Myelin regeneration

If “my hypothesis” of multiple sclerosis is correct, it really doesn’t take much to recover. All that is needed is to supplement critical nutritional deficiencies, those that block the construction of new myelin. That’s it, and that’s it. The body will take and just rebuild, it couldn’t do it before.

Sounds absurd and conspiratorial. Well, what do you mean, no one came up with this before? But they did, they did. A whole set of supplements was developed, its effectiveness was clinically tested, the patients were divided into 2 groups. One received the supplements, the other did not. After six months it was checked to see what was going on, the two groups were compared. The one using supplements had a full point less on the EDSS scale, while the control group, not receiving supplements, had almost a full point more. I provide a link to the study:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16729250

Hooray, the disease has regressed, but… why aren’t doctors talking about it? Well, yes, I forgot to add that these supplements cannot be patented. You can’t make money on them. They are ordinary vitamins. The study exists, it was conducted, the results were published, everyone could read them. Drug manufacturers and distributors became familiar with them. And as soon as they did, they forgot about what they saw. You are one of the most expensive groups of patients. For pharmaceutical companies, you are worth a fortune.

You can find the original recipe on google by searching “raphah regimen”. I will present a slightly revised version, recently studies on rats and on monkeys, as well as on multiple sclerosis patients have shed new light on issues of myelin regeneration.

The basis is a set of B vitamins. These must be very high doses, on the order of thousands or even tens of thousands of RDA percentages of some vitamins (but only some). Which in practice means that almost any vitamin for athletes will be appropriate.

A specific role is played by vitamin B12 and folic acid. B12 should be in very high doses (more than 1000 mcg, or 1 mg), while folic acid should be taken even a dozen milligrams for the first few weeks. If insomnia occurs during therapy, the culprit is likely to be it, in which case such doses should be abandoned. Perhaps a methylated form of this acid would be advisable. The classic vitamin for athletes has neither enough B12 nor such doses of folic acid.

Omega 3 acids. Any preparation from a pharmacy , you should aim for 2 grams (2000 mg) of EPA. I emphasize, it is 2000 mg of EPA, not 2000 mg of omega 3.

Choline. Much more effective is choline in the form of soy lecithin, which should be taken 20 to 30 grams a day (no, I didn’t get one zero wrong). As a last resort, you can try choline bicinate, but it assimilates much less well and is not fully metabolically active. The ideal solution is the much more expensive supplements with active forms of choline, directly used by the brain. When supplementing with choline, inositol should be supplemented in parallel. Long-term therapy with this substance can increase the level of TMAO in the body, which is not very healthy, but in this case it is probably worth the risk. However, it shouldn’t be taken for too long; after 2 months, it’s worth taking a solid break of several months.

Uridine, the third “basic” building block of brain, next to omega 3 and choline. You should use the monophosphate form, about 200 mg when taking it under the tongue waiting for it to dissolve, more when you just swallow a pill.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24835269/

Lithium – It has been known for quite a long time that lithium is a potentially very effective drug against multiple sclerosis. I write “drug” with full responsibility for my words, a mouse with an experimental disease after being given lithium simply recovered, in other studies myelin regeneration was seen, while in what is probably the only case described in medicine, when the patient was given lithium, she got up from her wheelchair and transferred to a bicycle within a few months. Only alternative therapies (borage oil, a set of vitamins) have shown similar effects in studies; official “drugs” do not cure, but only mask symptoms and try to slow down the progression of the disease. Strangest of all, lithium is being studied, pilot clinical trials are underway. Note from 2017: the results of the trial are available, unfortunately it is not known how it affected the clinical picture of the disease, what is known is that it enlarged, if I’m translating the scientific jargon correctly, a specific area in the brain, whose atrophy is one of the indicators of the progression of the disease. What is known is that there was no “miracle,” no one got up from a wheelchair and the disease did not regress to some very great extent. It seems that the described case of the “miraculous cure” of the woman after lithium is simply a coincidence, in SM it is very common for people to recover seemingly without reason.

What is this lithium? One of the trace elements, at one time drew the attention of doctors. It is sometimes the most effective drug for certain emotional disorders (depression, bipolar). It then requires very high doses, but even hundreds of times lower doses have shown very good effects. The incidence of problems like addiction, suicide or crime in regions with different saturation of drinking water with lithium was statistically investigated. It turned out that perhaps this one trace element could reduce their incidence several times if added to the water. Moreover, preliminary studies have shown that it increases life expectancy in regions where it is found in higher concentrations, and where it has been experimentally added to drinking water. Additional observed effects of lithium administration include increasing the amount of gray matter in the brain (3% in just 4 weeks!), reducing the risk of cancer,slowing the progression of atherosclerosis. The protective effect of even small doses on the brain has been repeatedly demonstrated. It should be added that MS patients have, on average, about half the concentration of lithium in the blood than the average population.

I strongly advise against testing on your own the doses used in official psychiatry therapies (hundreds of times higher than those suggested here). First, they can cause life-threatening risks if blood lithium levels are not checked regularly, and second, they are probably unnecessary. Simply supplementing a nutritional deficiency can have a very pronounced effect. The dose of 20 mg of lithium per day should not be exceeded, probably even lower will be sufficient. Unfortunately, until detailed studies are done, it is not known what doses are best. And detailed studies will probably never be done, so we are on our own intuition. Lithium supplements can be purchased on ebay or iherb, or you can make your own with a little savvy. Laboratory-grade pure lithium chloride costs literally pennies in a chemical store. Anyone who has had anything to do with chemistry at least theoretically should know how to get the right concentration of solution to be able to dose lithium themselves with accuracy to a fraction of a milligram. If you have problems, you can always take a peek at the forum.

Iron. Some patients have very low ferritin levels and sometimes quite severe anemia. It has been shown that one of the reasons for myelin atrophy is the inability to utilize iron and folic acid in one part of the methylation cycle. They cannot be utilized because there is simply not enough of them. It’s best to get a ferritin test, it’s not expensive. It is important that there is no serious infection at least a month before the test, as it will falsify the result. You should aim for at least 100 ng/ml of ferritin, if it is less, you should supplement with iron. Dosages are best agreed with your doctor, or you can use low doses of 20-40 mg of iron per day on your own. You should not supplement if ferritin is high, as excess iron can aggravate the disease.

Betaine (not to be confused with betaine HCL). It provides methyl groups; without the methylation process, there is no way to rebuild myelin (it is this process that is stopped in B12 deficiency cases). A much more expensive, but more effective solution is supplementation of SAM-e.

Vitamin K2. There is a slight problem here, as there simply has not yet been detailed research. Vitamin K2 is known to be heavily involved in myelin regeneration. It is known that in rats, administration of the metabolic form of MK4 causes very strong regeneration. The problem is that there is also a form of MK7, and sometimes in humans and in rats the functions of these two forms are interchanged…. Given that most of the research on the effectiveness of vitamin K2 has been on the MK4 form, and taking into account the research on myelin in the rat, I would bet that it is this form that is indicated, but I’m not 100% sure (the internet has proliferated experts who have no doubt and “know” which form is better, their confidence is simply due to their ignorance, or the fact that they have just such a form and not another in their store). I strongly encourage MK4 supplementation, if only for its other benefits. A number of studies showing that people who eat vitamin K2 have a lower risk of various cancers and cardiovascular diseases (heart attack, stroke). These are, of course, the results of preliminary studies and the future may bring disappointment. The ideal, of course, is a mixture of both forms, MK4 and MK7 to be bought in a single supplement. If you take anticoagulants, you should ask your doctor for details, as high doses of vitamin K can affect their effects.

Calcium. An essential component in the construction of myelin, studies have been conducted – admittedly on a small scale – that have shown a very strong positive effect of calcium supplementation. Doses in the range of 60-100% of requirements are completely sufficient.

For severely malnourished people, it is also worth supplementing with protein. Any protein supplement for athletes (with complete protein) is as sufficient.