Ruth

Progesterone Series #1

Some things to consider if your temps and pulse remain low despite eating “clean” and getting enough calories: -calcium intake (~2g) -salt intake (~5-15g) -sunlight exposure (morning + evening red light + ~20min midday UV daily) -avoiding a mostly liquid, cold foods diet (eat whole fruits, cheese instead of just OJ, milk) -any source of persistent intestinal irritation -any major past life stress (such as surgery) which may have severely depleted nutrients like B vitamins

Biology is such a mess without this lens Dr Peat describes. It really shouldn't be taken for granted. Modern researchers approach problems as 'idosyncratic' or worse, genetic defeats. Then struggle to understand the mechanisms behind a pathology. raypeat.com/articles/other…

"Our individual cells have a degree of autonomy, consisting of the ability to sense their situation, integrate stimuli, and act adaptively. Their behavior is intelligently adaptive. The cells that make up the nervous system have this basic capacity for complex adaptive integration, but they also have the specialized role of serving as links between cells, and between cells and the environment".

@dallingr Yup, I believe so.

Instead of being told 'you are reacting abnormally to normal hormones', women with PMDD should be told 'you are reacting exactly as expected given the high stress you've experienced'. Then helped to shift into a generative, healing state.

@dallingr Yeah, cortisol changes how resilient the brain is to big fluctuations in hormones. What I love about Ray Peats work is that given what is needed, we can heal and reverse, to a big extent the damage we've been dealt.

Nice little study conducted away from the eye of pharma. "Low-abdominal cramps, and gastro-intestinal and pain symptoms were assosiated with lower progesterone levels."

@JamesMLivengood No, Nutrition for Women page 106

@Know_Yourself_H Is this from Mind and Tissue?

The only gender takes I can stomach are from Dr Peat.

@globosummed It could yes! I think addressing things upsteam is important and maybe more impactful. Like keeping blood sugar stable, enough salt, calcium, magnesium, looking at what is causing the stress.

@Know_Yourself_H Can supplementing with GABA help?

I've been doing a deep dive on PMDD, writing lots but not sure what the final output will be. If I were to write a review paper I'd call it something like 'Stress induced changes to GABA alpha -R in women with PMDD as a causative driver of 'paradoxical' allopregnanalone responses'.

Women with PMDD have a blunted cortisol response. That is a failure to respond to acute stress with enough cortisol. This is also observed in PTSD. An understandable down regulation of chronic stress. The alarm bell can only ring for so long before another strategy is deployed.

In other words 'You don't have a defective brain, you're just really stressed out'.

@World_All_Alive Transacting in mangoes only from now on.

Q: How seriously should we worry about sudden destruction of bank account data or forced digital currency? Ray Peat: I think everyone should have alternatives to the banks. The plan is to have digital money and do away with exchangeable pieces of paper, because you can do business outside the system with paper. Much of Mexican business (about half the economy last time I looked) is still outside the government’s perception, and that’s one of the things the tax system, government, and banks would like to control. But Mexico is still somewhat out of control. Q: Any general approach to dealing with a parasitic infection like Chagas? Ray Peat: Avoiding it is interesting. Most parasites hang out in very humid tropical areas. High altitudes help — there’s not enough oxygen for some skin mites, and the ultraviolet light is so intense at 7,000 ft that bacteria have a very short life. High thyroid and high altitude both lower lactic acid and inflammation while increasing anti-inflammatory and anti-infective carbon dioxide. Q: Any other advantages of Mexico over Bolivia? Ray Peat: Bolivia has cities at higher altitudes and lower latitude, but some very high-altitude big cities (like La Paz area) have become so polluted that it detracts from the area. Also, there aren’t the masses of US staff stationed in Bolivia as there are in Mexico. Q: Alternatives to banks — gold/silver or something else? Ray Peat: Gold and silver and productive land, mangoes, fruit trees… Q: On farming and starting agricultural projects Ray Peat: Lots of independent subsistence farmers don’t understand soil chemistry. Just bringing in knowledge of composting would make it possible to quickly turn low-producing land into high-producing land. If I were going to start an agricultural organization, I would look for borderline depleted land with some kind of water supply and then concentrate on building up the fertility. The more organic material, basically, the better things grow. Q: How much influence do the cartels have, and how much are they influenced by the US/CIA? Is that a threat to living in Mexico? Ray Peat: The sensible thing would be to legalize the drugs they trade in. Enforcement against the cartels is what they need to keep the prices up. The people who proposed letting drugs come through Mexico freely and letting Americans worry about legality had the obvious solution for Mexico — there would be no significant profit within Mexico. But the US obviously doesn’t like that solution. Q: Final thoughts / advice for the group? Ray Peat: I’m sure that’s the natural state of things. I think there’s plenty of time. Take your time, poke around, start learning the language, and let people know that you’re interested in settling down — that will bring you lots of information. Q: Advice for group dynamics in an intentional community? Ray Peat: It’s good to read about the history of intentional communities. The idea of becoming farmers when you haven’t had a farming tradition led most of the intentional communities to break up — people discovered they weren’t cut out for that kind of work. Q: How much influence do the cartels have, and how much are they influenced by the US/CIA? Is that a threat to living in Mexico? Ray Peat: The sensible thing would be to legalize the drugs they trade in. Enforcement against the cartels is what they need to keep the prices up. The people who proposed letting drugs come through Mexico freely and letting Americans worry about legality had the obvious solution for Mexico — there would be no significant profit within Mexico. But the US obviously doesn’t like that solution. Q: Final thoughts / advice for the group? Ray Peat: I’m sure that’s the natural state of things. I think there’s plenty of time. Take your time, poke around, start learning the language, and let people know that you’re interested in settling down — that will bring you lots of information.

Full transcript from Danny’s telegram: Previously unreleased group conversation with Ray Peat that took place on January 30, 2022, about technocracy, growing food, hard money, and safe places to live: Q: Short-term safety (1-3 years) – inside or outside the USA? Ray Peat: It really depends on how you would live outside the US. The transition time creates confusion and can reduce your stability, which is very close to safety. Safety varies with pollution, random danger, and political possibilities. It depends on the specific city or region, whether you’re in the US or Mexico. You can find places with extreme safety in Mexico and risky places in the US. Americans are almost always the least likely to be directly harmed in Mexico, except indirectly through pollution. Q: Does the answer change for the long term (rest of your life as a 30-year-old)? Ray Peat: With the exception of invasion by the US, Mexico is on a generally good stabilizing course while the US is on a steady downward course. If they continue the present path, the US could become almost unrecognizable within 10 years. The rate of craziness we’ve seen in the last year and a half, if extrapolated, would make it a complete nightmare long before 10 years. Q: Aren’t the strongest resistors to the global agenda concentrated in the USA with the best laws and resources to fight back, compared to Mexico? Ray Peat: No. When you get away from the cities, Mexico has more of that spontaneous libertarian spirit. That conformist, militaristic conformism in the US was completely absent when I first went to Mexico 60 years ago. It has been creeping in, but I would guess a good half of the population is still pretty spontaneously libertarian — they secretly keep their guns and do what they want, ignoring the state. Q: Thoughts on Bolivia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru as alternatives? Ray Peat: Costa Rica has traditionally been the most like Scandinavia — unmilitarized and pretty free. Peru is probably the most inclined to fascism. Ecuador is being pressured so heavily by the US it’s hard to tell what will happen. Bolivia is second in the world (after Mexico) in communal land ownership at about 33%, which supports anti-neoliberal processes. The neoliberal pressures are what anger the population and create dangerous situations. Q: Is Mexico more resistant to Green New Deal / climate change agendas than Bolivia? Ray Peat: I imagine both are pretty resistant, but my feeling from both big-city and small-town people in Mexico is that they are extremely resistant to propaganda. Right after 9/11, the word “pretexto” was already in everyone’s mind in Mexico, while it took 10 years for that awareness to take hold in the US. Q: Hedging bets for the next 10 years — Bolivia or Mexico? Ray Peat: Mexico has a long history (about 150 years) of being a place of escape from repressive governments, similar to Holland centuries ago. Even conservative governments have honored that liberal tradition of accepting refugees from everywhere. Q: Does growing cartel violence and power in Mexico factor into your decision? Ray Peat: The cartels are starting to use their drug money to invest in agriculture, and they don’t always know what they’re doing, which contributes to some deforestation. But they can be shooting each other not very far away and no one pays attention because it’s only between the drug people. Q: If we start a community with a large agriculture focus, would that raise eyebrows with the cartels? Ray Peat: If you were a very rich operation, maybe — think of the Mennonites in Chihuahua. They seem to have done pretty well and I haven’t heard of them being menaced by the cartels. (One incident involved a family driving a vehicle similar to those used by drug people.)

When scientists tell the truth... "PMDD's pathophysiology is poorly understood" - Hantsoo & Payne (2023).

Thinking about Dr Peat's reputation of being generous with his time, patient & loving towards people.

If you get the categories wrong, you cut off branches unknowingly. But if you don't categorise you become unrelatable.

A brain that is good at categorisation will be orderly but limited in its scope. A brain that is good at branching, reaching forward in all directions, following the threads sacrifices order for depth. I know... with energy comes order. More reason to increase energy!

@mscarnivore I'm so glad you did 💛 They are indeed.

@Know_Yourself_H Yeah I healed from it over 10 years ago thanks to removing gluten from my diet and acupuncture. It was one of the first things that improved during my healing journey. It’s such an easy fix, it pisses me off how much they are gaslighting women about treatments.

In 2012 the Cochrane review of 'Progesterone for premenstrual syndrome' concluded "The trials did not show that progesterone is an effective treatment for PMS nor that it is not". Of course, as there's barely any data on it. In 2013 PMDD was instated into the DSM-5. Taken from the physiologists and given to the psychiatrists.

@wmepistemology Yeah, only a very small amount of disorders in the DSM have FDA approved drugs, the rest are off-label. Nice little loop hole for them!

@Know_Yourself_H It’s weird how they want to talk about the science when most psych prescribing is off-label.

If you get your disorder put into the DSM, there is about a 90% chance doctors will end up prescribe off-label psychotropic drugs for it. Thankfully the incentives are purely benevolent!