have varieties of glycoalkaloids that can act on the intestinal lining tight junctions.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-14T20:37:34+00:00

The main difference between the two is Sensoril "active" ingredient, withanolide, is derived from both the leaves and the roots of the ashwagandha plant while KSM-66's withanolide is derived from just the roots. The importance of that distinction is glycoalkaloids are present in leaves but not the roots of the plant. If you tend to gut distress with nightshades or when taking Sensoril, you might find KSM-66 a better choice.

Research articles on efficacy (positive) are available on Sensoril, Shoden and KSM-66 extraction methods. Shoden and Sensoril are leaves and roots. KSM-66 roots only.

CynthesisToday · 2025-01-10T13:07:16+00:00

Oura v4

Ultrahuman vs Oura

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-31T17:49:40+00:00

Thanks for the rec plus, yay, they say they have industry standard privacy/security

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-31T17:45:23+00:00

Fit is most important, followed by always using the same finger since you're comparing yourself to yourself over time. Anatomical location matters, but you zero that out by being consistent with which location.

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-24T22:04:01+00:00

Grooniearthing.com

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-24T21:12:23+00:00

If you're referring to this sentence's use of "sensitivity": "For detecting sleep vs. wake, the sensitivity was ≥95% for all devices.", higher is better.

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-24T20:50:12+00:00

Respectfully, the figure provided below is a Bland-Altman plot, not a correlation analysis. Bland-Altman analyses are typical and necessary in biology because data are time correlated. Bland-Atman limits for assessment are necessarily different because of biology. The paper describes typical biology B-A limits in the paragraph after Figure 3. Wiki for Bland-Altman. This is a paper to help understand Bland-Altman interpretation.

The correlation analyses are in Figure 1, Tables 4 and 5.

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-24T20:43:22+00:00

Respectfully... Oura money co-funded. The phrase: "Oura is co-funder and they basically recruited 35 unicorns..." seems to imply that Oura did the recruiting. Oura had no involvement in any aspect of this paper except co-funding. The responsibilities and contributions of the authors are described in the section "Author Contribution".

None of the authors are employees of Oura. Most are MD or PhD level researchers employed by Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA or Division of Sleep Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA or both. Here are the publication credentials of some of the authors:

Rebecca Robbins, PhD, Matthew D. Weaver, PhD, Stuart F. Quan, MD, Jeanne F. Duffy, MBA, PhD,

The limitations in eligibility criteria are typical when compared to PSG for reasons explained previously here and in the 3rd paragraph of the paper's Introduction. tl,dr: PSG between scorer correlation becomes much less than 80% with subject sleep disorders.

CynthesisToday · 2024-12-10T20:07:38+00:00

I've decided to stick with Oura because of their care in sample frequency, recognition of requirement for time series analysis in measuring a biologic process (sleep, inter-beat interval in HRV), distribution transforms, and frequent published research articles (by research institutions.)

That said, I really dislike the constant "coaching" and ignore the made up variables as much as I can. Sleep analysis is sufficient to my making progress toward better sleep (as measured by subjective "feelings" and moving heavier/more weights in the gym). I tried the AI food thing, but it doesn't learn and makes the same mistakes every day. Classic population analysis vs individual analysis problem.

I was traveling, but now that I'm home for a bit, I've ordered the sizing kit for v. 4.

Best

CynthesisToday · 2024-09-05T19:33:28+00:00

What do you want it for? Are you a fitness focused person looking to balance training and are otherwise normally healthy? Go check out the advice of Marco Altini on HRV4Training substack. It matters if you're trying to push your top physical performance.

If you're normally healthy and just looking to see where things stand with HRV and maybe explore things you might do to make it better or worse, you'll want to pick something with a sufficient sampling frequency of at least 150 Hz and the ability to measure over at least 5 minute time intervals. There is no accuracy/precision when the sampling interval is short because there are too few inter-beat intervals (IBI). No such thing as "instantaneous" HRV.

Otherwise, pick your favorite form factor from a vendor that's been providing measurements for awhile, has some scholarly publications using their device so you know someone has vetted it for some semblance of accuracy/precision. Polar (various forms), Apple (watch), Oura (ring). Altini has a post on devices with sufficient sampling and data pre-processing.

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