Epsom salts and the detoxification pathways

[Guest guest]

I just happen to think that this issue is an important one for those of us who

have suffered from implants and have autoimmune issues.

Are any of you using epsom salt baths regularly? They seem to help me ALOT.

Patty

Owen's on Sulfation

http://www.autismpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Epsom_Salt_Baths

Owens, MAIS, RA

Since completing her masters degree at the University of Texas in Dallas,

Owens has lectured internationally and has also presented at the Center for

Disease Control and the National Institute of Health. has focused on

finding the basic science that tells us how the sulfur system works:

how it is integrated,

how it matures, and

how it interacts with other systems and

what it does in neurodevelopment.

Oxalates appear to be part of the sulfur system, but their role outside the

well-characterized role of binding to calcium and incidentally forming kidney

stones is little understood.

Sulfates

Perhaps I can be of some help in describing what sulfate does in the system

since I have been doing research for many years now, combing through the medical

literature to find out sulfate's biological role. I discovered that things in

that field have been changing so rapidly, that there is not much possibility

that your doctor has been able to keep up...

I know the professors I had in graduate school have been shocked by what I've

shown them in the last few years as I dragged in to them study after study that

showed how involved sulfate was with processes they were studying while being

unaware of its involvement.

What Is Sulfate?

But let me begin by making sure you know what sulfate is:

Sulfate is made up of a sulfur atom in the center, surrounded by four oxygen

atoms. It is called an oxyanion, and it has a negative charge, which means it

can be part of a salt which will form by linking to a positive ion like sodium

or magnesium, but this will come apart in solution.

Sulfate can also be joined to molecules in a stronger and more " permanent " bond.

Role of Sulfates

Sulfate has been known for years to provide a very potent way of detoxifing

certain chemicals that we get from the food we eat, or the medicines we take, or

the fumes we smell, or similar molecules we make in our own systems, most

particularly, neurotransmitters. When this process is impaired by lack of

sulfate, those substances become toxic to our cells.

Sulfate also can act as an off or on signal for a lot of molecules, like

hormones. But the digestive system particularly is quite regulated by sulfate,

for the action of two of its most major hormones and neurotransmitters, gastrin

and cholecytokinin, are either stronger with sulfate or totally dependent on

sulfate (like cholecystokinin at its " A " receptor). Without these signals

working well, you can't get proper service from your pancreas or your gall

bladder, and your ability to utilize your food would be impaired.

Cholecystokinin also has important functions in the brain.

Regulating Cell Chemistry

But sulfate's most important role is just now being discovered: and that is its

role in regulating cell chemistry. Sulfate is attached in large quantity, as if

it were leaves on a tree, on molecules which cover the cell surface, called

proteoglycans. The trunk of these " trees " is protein, but the branches that hold

sulfate are made of sugar, and those branches are called glycosaminoglycans, or

GAGs, for short.

Only in the last few years has it been realized that the thought-to-be-random

distribution of sulfate on these sugar chains called GAGs is not random at all,

but is highly regulated, determining what will happen with other molecules that

approach the cell and are about to give the cell a signal.

Leaky Gut

These GAGs also provide some kind of structural integrity to some types of

tissue, among them being the walls of the gut and things like cartilage. When

the GAGs in the gut become undersulfated, then that makes the gut leaky,

providing the way for overly-large pieces of proteins from our food to escape

into the blood stream where they can both induce allergic responses, and the

opiate excess problem that you've probably heard about.

But GAGs also provide structural integrity to all types of cells as they

associate with neighboring cells, and also carry information (described in

sulfate patterns) about the needs of other cells to the cells they encounter.

These GAGs are important for helping escort molecules which are trying to signal

the cell. These other molecules are called ligands, but GAG chains, patterned

with sulfate, are involved with helping them find their customized receptors on

the cell surface. This is very new, but it appears that GAGs regulate ligands

and their receptors by encouraging and enabling some connections and preventing

others, in a developmentally regulated fashion. They also recently have been

discovered to mediate a whole new type of delivery of molecules into the cell,

in a new form of endocytosis that no one realized existed. Sulfated GAGs also

are involved with helping to assemble gap junctions: a passageway that allows

cells to share their inner substance through a channel built to connect them. As

an example, gap junctions are involved with keeping the heart regulated or

making the uterus contract all at the same time, and gap junctions also provide

communication betweem neurons and glial cells.

Cellular Messaging

Sulfated molecules are also very involved with helping a cell to know about its

environment, telling the cell information about when to grow, when to move, how

far to move, when to differentiate, and it looks very probable that they are

involved with telling a cell when it is time for that cell to die.

All of these messages get fouled up if, for some reason, the cell that made them

ran out of sulfate when it was making those sugar chains. If your whole body ran

out, life would be impossible, but this " running out " is like that last check

you wrote on a depleted bank account, and you know how much damage can be done

when those service charges start rolling in, but it is not always easy to know

which check is going to be the one that bounces. When your systemic " account " of

sulfate is low, your body might rob to pay , or there might be some

organs where this lack would show up first, because the demands on this

chemistry are higher there.

This disabling of signalling when sulfate is cut off has been demonstrated in

study after study experimentally, but no one has thought to look for diseases

where that might have happened. I suspect this lack of interest comes from the

difficulty in studying something so distributed in effects in complicated

creatures like us, as well as the fact that sulfated sugars are not part of the

popular obsession of scientists today: involving proteins that are coded by DNA.

Instead of being so involved in genetic issues, sulfation is more of an issue of

how well your body is relating to things it encounters in the environment, or in

more scientific lingo, it involves post-translational events.

Poor Sulfation in Autism

Dr. Rosemary Waring at the University of Birmingham in England, has discovered

that sulfation problems are very typical of autism, and she studies sulfation in

many other disease processes.

In one of her latest studies about autism, she found 92% of those with autism in

her study did not use sulfate normally to detoxify.

In other studies she found that the problem must not have been a specific

problem with the enzymes involved, but it seemed rather that the body was

running out of enough sulfate.

She has been finding that very often, this seems to happen because sulfate is

being dumped in the urine, instead of what ought to happen:

that is, becoming recovered in the kidneys and put back into circulation.

Unfortunately, that dumping will occur when the kidney itself becomes

undersulfated, which makes the problem compound.

You can think of this situation as being similar to trying to keep a bowl full

of water that has a big hole in the bottom. The lab results that show this will

discover low plasma sulfate and high urinary sulfate and usually high urinary

sulfite, as well.

Auto-immunity and Sulfites

Sulfite is one step " up " on the pathway to make sulfate from sulfur-containing

amino acids. The last enzyme in that process is sulfite oxidase, and it can be

impaired by several things, including infection (inflammation) or molybdenum

deficiency, or even auto-immune attack.

If the ratio of your blood levels of sulfite compared to sulfate are too high,

an impairment of sulfite oxidase should be suspected.

If your levels of cysteine in the blood are high, and the cysteine to sulfate

ratio is also high, it may mean that there is such a load on your sulfate

requirement (maybe from having too much to detoxify) that it appears your cells

just cannot keep up with sulfate manufacture from

protein.

That is why using epsom salts, in which sulfur is already made into a sulfate

ion, can bypass any detours you may be experiencing along the sulfate pathway.

Plasma Membrane and Mercury Toxicity

Something else can go wrong.

Sulfate has to have a special transporter to cross membranes. The cell has a big

membrane that surrounds the whole thing, and that is called the plasma membrane,

but there is far more membrane inside the cell than outside.

Every time sulfate needs to cross a membrane in the cell or on the outside, it

has to be escorted through one of these transporters.

Speculation about Benefits of Chelation

Mercury can completely block those transporters, as shown by testing on live

cells. I feel it is quite likely that those who have been getting better using

chelation are seeing improvements in their sulfate transport because the mercury

that may have been blocking transport in the kidneys, is now out of the way, and

so the children are now able to retain more sulfate.

Where poor transport would be quite critical is both in the gut (where you

should absorb sulfate from the diet) or in the kidneys, which will dump sulfate

in the urine when the sulfate transporters are blocked and for other reasons,

like acidosis.

[Guest guest]

Hi Patty,

I do, that's the way I soak. Been doing it for about 14 years to help me detox and relax. I try to get a little perspiration going without getting too hot.. to help get the poisons out of my skin and cells. The docs I talk to feel the clay is better. I bought some a while back, I think I might give that a try this week and see if I notice a difference between the two. Ever try a clay and and if so what kind did you do?

Hugs,

There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid. Gandhi

From: glory2glory1401 <glory2glory1401@...> Sent: Mon, January 31, 2011 1:38:20 PMSubject: Epsom salts and the detoxification pathways

I just happen to think that this issue is an important one for those of us who have suffered from implants and have autoimmune issues. Are any of you using epsom salt baths regularly? They seem to help me ALOT.Patty Owen's on Sulfationhttp://www.autismpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=Epsom_Salt_Baths Owens, MAIS, RASince completing her masters degree at the University of Texas in Dallas, Owens has lectured internationally and has also presented at the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health. has focused on finding the basic science that tells us how the sulfur system works:how it is integrated,how it matures, andhow it interacts with other systems andwhat it does in neurodevelopment.Oxalates appear to be part of the sulfur system, but their role outside the well-characterized role of binding to calcium and incidentally forming kidney stones is

little understood.SulfatesPerhaps I can be of some help in describing what sulfate does in the system since I have been doing research for many years now, combing through the medical literature to find out sulfate's biological role. I discovered that things in that field have been changing so rapidly, that there is not much possibility that your doctor has been able to keep up...I know the professors I had in graduate school have been shocked by what I've shown them in the last few years as I dragged in to them study after study that showed how involved sulfate was with processes they were studying while being unaware of its involvement.What Is Sulfate?But let me begin by making sure you know what sulfate is:Sulfate is made up of a sulfur atom in the center, surrounded by four oxygen atoms. It is called an oxyanion, and it has a negative charge, which means it can be part of a salt which will form by linking to a positive ion

like sodium or magnesium, but this will come apart in solution.Sulfate can also be joined to molecules in a stronger and more "permanent" bond.Role of SulfatesSulfate has been known for years to provide a very potent way of detoxifing certain chemicals that we get from the food we eat, or the medicines we take, or the fumes we smell, or similar molecules we make in our own systems, most particularly, neurotransmitters. When this process is impaired by lack of sulfate, those substances become toxic to our cells.Sulfate also can act as an off or on signal for a lot of molecules, like hormones. But the digestive system particularly is quite regulated by sulfate, for the action of two of its most major hormones and neurotransmitters, gastrin and cholecytokinin, are either stronger with sulfate or totally dependent on sulfate (like cholecystokinin at its "A" receptor). Without these signals working well, you can't get proper service from your

pancreas or your gall bladder, and your ability to utilize your food would be impaired. Cholecystokinin also has important functions in the brain.Regulating Cell ChemistryBut sulfate's most important role is just now being discovered: and that is its role in regulating cell chemistry. Sulfate is attached in large quantity, as if it were leaves on a tree, on molecules which cover the cell surface, called proteoglycans. The trunk of these "trees" is protein, but the branches that hold sulfate are made of sugar, and those branches are called glycosaminoglycans, or GAGs, for short.Only in the last few years has it been realized that the thought-to-be-random distribution of sulfate on these sugar chains called GAGs is not random at all, but is highly regulated, determining what will happen with other molecules that approach the cell and are about to give the cell a signal.Leaky GutThese GAGs also provide some kind of structural integrity

to some types of tissue, among them being the walls of the gut and things like cartilage. When the GAGs in the gut become undersulfated, then that makes the gut leaky, providing the way for overly-large pieces of proteins from our food to escape into the blood stream where they can both induce allergic responses, and the opiate excess problem that you've probably heard about.But GAGs also provide structural integrity to all types of cells as they associate with neighboring cells, and also carry information (described in sulfate patterns) about the needs of other cells to the cells they encounter. These GAGs are important for helping escort molecules which are trying to signal the cell. These other molecules are called ligands, but GAG chains, patterned with sulfate, are involved with helping them find their customized receptors on the cell surface. This is very new, but it appears that GAGs regulate ligands and their receptors by encouraging and

enabling some connections and preventing others, in a developmentally regulated fashion. They also recently have been discovered to mediate a whole new type of delivery of molecules into the cell, in a new form of endocytosis that no one realized existed. Sulfated GAGs also are involved with helping to assemble gap junctions: a passageway that allows cells to share their inner substance through a channel built to connect them. As an example, gap junctions are involved with keeping the heart regulated or making the uterus contract all at the same time, and gap junctions also provide communication betweem neurons and glial cells.Cellular MessagingSulfated molecules are also very involved with helping a cell to know about its environment, telling the cell information about when to grow, when to move, how far to move, when to differentiate, and it looks very probable that they are involved with telling a cell when it is time for that cell to

die.All of these messages get fouled up if, for some reason, the cell that made them ran out of sulfate when it was making those sugar chains. If your whole body ran out, life would be impossible, but this "running out" is like that last check you wrote on a depleted bank account, and you know how much damage can be done when those service charges start rolling in, but it is not always easy to know which check is going to be the one that bounces. When your systemic "account" of sulfate is low, your body might rob to pay , or there might be some organs where this lack would show up first, because the demands on this chemistry are higher there.This disabling of signalling when sulfate is cut off has been demonstrated in study after study experimentally, but no one has thought to look for diseases where that might have happened. I suspect this lack of interest comes from the difficulty in studying something so distributed in effects in

complicated creatures like us, as well as the fact that sulfated sugars are not part of the popular obsession of scientists today: involving proteins that are coded by DNA. Instead of being so involved in genetic issues, sulfation is more of an issue of how well your body is relating to things it encounters in the environment, or in more scientific lingo, it involves post-translational events.Poor Sulfation in AutismDr. Rosemary Waring at the University of Birmingham in England, has discovered that sulfation problems are very typical of autism, and she studies sulfation in many other disease processes.In one of her latest studies about autism, she found 92% of those with autism in her study did not use sulfate normally to detoxify.In other studies she found that the problem must not have been a specific problem with the enzymes involved, but it seemed rather that the body was running out of enough sulfate.She has been finding that

very often, this seems to happen because sulfate is being dumped in the urine, instead of what ought to happen:that is, becoming recovered in the kidneys and put back into circulation.Unfortunately, that dumping will occur when the kidney itself becomes undersulfated, which makes the problem compound.You can think of this situation as being similar to trying to keep a bowl full of water that has a big hole in the bottom. The lab results that show this will discover low plasma sulfate and high urinary sulfate and usually high urinary sulfite, as well.Auto-immunity and SulfitesSulfite is one step "up" on the pathway to make sulfate from sulfur-containing amino acids. The last enzyme in that process is sulfite oxidase, and it can be impaired by several things, including infection (inflammation) or molybdenum deficiency, or even auto-immune attack.If the ratio of your blood levels of sulfite compared to sulfate are too high, an

impairment of sulfite oxidase should be suspected.If your levels of cysteine in the blood are high, and the cysteine to sulfate ratio is also high, it may mean that there is such a load on your sulfate requirement (maybe from having too much to detoxify) that it appears your cells just cannot keep up with sulfate manufacture fromprotein.That is why using epsom salts, in which sulfur is already made into a sulfate ion, can bypass any detours you may be experiencing along the sulfate pathway.Plasma Membrane and Mercury ToxicitySomething else can go wrong.Sulfate has to have a special transporter to cross membranes. The cell has a big membrane that surrounds the whole thing, and that is called the plasma membrane, but there is far more membrane inside the cell than outside.Every time sulfate needs to cross a membrane in the cell or on the outside, it has to be escorted through one of these transporters.Speculation about

Benefits of ChelationMercury can completely block those transporters, as shown by testing on live cells. I feel it is quite likely that those who have been getting better using chelation are seeing improvements in their sulfate transport because the mercury that may have been blocking transport in the kidneys, is now out of the way, and so the children are now able to retain more sulfate.Where poor transport would be quite critical is both in the gut (where you should absorb sulfate from the diet) or in the kidneys, which will dump sulfate in the urine when the sulfate transporters are blocked and for other reasons, like acidosis.