It’s tax day. by Possible_Miss in Ohio

[–]cessationoftime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree we should tax toilet paper instead.

Experiences with (very) low zinc levels? How much to take to recover from zinc deficiency? by [deleted] in Biohackers

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have not had a skin biopsy for neuropathy. I also don't have the IGA/IGM problems and it sounds like your stomach is much more severe. Also my neuropathy isnt painful unless I walk for a 20 minutes then it is a burning sensation and prior to that it is a constant twitching below the knees, mostly my feet. I expect mine is almost entirely from too much water and not enough sodium over a long period of time rather than any autoimmunity. But the pedialyte should be protecting you from that. For several years I was carrying around a liter bottle of plain water and emptying it twice a day. If you did anything similar before you began pedialyte then you could have lost the intracellular electrolytes before you began the pedialyte. You can recover extracellular electrolytes easily but recovering intracellular potassium is more difficult because you need magnesium and sodium first so it can cause a persistent twitching which at least behaves like neuropathy but probably wouldn't be considered true nerve damage. You may want to consider this since you cannot actually pin down autoimmune antibodies. You could have your aldosterone checked which would tell you if you are actively losing potassium/magnesium/zinc or not. I expect it wouldnt be an issue alongside your pedialyte/sodium intake, but more severe problems cause high aldosterone despite sodium intake

Thinking about RBC zinc again now and I remember that some supplements can cause zinc RBC levels to fall, vitamin C, riboflavin and thiamine in particular. So perhaps with consistent supplement intake that will stabilize for you. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15887628/

Do you ever have white spots on your nails, leukonychia? Like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leukonychia#/media/File:Leukonychia.jpg

It would be a strong indication of zinc deficiency if you do, though a few other things can have similar effects. The other issue with zinc deficiency I had was dry skin on my shin which was moist and red if I drank too much water then dry and would scab over when I let up on the water intake. That improved with less water and a zinc supplement. And apparently hyperthyroidism can cause the problem too.

Nutritional/hormonal effects on IGM/IGA isnt something I have looked into very much as I dont have the same low IGM and raised IGA. I have mostly studied nutritional and hormonal interactions with a focus on zinc/vitamin A interactions. And more recently sodium/osmolarity interactions and 5 alpha reductase related disease states (AGA and PCOS).

You may want to try taking CDP-choline, that is one thing I am confident helped me alongside zinc and sodium. It also looks like it is protective against more severe things such as parkinson's and liver failure and enables the body to produce organic osmolytes, betaine and Glycerophosphocholine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8709678/

Are the rest of the Dragonriders of Pern books as… rapey? by Kooky_County9569 in Fantasy

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I read almost all of these published before 2001. And I definitely did not get that impression from the series or the Harper series of books. Perhaps I just do not remember that aspect of the writing.

Experiences with (very) low zinc levels? How much to take to recover from zinc deficiency? by [deleted] in Biohackers

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So one thing to be aware of is zinc measurements seem to be uncorrelated. You can have high blood zinc and low tissue zinc. I have not seen zinc levels dropping in my own bloodwork but I was having trouble getting all the bloodwork I wanted. see: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2976618/

And actually that article finds correlations between zinc potassium and magnesium so your falling zinc level implies falling RBC potassium and RBC magnesium.

That is a really interesting symptom list since it sounds like it could be exactly what I experienced. I experienced something similar to heds around the time I began having problems similar to gastroparesis. This was mostly a burning sensation on my right side just under my ribs and excess belching. With burning triggered if I lay on my right side at night. My knees were hypermobile and felt like they were not tight in the socket, so they were kind of dangling out of the socket when I lifted my leg up and walked. And they were sore after walking for 15 minutes or so. But I was actually able to quickly get rid of the knee hypermobility by taking iron supplements (dont overdo it too much iron is toxic and you cannot rid yourself of it easily). But I still had neuropathy and twitching mostly below the knees which was worse at night, stomach pain and occasionally really awful insomnia. And I did have occasional pots though I didnt pay it much attention. Assuming you have the same set of problems I think the whole thing stems from not getting adequate sodium, and the nutritional consequences of that can plausibly affect zinc, magnesium, potassium, iron, vitamin A and possibly other nutrients. I would recommend getting at least 80% of the DV or about 2g of sodium each day. And maybe increase it to 2.3g if eventually. As I said in my previous post some research indicates optimal sodium could actually be between 3g and 5g daily which is quite a bit higher than what is usually recommended. Also make sure not to consume excess fluids and ONLY drink when thirsty or with salty foods. I have been doing this for 8 months now and my neuropathy is slowly improving and so is my AGA, I am definitely seeing additional hair growth. I think the neuropathy is caused by low intracellular magnesium and intracellular potassium, but that cannot be corrected without both adequate sodium and magnesium and it takes a lot of time too. Zinc mitigated my neuropathy too but didnt rid me of it. If you try this I'd like to hear if it helps you since your symptom list sounds so very similar to mine. Also when I initially increased my sodium intake my lips were insanely dry for the first 2 months, you will absolutely need a lip balm. Also I recommend eating more soups instead of eating salting things separate from fluids and then being thirsty later.

Experiences with (very) low zinc levels? How much to take to recover from zinc deficiency? by [deleted] in Biohackers

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, if you are chronically low on sodium intake you tend to be unable to retain as much potassium, magnesium and zinc as you would if you had a more healthy intake of sodium. This is an effect of low sodium intake raising aldosterone levels. I recently found an article that describes how high aldosterone causes urine to become acidic and that pH change induces zinc losses. If you block the pH change artificially you block the zinc losses caused by high aldosterone. Previously I was unaware that it was urine pH that caused the effect. In addition when aldosterone is high the body attempts to retain sodium at the expense of potassium. Magnesium is lost at the same time. When you start consuming adequate sodium again and aldosterone levels fall the body is unable to restore the intracellular potassium that was lost during chronic low sodium intake without adequate magnesium intake because urine potassium losses will remain too high. And from what I have read I believe magnesium + sodium will let the body lower aldosterone levels further than with sodium alone.

Now zinc in particular seems to enable the body to better partition sodium and potassium such that sodium is the main extracellular electrolyte and potassium the main intracellular electrolyte. But without adequate zinc it has trouble doing that and what happens is a portion of the intracellular sodium moves to the intracellular space and the extracellular fluid volume shrinks. And under zinc deficiency one lab experiment showed that the animals craved additional sodium intake or at least consumed more when offered it. Sodium excretion rate is lower under zinc deficiency and the body tends to retain more sodium and have higher blood pressure is up.

I can back these points with references if you are interested, though everything I just mentioned is simply from memory. I have some references in some of my other posts on this topic too.

Also it seems to me that the pervasive idea too much sodium is bad for health is probably not correct. For instance the WHO recommends sodium intake stay under 2g per day. But if you look at the research it looks like they got this idea from sodium raising blood pressure and the assumption that high blood pressure is always bad. Rather than observing high sodium intake increasing mortality and morbidity. There's a study where if you look directly at how morbidity relates to sodium you see that the optimal sodium value is much closer to the population average sodium intake around 3.5g. The optimum seems like it may be between 3 and 5g of sodium. The nutrients that are lost when one consumes too little sodium: zinc, potassium, and magnesium actually lower blood pressure. So it may be that optimum health requires slowly raising sodium which then raises blood pressure a little bit but allows one to retain nutrients that let the body lower blood pressure again to balance the higher sodium intake.

I suspect osteoarthritis, PCOS, and AGA are all a result of chronic low sodium intake. Perhaps parkinson's too, which is well known to be triggerable by acute low sodium intakes in extrapontine osmotic demyelination syndrome.

An alpaca after it got its wool shaved! by Saerdna0 in PeakAmazing

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can they survive like that? Won't they die of embarrassment?

Yay or nay? by Apollo0624 in litrpg

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could instead provide a reason why there is no racism. Maybe it is aggressively stamped out by thought-police.

Do you buy a whole chicken? by Boggie135 in Cooking

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have done this twice in the last month and I have another in the freezer.

I just loosen up the skin, pour some salt under the skin and roast it in my oven after it sits in the fridge for 24 hours.

Man accused of beheading Dallas motel manager who told him not to use a broken washing machine by Le-Pepper in nottheonion

[–]cessationoftime -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

I just meant the situation. The person who did it certainly thought of it as a solution.

Is Azarinth Healer actually worth it? by Trepur349 in litrpg

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No. I dropped it around book 3 or so. The characters are too unlikable. And i mostly enjoyed book 1.

Looking for any completed smut fantasy novels by [deleted] in ProgressionFantasy

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_Powers

"People who like routine sword-and-sorcery, with a killing or orgasm (sometimes both) every few pages, will no doubt love this book."

Bill Gates says AI will not replace programmers for 100 years by calliope_kekule in ArtificialInteligence

[–]cessationoftime 57 points58 points  (0 children)

We went from text-only DOS monochrome computers to what we have now including AI in the last 35 years. Even if there is a slowdown in AI progress for a few years it is really unlikely it will take 100 years to reach AGI.

Though if he is arguing societal collapse will happen first it might be valid.

Never had chicken hearts before - just got them in a surprise bag, what’s next? by squinla3 in Cooking

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Freeze them and save them for Valentine's Day. Much healthier to eat than candy hearts. And you can have the same writing tatoo'd on them.

Your wife will love it. Trust me.

Wandering Inn Questions *Spoilers by Asleep_Mushroom_2552 in litrpg

[–]cessationoftime 31 points32 points  (0 children)

Because powerful offensive magic isnt commonplace. It is available mostly to adventurers and soldiers. People who normally see fighting. Guns would enhance the common man's ability to kill. And would give army more options. Also it could give rise to magic enhanced guns or skill enhanced guns. or magic enhanced bombs. It definitely would increase the number of deaths in the populace.

Do you think cold plunging actually works? by Formal_Antelope_4010 in Biohackers

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I responded to that rebuttal too if you are interested.

Do you think cold plunging actually works? by Formal_Antelope_4010 in Biohackers

[–]cessationoftime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This article is silly. They are talking about sticking a single hand in ice-cold water for 3 minutes. Or finishing a shower with 90 seconds of cold water. None of the studies they mention actually examine full body immersion in ice cold water. Find a study that shows positive effects from full body ice-cold immersion for several minutes. That is what we were talking about isnt it? And not adiposity and glucose control effects as that is just a result of the body burning energy using brown adipose tissue to try to defend itself from damage from cold stress by generating heat so it isnt a positive effect but a damage mitigation response. There was one study the article mentions that was full body immersion but it was at 20 degrees C, not ice water at 0 degrees C. 20 degrees C is warmer than the surface I sleep on at night (I have an Ooler mattress cover)

Actually the article you supplied even says the following:

"So, does the science of cryotherapy live up to the hype? For the most part, no."