Dr. Bitcarrot

JUST IN: FDA advisory panel votes to expand pharmacy access to BPC-157, a peptide promoted for injury recovery and gut healing.

WHY DOES EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHER HAVE SIBO

Children with ADHD often have high copper and low zinc. A study of 108 children found exactly that. The ones with the most copper and the least zinc had the worst attention. Copper and zinc balance each other. Push one up, the other drops. So if your child is wired and can't settle, it's worth checking both. Ask for plasma zinc, serum copper, and ceruloplasmin. Ceruloplasmin is copper's carrier. Copper being carried is safe. It's the copper roaming free that causes trouble. And a normal copper result can miss that completely. And never move one without the other. Copper and zinc go together. Study link in comment 👇

If you react to "calming" compounds like chamomile, passionflower, taurine, and/or glycine. And, you get weird paradoxical reactions that lead to anxiety, discomfort, agitation, even panic attacks. Then you might have an issue with the ions that regulate neurotransmission themselves — which only work when energy metabolism is operating efficiently. These compounds work on GABA-a and Glycine receptors that allow for chloride ions (Cl-) to enter neurons for their beneficial, inhibitory effects. In a healthy neuron, this works as described above. In an inflamed, injured, or stressed neuron, this does the opposite — thus, driving excitatory effects. The adult brain relies on a transporter called KCC2 which is a potassium—chloride co-transporter. It pumps chloride out of the cell and uses the potassium gradient created by the sodium—potassium pump (Na/K—ATPase), which is dependent on magnesium and creatine (arginine, glycine, methylation nutrients), and fueled by energy (biochemically being Mg—ATP, biophysically being electrons, protons, solitons, biophotons, etc.) When KCC2 works = GABA is inhibitory, and when it fails = GABA becomes excitatory. Inflammatory cytokines/pathways (eg., NF-kB, IL-6, TNF-a) and oxidative stress leads to impaired Na/K—ATPase function, and KCC2 expression. Layering onto this, it also further drives glutamate/NMDA receptor activity in excess, which further adds to excitatory effects (as it's dependent on calcium, not chloride). Calcium influx activates a protein called calpain, which proteolytically cleaves KCC2 and further inhibits it. In synergism with the above, this stressed state also leads to an increase in NKCC1, which is a sodium—potassium—chloride co-transporter. This further pulls chloride INTO the neuron. The reason this all happens is because of something deeper: — Gut dysbiosis and endotoxins (eg., LPS) — Chronic infections/inflammation — Mold/mycotoxins — Mitochondrial dysfunction — Oxidative stress — Low BDNF/IGF-1 signalling — Chronic symapthetic dominance — Nutrient deficiencies/imbalances (magnesium, potassium, creatine, methylation, B vitamins) If GABAergic/glycinergic compounds make you worse — DON'T suppress harder. You must address further upstream.

Liver inflammation causes defects in hepatocytic TCA/urea cycle, leading to ammonia build up. Ammonia is tiny. It enters the brain easily via diffusion, it raises glutamine and subsequently glutamate, causes oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and brain swelling/edema. Glutamine is an osmolyte (regulates cell water balance), so to combat the swelling we clear other osmolytes from the brain like inositol, taurine, and betaine. Maybe creatine too. These are all fundamental for many neuronal processes and depletion of any of these is devastating to brain health.

My plan to cure autoimmune gastritis To our knowledge, no one has ever done this to try and cure an autoimmune disease. Context: In May, I got diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis (AIG). We found it by taking a tissue biopsy of my stomach. My immune cells are confused, causing my stomach to eat itself. AIG stops your body from absorbing nutrients like iron and B12, and can eventually lead to cancer. It likely started decades ago when I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when 21 years old. The thyroid and stomach are closely linked in your immune system. I feel fortunate that I've been taking such good care of my body for the past five years as my condition would otherwise be much more severe. Millions of people are affected by this disease and are undiagnosed. Standard of care tells you that you can’t do anything about it. That’s old fashioned. Here is how we are going to try and cure it: Step 0: find and diagnose the disease ✅ AIG is rarely caught early because symptoms are subtle. Early warnings are low iron and B12, but when hemoglobin and hematocrit look normal, doctors routinely miss it because there are no obvious signs of anemia. A standard colonoscopy won't find it either, because it only checks the lower digestive tract, not the stomach. It was only through a highly targeted stomach biopsy that we found it. Even biopsies can miss it if they don't sample the exact right spots. Most people with AIG go undiagnosed. Step 1: Map my immune system ✅ Last Thursday, I had a blood draw to isolate and decode 1 million of my immune cells. Think of your immune cells as trillions of soldiers. Each carries a unique key designed to unlock and destroy a specific threat, like a virus or bacteria. A standard blood test allows you to see how many soldiers you have, but not their keys. Sequencing one million individual immune cells allows us to read the exact pattern of the teeth on every single key. This is important for my autoimmune gastritis (AIG) because a specific platoon of rogue soldiers has developed keys that unlock an attack on my stomach lining. Right now, we don’t know who they are. This test will inform us of which soldiers have gone rogue and are attacking me from within. Once we know the soldier and key, we know what therapy path to pursue to shut them down. Step 2: Catch the rogue soldiers I will be getting a second biopsy from my stomach because we need to collect live tissue. We are currently planning out the logistics of getting the sample from my stomach to the lab. We need these live cells because the initial blood tests showed the antibodies, which prove that an attack is happening, but doesn’t show us the actual rogue soldier doing the damage which is a T-cell. The live sample will allow us to match the immune system mapping we did to the live T-cells. Step 3: Build an early warning system To keep an eye on the disease as we work towards a therapy, we’re building an early warning system. I'll have my blood drawn every two weeks and we’ll pair that information with wearable data to look for flare ups. This is important because the attack happens without producing symptoms that I can easily feel. Step 4: Create a “Bryan in a dish” testing model, a miniature of my immune system At the same time, we are taking a massive sample of my immune cells and deep freezing them (cryopreservation) for two reasons: a) we’ll create a living lab: using these cells to replicate my immune environment in a lab dish. This allows us to test experimental drugs and therapies on my actual live cells before putting them into my body. b) it creates a back up plan for me by preserving the raw cellular material needed for targeted rejuvenation therapies in the future. Step 5: Build precision guided therapies to end the attack Once we know who the rogue soldiers are, we will engineer a therapy designed uniquely for them. The trick is only turning off the rogue soldiers while leaving all the other healthy ones functioning as they are. For safety checks, we’ll do two test runs: 1) we’ll run the therapy through a computer model that has my biology to evaluate how my molecules interact. 2) We will take my actual cells that we froze in Step 4 and watch them interact for real. If both are successful, we’ll pursue one of four therapies: a) fix the mistake my cells are making, restoring my immune system's natural off switches b) teach the rogue cells to tolerate my stomach instead of attacking it c) design smart molecules that physically plug into the rogue cells and turn them off d) build soldiers who will track down and eliminate the rogue soldiers causing the damage