RE: biopsies and supplements

[Guest guest]

Not personally, but I have seen reports in the literature that demonstrate

that cofactor therapy can increase enzyme activity and decrease

deficiencies. For the most part, cofactors did not normalize enzymes that

were deficient, but did significantly raise enzyme activity in the specific

enzymes that were deficient. Years ago Dr. Vladutiu showed me one case where

before-and-after biopsies were used to document the effects of cofactors in

genetic enzyme deficiencies. I can't offer citations at the moment and I'm

not sure I still have that particular abstract. I haven't seen it recently

in my files. There are also other cases where cofactors have demonstrated

this effect---which is one reason why it makes sense to use cofactors as

treatment. Of course, no one knows if cofactors have demonstrable effects

for everyone, but at least in some cases they do.

I have had before-and-after biopsies, and in my case the cofactors

L-carnitine (Carnitor) and riboflavin significantly increased ATP and

nucleotides--which was interpreted to mean that they did indeed boost muscle

capacity for activity. Both ATP and nucleotides were still well below normal

with cofactor treatment, but significantly higher than without treatment.

Cofactor treatment did normalize my free carnitine in muscle, but the

esterified fraction of carnitine remained very low. In other words, the

oxidative pathway for carnitine was still impaired and thus could not

utilize normal amounts of carnitine even when available. Cofactor treatment

did not increase the activity of carnitine palmitoyltransferase which

remained at 10% of normal. In that particular study, we were not measuring

the activity of the enzymes involved in OXPHOS--the five complexes, so we do

not know what effect, if any, cofactor treatment would have on my documented

enzyme deficiencies in those complexes.

I know I've posted this information several times over the years, so

apologies to those who have heard it all before.

Barbara

> Although I've heard frequently that doctors say to stop supplements,

> I haven't heard anyone who said they thought their muscle biopsy was

> normal because they stayed on supplements (anyone with a story like

> that?).

>

> Take care,

> RH