What is your opinion on contributors to anxiety and physiological symptoms of stress, such as hair loss, as well as chest and side pains?

Dave Foster, May 1, 2016

Have you looked into low stomach acid? It’s always the first place to start looking for answers: in terms of upper and lower gut acidity/alkalinity. Until the stomach is strongly acidic, you will have trouble digesting muscle meat, which will in turn impair your own liver methylation and detoxification of your cell membranes. Maybe look into betaine HCL as a supplement.

Also, stimulants are very taxxing on the liver’s cytochrome P450 metabolism, which requires a strong NADH redox state with actions from glutathione peroxidase, glutamine and nicotinic acid.
When NADH is overtaxxed, there is a low electron transfer of hydrogen ions into the stomach, so you suffer from malnutrition.
Hypochlorhydria (a lack of stomach acid) may cause numerous problems.

Anxiety after rising would probably result from a fatty liver or undermethylation, so efficient digestion of meat may help.
Finally, starches and fructose ferment in the gut with subsequent formations of ethanol and acetylaldehyde, both of which severely degrade the NADH of red blood cells and interfere with ATP delivery to the brain. You can add them back into your diet after you begin digesting muscle meat and vegetables that contain high amounts of sulphur.

DaN (Ray Peat Forum Member kineticz), MAY 1, 2016

Interesting. In the past, I’ve taken betaine HCL for extended periods of around three months or so, and it improved my digestion noticeably.

Dave Foster, May 1 2016

Hello, Georgi, I was curious what you think of Dan’s stance on optimizing metabolic function. He’s a fan of maximizing glutathione production and lowering the stomach’s pH to improve digestion.

Dave Foster, MAY 2, 2016

Well, he’s right about the fermenting gut, but I don’t think raising glutathione would be such a good idea, as cancer cells use it as a primary defense mechanism. Oxidized glutathione (GSSG), which Ray wrote about, would be a safer option and, just like the NAD/NADH ratio, the GSSG/GSH ratio serves as a good measure of health. However, I don’t know of any direct ways to raise GSSG.

Also, a fermenting gut produces toxins regardless of the food consumed. Even if you refuse to eat fructose or sugar, fat and protein would still decay in the gut, which would be just as unhealthy if not moreso. So, “Yes,” to improving the gut’s digestion, and “Yes,” to increasing the production of stomach acid and pepsin. Although, I’m not so sure what he’d like you to eat in the mean time. Starch and fructose produce aldehydes in a fermenting gut, but fats and proteins would be worse, except maybe for the MCTs from coconut oil. However, the MCTs will not refill liver glycogen, and it’s glycogen that signals the body if an organism is under stress or not. In othe words, should you eat nothing but pure MCTs, and if the body perceives stress, then stress-adaptive mechanisms will still activate unabated.

Additionally, you need to get your protein from somewhere, so I suppose a safe approach would be consume a blend of pure amino acids and MCTs combined with some ripe fruit.

Georgi Dinkov, MAY 2016

Give that selenium supplementation boosts glutathione production, foregoing mention of sodium selenite as an aromatase inhibitor, how do you view selenium in the context of tumor growth?

Dave Foster, May 2, 2016

Selenium is actually one of the most potent protectors against cancer.

Georgi Dinkov, May 2, 2016