#his heart and vital organs are exposed showing vulnerability and kindness

[lightbluesleeper]

Knight and a reaper 🗡️🪦

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi, I hope you're doing great, so this is going to be long because I’m really in need for help. I’m an INFJ, raised by an abusive passive aggressive father and an INFJ mother who was mistreated and abused a lot, my Fe was very underdeveloped and I used to be a funny guy without having self-care for my image, now after having a crush and seeing my blind spots I see that my reputation isn’t the best and people take advantage of me, I have good friends but none I chose deliberately, I also used to be bullied at middle school and this is where my Se Grip I guess, my Fe is being developed and I’m reading about emotional intelligence but I’m still naïve and ignore subtle signs that other people are using me, and I always fall for the same trap although I have set goals, but I don’t know how to respect myself, I dwell in my mistakes, I can’t respect time and can’t take life seriously. 

I guess it is somewhat of trauma response like Chandler from friends, I try to be funny even when people disrespect me, my crush had a boyfriend who treated me passive aggressively and bullied me, at that time I wanted to give a response but I couldn’t, in each situation I felt trapped, I felt unable to react, I felt under threat, my heart is weak and I get these small anxiety attacks, I’m anxious about getting out in the world, each time I’m overwhelmed with tasks I feel guilty and not being able to finish them, to give more context, I became responsible of my family two years ago, and this feels like a burden, and suddenly Fe started developing, I have religious background and was part of a religious group but now I’m no longer that person and I don’t feel belonging anywhere, I tried to fit In different groups but none felt real, my friends don’t have the time for me and I became very cynical of death and my experiences to the point that I share everything about myself, I’m too clingy, and I overshare everything as a defense mechanism which started after developing feeling towards my crush and telling a friend about it. I need a friend to walk properly on the streets, my self confidence is no longer part of myself because I’m having an identity crisis, I feel guilty and see all my mistakes and each time something triggers one of those mistakes I feel even more anxious, I’m trying to get out more but with no use. 

I’m trying to rebuild myself by focusing on my goals, but its not enough, I guess I need hibernating time in my home to build better work skills and focus on my job more. My friends do not see what I see, except for an INTP, but he is unreliable for social situations but sometimes gives advice that I disagree with and I follow because I respect him a lot, he is like a brother, but his social tips led me to disastrous things, I’m not complaining, but I’m seeking to understand my own behavior. I have shared some of my experiences on social media, and then deleted them, some people used that to mock me and cyber bully me, I don’t know how to get over feeling exposed, I want to live, but not that interested, yet I’m not suicidal, in fact I’m rational and have some basic understanding of myself, but I want to move on from that, and I keep making social mistakes

___________________________

To summarize: You are lost because you have not been able to respect yourself and balance your own needs with your obligations to the world - a sign of Fe overindulgence. Lack of proper self-care has produced unhappiness, but you have not chosen the right paths to remedying the unhappiness, which only makes it worse. Then you got trapped in Ti loop rumination, trying to "make sense" of your feelings from a distance, exacerbating emotional dysfunction. All you have now is a head full of negative and anxious intrusive thoughts that worsen as your emotions are left to escalate unresolved. When you lose connection to Ni, you lose the ability for nuanced thinking, so your thoughts become more and more extreme, as Se grip sets in. Is that about right?

You shouldn't blame yourself for other people's bad behavior. Trust is required for healthy relationships. It is not your fault for trusting people, rather, it is their fault for betraying your trust. No one should take advantage of your kindness and vulnerability. It is not a crime to love and you should not feel ashamed about having emotional needs. If you are ashamed of needing love, then you may have a self-worth problem. Do you believe that you are deserving of love? 

Ni development is meant to help you fulfill your personal potential, such that you have something to feel proud of and something to contribute. The dominant function is the ideal route to self-respect. When you don't have yourself and your life in order via healthy Ni development, you won't be able to have healthy relationships for developing Fe. When you approach relationships from a place of desperation, you not only end up using people as a means to fill your deficits, you also make it too easy for people to take advantage of you.

It’s not your fault when people mistreat you, but it is your responsibility to put in place some reasonable protections from exploitation and abuse, which goes back to the vital point of practicing proper self-care. This requires learning how to set healthy boundaries when you're navigating relationships or putting yourself out there in society. Not everyone has your best interests at heart. You have to know how to spot callous people and avoid them. And you have to learn to be a better judge of the right time and place to express yourself honestly.

A relationship is a two-way street. It should be mutually satisfying and mutual beneficial. This means that self-disclosure should occur at a gradual and mutually respectful pace. Only by opening up bit by bit can a relationship grow in an organic and healthy manner. A great way to protect yourself from harm is to allow enough time for people to show you who they really are. The way that you behave, often in extremes, is not conducive to gradual relationship growth. And you are often in (Se grip) extremes because your emotional life is out of control.

You didn't grow up in an environment that taught you how to have healthy relationships. That’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility to make up those lessons, as an adult who wants to live a better life than you had as a child. People aren’t born with knowledge, just like you're not born knowing how to do math. You have to learn through proper attention and study. You’ve spent how many years learning math that you may not even use? And how long have you spent learning to take care of your mental state? Few people can teach themselves math from scratch and psychology is no different. There’s a lot of knowledge and expertise required to address the psychological problems that you are describing. A big reason that psychological problems get worse over time is that people are not equipped to deal with them alone with no objective input or expert guidance to rely on.

I am but a stranger on the internet. The most I can ever do is help clarify/identify the problem and point you toward a possible solution. I can’t carry out the solution for you or with you. In order to get yourself and your life in order, you have to be more honest with yourself about how you feel, and address your feelings and emotional needs in a more compassionate and timely manner. It’s hard to care well for others when you’re not even able to care well for yourself. If you don't have anyone to lean on, then lean on professional help as a start. A cognitive-behavioral therapist can teach you how to stabilize your intrusive thoughts and messy emotional life, and from there, you will have a better time dealing with other aspects of life. A therapist can also teach you better social skills for dealing with relationship and boundary issues. If you can’t see a therapist for whatever reason, I have provided books about these topics on the resources page.

[harcourtholmesii]

Traitorous Thoughts

Notes: My favourite character from Marvel, I wanted to peer into his mind a bit as Avengers: Age of Ultron played out. Let me know what you think!

Words: 1804

Warnings:

-          Violence

-          Blood

-          Trauma

-          Betrayal

-          Anxiety and Depression

-          Reference to Death and Injury

Enjoy!

He came to in the freezing cold, snow burning against his naked skin. A soft fabric was hastily draped across his shoulders by timid hands, and through the white light, he could see the world coming into focus around him. Trees stood tall on all sides, their canopies disappearing into the white sky above his head. He could smell smoke and the bitter scent of gasoline somewhere nearby; through his bare legs and hands, he could feel quakes of electricity still coursing through the dirt.

 Bruce stood on shaking legs, hand reaching to a branch for support. He peered around him, taking in the sight of the carnage he had left behind. An upturned vehicle, bodies sprawled about, some curling in on themselves in pain whilst others remained still in the snow. A cement pillbox was torn to pieces, machinery and artillery shredded apart in shrapnel across the forest floor. Against the white of the snow, the red stood out in a stark contrast that made him feel a pit deep within his stomach begin to form.

 He could see that head of red hair as Natasha disappeared over the ridge line, calling out for Clint. He couldn’t see Rogers anywhere, and since his earpiece had been abandoned he had no idea as to the whereabouts of Tony or Thor. Left alone in the snow, he began the slow and embarrassing trudge back to the quinjet. He could see how his toes were already turning blue in the crunching snow. Every step burned.

 The trek back was almost shameful. Entering into the metal confines of the ship, the feeling of being vulnerable and exposed was lessened ever so slightly. He never was particularly fond of large, metal contraptions that could act like a box, trapping him inside. Every trip on the quinjet caused him distress. He never let it show, but he could feel the other guy shifting beneath his skin and deep within the recesses of his mind.

 He hurried himself into a sweater and some loose sweatpants, and could almost immediately feel the change of temperature. He sighed softly, allowing himself just a moment to relax and sit down. Now all he had to do was wait.

 It felt like it had been too long; surely the others would be back by now. Without communications, he was blind to any and all things occurring outside the quinjet. He hated it. Waiting to see who would return and who wouldn’t. Bruce didn’t question anyone’s abilities; he knew their skills and their strengths, but it wasn’t the gunmen or the military personnel he was worried about. No. He was waiting to receive those words that something happened and it was his fault.

 When Natasha and Steve had returned to the quinjet carrying Clint, he felt sick to his stomach. There was a large gash against his side, just above his hip, that was leaking blood all over the floor. Steve moved to the cockpit and Bruce could only just barely make out the words that Steve was saying. ‘Enhanced’… ‘Badly wounded’… ‘Medical attention required’… ‘Can’t wait’… Bruce had stopped listening.

 Hesitantly, he approached his teammate, crouching before him and how he was laid across several seats. Clint was nursing the wound at his side. Natasha, at Bruce’s approach, skirted back a bit, granting him space. His deft but freezing digits began to test the surrounding area. He wasn’t that kind of doctor, but he was the best they had for the time being. He tore the already ripped material further so he could see the wound better. Natasha passed him a flashlight, and Bruce clenched it between his teeth.

 It was gruesome; a gunshot, imbedded deep into muscle and flesh. He was lucky. It seemed to have not hit a vital organ, but the blood loss was a problem. Natasha offered him the medical kit. Her hands were shaking. Bruce hadn’t seen that before.

 He took some gauze and pressed against the entry point. Clint hissed aloud, and Natasha’s grip on the medical kit tightened. He could hear the material of her gloves straining beneath their grip. Steve, who had returned to the rest of them by this point, gave his order for Natasha to fly them out of there.

 ‘Stark and Thor will catch up. They’ve got the sceptre.’ Well, that was great news. At least something good came from their attack on the HYDRA base.

 ‘Banner.’ He turned his eyes up to Steve, removing the flashlight from his lips.

 ‘What is it, Cap?’

 ‘Take a break.’ Bruce didn’t understand.

 ‘I… I need to tend to Clint-’ He started, but Steve cut him off, stooping down beside him until they were almost level. He rested a firm hand on Bruce’s shoulder, maybe trying to comfort him, but all he felt was frustration.

 ‘He’ll be fine. You’re just stressing, Banner. We don’t need that.’

 Oh.

 That’s why.

  ~X~

  The look of betrayal in their eyes. He couldn’t stand it. Every time he turned his head up from the paperwork, articles and files, there were glances and stares from everyone present. Thor’s eyes held the most emotion certainly; those stormy blue irises filled with a turbulent gale glared down at Bruce from across the room. Clint’s eyes were colder, more distracted by the work ahead of them, and both he and Natasha shared a disappointed look between them. Steve’s eyes glared between him and Tony, and he refused to hold Bruce’s gaze when their eyes met.

 It was Tony’s eyes however, the warm, chocolate brown gaze, that made Bruce feel worse than ever. Those eyes were sad, grieving for the loss of JARVIS from a mere two hours ago, and pained from the bruising around his throat. Bruce shuddered, wondering the strength behind Thor’s grip on Tony’s neck and how his breath rattled out of his throat in those moments. Then, there was the almost apologetic look that Bruce hated the most.

 Tony took all the blame in that moment, and they both knew why everyone turned on Stark then. He was vulnerable, merely human who asked they study the sceptre in the first place. He was the easy target. Bruce, whilst he helped and was just as involved and to blame for Ultron’s appearance, no one wanted to test his, and therefore the Hulk’s, resolve. Well, Thor might have, but he knew the dangers of letting loose the beast in Stark Tower.

 Tony nursed his throat in one hand, rifling through the folder with his other. His gaze remained apologetic, and Bruce just didn’t know why the man would feel the need to apologise. It was Bruce that should have said something. It was he that should have stepped in front of them all and prevented the damage. If anything, he could have suggested they not leave the sceptre alone. He could have told Thor to let Tony go. But he didn’t.

 The words in the dossier blurred into a grey mess; he couldn’t see through the haze of tears. He blinked them back. Like Hell he was going to cry. He had no right to. He didn’t deserve to. He had made so many mistakes already. The other guy’s voice rumbled through his head.

‘Coward.’

  ~X~

  He came to on the quinjet this time. He could hardly recall what had happened, but he knew a blackout meant he had transformed. Had it been a code green?

 Looking around at his fellow Avengers, Bruce was astounded to find them in such a disarray. All of them were a mess, out of focus and distracted. A news report played in the background. He didn’t take much notice of it at first, until a flash of hulking green appeared in the handheld camera view.

 He sat up, and watched as the screen played out for him all he had missed in gruesome detail. Natasha’s hand was on his arm, as if trying to coax him away from the screen, but he was far too overcome with what he was seeing. He had been doing so well. He hadn’t had a rampage for the past year, since working with the Avengers. Now though, he had done something horrible. Unforgivable. And he knew that at the end of the day, he would be protected for his actions by the team.

 ‘… reports of a monstrous, green figure tearing apart Johannesburg have come flooding in. The creature, in question, is responsible for millions in damages, at least eleven people dead and nineteen others are missing from the wreckage. Iron Man, a mister Tony Stark from New York, gave a brief statement, taking responsibility for the damages…’

 Protected, again.

 He doubled over, falling to his knees and wrapping the blanket tighter around his form. Natasha’s hand on his arm had fallen away and he preferred it. Why would someone ever dare to, let alone want to, touch him after what he had done?!

 He knew his importance to the team as their attack dog was why he didn’t face the consequences for his mistakes. The doctor part was just an added bonus for them; Tony was intelligent enough to read the necessary papers or perform the experiments required to give them their advanced tech and look out for the team’s wellbeing. Natasha could speak all the languages Bruce knew plus ten and Clint could pilot the quinjet. Bruce could do these things, but it was unnecessary.

 The other guy? Now, he was necessary. And dangerous. They were willing to take the risks and allow him out on the field, and perhaps they were right to do so. But Bruce should not ever have been excused from his actions, whether he was aware of them or not.

 He curled up on the floor, the blanket the only comfort he was allowing himself. He couldn’t allow this to happen again. He dare not let him out again. If he did, he wasn’t sure what would happen.

  ~X~

  ‘...But I need the other guy.’

He was falling, through air and between steel engines. The machinery clanked and shrieked all about him, but it was near muted to Bruce’s ears.

 He felt sick.

 Why?

Even now, as Bruce felt the clothing begin to tear, he could feel the tears pour and his mind at war with the other guy. He was holding him back, pressing him down; pleading with him not to come out.

 Too late.

 As he felt his vision fade and the rage in his heart burn, he knew he couldn’t come back from this. The coward he was, he retreated deep into the back of his own mind.

 There, in the dark, he could see the thick, steel chains that rain out of sight and into the shadows surrounding him. He cuffed himself in links too large for his wrists, and he curled up there, alone.

 As he should have always been.

[lamgrace1993]

What Can I Say To My Wife To Stop A Divorce Cheap And Easy Cool Tips

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Save With Relationship

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10 Steps To Save A Marriage

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[anneway-nitheliniel]

Of Trees and Hearts

(Continuing from “Life in a Pack” and “Demands”)

She woke from something heavy hindering her from moving freely into her accustomed sleeping position. Sebille rarely slept on her back, feeling vulnerable with all her vital organs exposed to the night sky and to whoever meant ill, so usually she curled into a tight ball, knees almost up to her breast, one hand supporting her head, the other protectively in front of her face. The position also facilitated getting up in a hurry – just in case. Thus, the first impression after waking was that of rising fear and her muscles had intuitively tensed for bolting before she realised that what was holding her down was Lohse’s arm. Sebille closed her eyes, counting to ten, before she made a more measured attempt to come to terms with reality. Unfortunately, things did not really get better when the memory of her discussion with Saheila returned. Also, she could not remember how it had ended, or, as a matter of fact, how she had made it into her bedroll. She whispered a curse.

“So, you are feeling better?”

Ifan’s low, dark voice made her open her eyes and twist her head, so she could see him. His words sounded bitter and still a bit reproachful, but there was something else too, which she recognised as real concern, when she finally beheld him watching her.

“Better?”

Anger crept back into his eyes. “You fainted right into Lohse’s arms. Fane told me upon my return. Don’t you remember?”

No, she did not. She turned her eyes to Lohse, snoring softly next to her, than to Fane, who sat leaning against a tree, sleeping, resting, or meditating – whatever he was doing at nights. He had never felt compelled to share this secret with them. A warm feeling of gratitude washed over her and gently she brushed a lock of red hair from Lohse’s face, before she wriggled out of the other woman’s embrace and carefully got up. Her body felt stiff and bruised and there was the hint of pain in her left ankle. Fane was a masterly healer, just not very compassionate.

Her head spun, too, but Sebille ignored it, centring all her awareness on the man in front of her, noticing his hunched shoulders, his fidgeting hands, and his restless gaze. That she could see it all, that his body betrayed his anger, his anxiety, and his weariness, told her more than words ever could, how close he was to losing the rest of his usual composure. He must have felt it too, because he took a deep breath and set himself upright, before addressing her again.

“I think, we should talk. Will the Queen of the World grant me an audience?”

The hint of a smile in his words made her relax a little.

“Yes, of course, my Knight of the Needle. But not here. Let me just leave a note.”

Ifan waited impatiently, while she rummaged in her pack for writing material. She slipped the note into Fane’s lap, than followed Ifan’s lead away from the elven camp. He did not go far. The shimmer of the fire, which was kept burning by the elves during the night, still crept through the trees to where they were standing. Sebille was raking her brains as to how to begin. So much had happened to her tonight, but most of all, too much had happened between them during the last few weeks. Ifan shifted from one foot to the other, his gaze all the time resting upon her that finally she felt so uncomfortable she tried to turn away from him. One quick step brought him close to her, his warm, calloused hand grapping hers, cold as ice.

“Tell me,” he ordered softly, pulling her in a hug.

“Saheila – she returned my memories to me. From the time before the Master.” Her voice was only a whisper in his ear, her eyes gazing passed his head into the distance. She could smell him now – furs and leather, wood and earth, sweat and blood. She drew a deep breath, taking it all in, resisting the urge to stick out her tongue and taste him too.

“And that is a bad thing?”

How should she even begin?

It helped that Ifan, having been raised by elves, did not have to ask questions. Sebille only felt his grip tighten around her, before he broke away in order to be able to look at her while she was recounting her dispute with Saheila and Tovah over her past as Prime Scion, her flight and how it had hurt her people, and finally her renewed role in the future of elvenkind.

“I must have seen you back then,” Ifan exclaimed, when finally she had come to an end. “During the Spring Ceremonies when all the Scions are crowned with – were crowned…” He faltered, lines furrowing his forehead, bad memories clouding his eyes. “Well, all of that has ended.”

Sebille remembered the slender windflower wreath on her head, the other Scions, similarly adorned, next to her, the masses of people looking up to them reverently. The wreath had weighed tons with responsibility.

“Yes, it has ended, because I assassinated the other Scions.” Unconsciously, she rubbed her right arm. The arm with the names of the people she had killed. “It comes down to Saheila and me now and if I do not consent to take up the path I left so long ago, I will be in Saheila’s way to become Prime Scion. – I ran from it all, as far as I could. I ran from it, was taken prisoner, was made a slave, escaped slavery, became a prisoner again, was send on a suicide mission to ascend to divinity, and now, here I am again, cornered. I cannot run this time. I cannot let them get hurt – or let them hurt you!” She stopped, realising that her voice had become panicky and was beginning to crack.

“Fate must be laughing so hard right now!” she complained, cynism marking her despair.

“You also met me.” Ifan’s words, completing her list, brought her back to where she was standing: close enough to him, that she could feel the warmth of his body caressing her skin. How could he be so real, so alive, when she felt so dead?

“Yes,” she hung her head, unable to look him into the eyes. “And it makes this an impossible decision.” She felt him stiffen, but could not guess at the cause. “How can I become the Mother, or the next Divine, for that matter, when all I… when I want …” She looked up and instinctively took a step back at the intensity of his gaze, hope emerging in his green eyes despite his apparent struggle for caution. She swallowed, suddenly feeling embarrassment of a very different kind.

“I … I know, this is hardly the best time, but I have been meaning to bring up what almost happened between us in the Undertavern …” She stopped, noticing him freezing, then tried again: “And I wanted to ask … I believe, you promised …” She was put off again, when he started to blush deeply. Still, he made no move to help her out of her predicament. “Ah, for the love of the gods, Ifan, before my lips turn to bark, may I kiss you?”

She was not sure, whether the gods indeed loved them, or rather, she was sure they did not. But when Ifan closed the gap between them, his hands cupping her cheeks, pulling her face down for the kiss he had promised, when she could finally feel, smell, and taste him, she had no longer any doubts about his feelings towards her or of hers for him.

—

The next day - on the way back to Driftwood:

“By the way, did you think this was reassuring?” Lohse had pulled a parchment note from her pocket, waving it in front of Sebille’s eyes. Though the letters were blurring with the movement, the elf knew what it said.

“Ifan and I are talking. Back soon. Do not worry.”

She shrugged, not understanding.

“What did you write this with? Your blood?”

Sebille took off her glove, showing Lohse the small stitch of her needle, were she had pricked her finger.

“I didn’t have a quill, or ink for that matter,” she explained matter-of-factly.

Lohse simply stared at her.

“And people call me a freak!”

[cristinajourdanqp]

5 Obscure Nutrients: Why We Need Them and How Grok Got Them

Everyone reading this knows about the macronutrients. You’re all eating enough protein, fat, carbs, and the various sub-categories, like fiber, omega-3s, MUFAs, SFAs, linoleic acid, and so on. You know the major micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin B12, and most of the minor (but still vital) ones, like plant polyphenols, iodine, and vitamin K2. Today I’ll be talking about the truly obscure nutrients. The ones health food hipsters were super into like, five years ago (“I’m taking beta-1,3-glucan, you probably haven’t heard of it, there’s only one group at Hokkaido University doing any research, you can only get it off the DarkNet using bitcoins”). The ones Grok was super into like, 50,000 years ago.

What are they, what do they do for us, and, if they’re so great, how did Grok obtain them?

Beta-glucans

Beta-glucans are fibrous carbohydrates that make up the cell walls of certain organisms. They’re found in oats, yeasts, and—most relevant to you—mushrooms. Rather than just provide colonic bulk or prebiotic substrate, what makes beta-glucans so uniquely attractive is their ability to modulate the immune system.

Given to critically-ill patients on enteral feeding, they reduced CRP and improved immune function.

They may improve the immune system’s ability to fight tumors.

According to a recent survey of wild and cultivated mushrooms, both types contain appreciable levels of beta-glucans. Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors eating mushrooms? Almost certainly. Recent research into dental residues found that Neanderthals living in Spain ate gray shag mushrooms. They may even have used mushrooms for their medicinal properties, as gray shag contains an antimicrobial protein.

Phosphatidylserine

One of the hardest words in the English language to type, phosphatidylserine is probably my favorite stress-fighter. The body doesn’t make much of it and stress depletes what little we have. PS works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. (And, yes, it’s why I include PS in Primal Calm.) Older folks in particular seem to benefit from PS, enjoying boosts to memory and cognitive function. Kids with ADHD show better attention when given PS, especially paired with fish oil.

After refined soy lecithin, an industrial product Grok never would have had access to, the best source of PS is ruminant brain. If that sounds like an arcane, unrealistic food source, guess again. Before we were top hunters, we scavenged. We ate the stuff the top carnivores couldn’t, like load-bearing bones and heads, both of which we’d shatter with rocks to obtain the marrow and brains inside. After brain, which is no longer available due to Mad Cow disease worries, the best sources are cold water mackerel, herring, and chicken hearts. A 100 gram (3.5 oz) serving of any of them will give you between 400-700 mg of PS, which matches or exceeds the dosages used in the studies.

Inositol

To give you an idea of inositol’s importance, it used to be called vitamin B8. To give you explicit details of insoitol’s importance, I’ll discuss some research.

High dose inositol can reduce anxiety, even comparing favorably with some pharmaceuticals. It can also reduce insulin resistance and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

If you’ve got the right gut bacteria—and since Grok spent his entire life immersed in a decidedly un-sterile world of dirt and bugs and animal guts, he likely did—you can even convert phytic acid into inositol. Or, rather, they can. That means nuts and seeds effectively become good sources of inositol, provided you train your gut bacteria to make the conversion.

Beta-alanine/Carnosine

Carnosine is woefully underrated. Found abundantly in meat, it’s a combo of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine. We can synthesize it in our bodies, but in-house synthesis isn’t always up to par. And if it is, adequate isn’t always optimal.

High levels of carnosine are linked to muscle endurance and it acts as an antioxidant in the brain. There’s something called chicken extract that can enhance mood and reduce anxiety, and speed up recovery from stress-related fatigue, and it’s basically a carnosine supplement.

There’s some evidence that taking beta-alanine as a precursor is more effective at increasing muscle carnosine content than taking carnosine itself. We can absorb carnosine, but it doesn’t seem to increase serum levels. Beta-alanine is one of the fitness supplements with the most support in the literature. If you can get past the pins and needles feeling it provokes, beta-alanine can provide:

Improved muscle endurance.

More anaerobic (sprints, high intensity output) capacity.

More lean mass (perhaps by increasing the amount of work you’re able to complete).

Either way, you could just eat meat, the ultimate source of both beta-alanine and pre-formed carnosine. People with a history of athletics have higher muscle carnosine levels than non athletes, and researchers suspect this might be due to the former’s higher meat intakes.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)

ALA is created in the mitochondria (especially liver mitochondria) to assist in the creation of various mitochondrial enzymes and Acetyl-COA, which we need to metabolize fats, protein, and carbohydrates. In short, we use ALA to produce cellular energy and maintain cellular function. It’s extremely important.

Yes, we make it. We can still use some extra, some of us more than others.

Diabetics: ALA has also been shown to prevent the descent from glucose intolerance into full-blown type 2 diabetes and increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics. It may even reduce diabetic neuropathic pain.

Oxidative stress: In patients with metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction, 300 mg/day reduced several markers of inflammation and improved vasodilation. In healthy exercising men, it reduced lipid peroxidation and increased glutathione.

Kidney has between 3-4 mcg of ALA for every gram. Liver, around 1-2 mcg/g and beef heart, about 1 mcg/g. Spinach, tomato, and broccoli are the best sources of ALA in the vegetable kingdom. If you try to get ALA through food, you’re looking at a dose far smaller than you’d get through supplementation, and far smaller than the doses used in research. Then again, the amount of oxidative stress we face as modern humans is unprecedented, whether it’s from the diets we eat, the psychological stress we undergo, the exercise we don’t get, the lack of sleep, the absence of meaning, the loneliness, the disjointed manner in which so many of us lead our lives. Hunter-gatherers by and large didn’t have these problems. They had other problems, more immediate ones. But they weren’t bogged down by the chronic oxidative stress that requires supplementation.

You’ve probably noticed that the research I cite to support the importance of these obscure nutrients almost always uses supplemental doses unachievable through natural sources. Does this mean we can’t benefit from taking them?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wider variety of plants, all wild. Wild plants are exposed to more environmental stressors than domesticated plants. To stay robust and survive, the wild plants produce higher levels of polyphenols. They were effectively consuming superfoods in every bite. Supplements can play that role.

Our ancestors lived lives punctuated by short bouts of extreme stress. If they survived, they were more resistant to future stressors, with less inflammation. We don’t have that. We have chronic stress that breaks us down, makes us more vulnerable to future stressors, with more inflammation. If we want similar stress resistance, we must manufacture it and then make sure we get ample recovery time, all while getting a handle on the chronic stress. Supplements can help with that.

Our ancestors likely didn’t deal with the kind of existential crises and psychosocial stress we embroil ourselves in. They break us down and deplete reserves of critical nutrients required for stress resistance. Supplements can replenish them.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll be rushing out in the next few hours to grab chicken hearts, kidneys, almonds and Brazil nuts from the grocery store and forage for mushrooms out in the woods. Right?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

What are your favorite nutrients that few people know about (or ones you’d like me to write about in the future)? What vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient were you taking before it was cool? Take care.

[fishermariawo]

5 Obscure Nutrients: Why We Need Them and How Grok Got Them

Everyone reading this knows about the macronutrients. You’re all eating enough protein, fat, carbs, and the various sub-categories, like fiber, omega-3s, MUFAs, SFAs, linoleic acid, and so on. You know the major micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin B12, and most of the minor (but still vital) ones, like plant polyphenols, iodine, and vitamin K2. Today I’ll be talking about the truly obscure nutrients. The ones health food hipsters were super into like, five years ago (“I’m taking beta-1,3-glucan, you probably haven’t heard of it, there’s only one group at Hokkaido University doing any research, you can only get it off the DarkNet using bitcoins”). The ones Grok was super into like, 50,000 years ago.

What are they, what do they do for us, and, if they’re so great, how did Grok obtain them?

Beta-glucans

Beta-glucans are fibrous carbohydrates that make up the cell walls of certain organisms. They’re found in oats, yeasts, and—most relevant to you—mushrooms. Rather than just provide colonic bulk or prebiotic substrate, what makes beta-glucans so uniquely attractive is their ability to modulate the immune system.

Given to critically-ill patients on enteral feeding, they reduced CRP and improved immune function.

They may improve the immune system’s ability to fight tumors.

According to a recent survey of wild and cultivated mushrooms, both types contain appreciable levels of beta-glucans. Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors eating mushrooms? Almost certainly. Recent research into dental residues found that Neanderthals living in Spain ate gray shag mushrooms. They may even have used mushrooms for their medicinal properties, as gray shag contains an antimicrobial protein.

Phosphatidylserine

One of the hardest words in the English language to type, phosphatidylserine is probably my favorite stress-fighter. The body doesn’t make much of it and stress depletes what little we have. PS works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. (And, yes, it’s why I include PS in Primal Calm.) Older folks in particular seem to benefit from PS, enjoying boosts to memory and cognitive function. Kids with ADHD show better attention when given PS, especially paired with fish oil.

After refined soy lecithin, an industrial product Grok never would have had access to, the best source of PS is ruminant brain. If that sounds like an arcane, unrealistic food source, guess again. Before we were top hunters, we scavenged. We ate the stuff the top carnivores couldn’t, like load-bearing bones and heads, both of which we’d shatter with rocks to obtain the marrow and brains inside. After brain, which is no longer available due to Mad Cow disease worries, the best sources are cold water mackerel, herring, and chicken hearts. A 100 gram (3.5 oz) serving of any of them will give you between 400-700 mg of PS, which matches or exceeds the dosages used in the studies.

Inositol

To give you an idea of inositol’s importance, it used to be called vitamin B8. To give you explicit details of insoitol’s importance, I’ll discuss some research.

High dose inositol can reduce anxiety, even comparing favorably with some pharmaceuticals. It can also reduce insulin resistance and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

If you’ve got the right gut bacteria—and since Grok spent his entire life immersed in a decidedly un-sterile world of dirt and bugs and animal guts, he likely did—you can even convert phytic acid into inositol. Or, rather, they can. That means nuts and seeds effectively become good sources of inositol, provided you train your gut bacteria to make the conversion.

Beta-alanine/Carnosine

Carnosine is woefully underrated. Found abundantly in meat, it’s a combo of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine. We can synthesize it in our bodies, but in-house synthesis isn’t always up to par. And if it is, adequate isn’t always optimal.

High levels of carnosine are linked to muscle endurance and it acts as an antioxidant in the brain. There’s something called chicken extract that can enhance mood and reduce anxiety, and speed up recovery from stress-related fatigue, and it’s basically a carnosine supplement.

There’s some evidence that taking beta-alanine as a precursor is more effective at increasing muscle carnosine content than taking carnosine itself. We can absorb carnosine, but it doesn’t seem to increase serum levels. Beta-alanine is one of the fitness supplements with the most support in the literature. If you can get past the pins and needles feeling it provokes, beta-alanine can provide:

Improved muscle endurance.

More anaerobic (sprints, high intensity output) capacity.

More lean mass (perhaps by increasing the amount of work you’re able to complete).

Either way, you could just eat meat, the ultimate source of both beta-alanine and pre-formed carnosine. People with a history of athletics have higher muscle carnosine levels than non athletes, and researchers suspect this might be due to the former’s higher meat intakes.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)

ALA is created in the mitochondria (especially liver mitochondria) to assist in the creation of various mitochondrial enzymes and Acetyl-COA, which we need to metabolize fats, protein, and carbohydrates. In short, we use ALA to produce cellular energy and maintain cellular function. It’s extremely important.

Yes, we make it. We can still use some extra, some of us more than others.

Diabetics: ALA has also been shown to prevent the descent from glucose intolerance into full-blown type 2 diabetes and increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics. It may even reduce diabetic neuropathic pain.

Oxidative stress: In patients with metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction, 300 mg/day reduced several markers of inflammation and improved vasodilation. In healthy exercising men, it reduced lipid peroxidation and increased glutathione.

Kidney has between 3-4 mcg of ALA for every gram. Liver, around 1-2 mcg/g and beef heart, about 1 mcg/g. Spinach, tomato, and broccoli are the best sources of ALA in the vegetable kingdom. If you try to get ALA through food, you’re looking at a dose far smaller than you’d get through supplementation, and far smaller than the doses used in research. Then again, the amount of oxidative stress we face as modern humans is unprecedented, whether it’s from the diets we eat, the psychological stress we undergo, the exercise we don’t get, the lack of sleep, the absence of meaning, the loneliness, the disjointed manner in which so many of us lead our lives. Hunter-gatherers by and large didn’t have these problems. They had other problems, more immediate ones. But they weren’t bogged down by the chronic oxidative stress that requires supplementation.

You’ve probably noticed that the research I cite to support the importance of these obscure nutrients almost always uses supplemental doses unachievable through natural sources. Does this mean we can’t benefit from taking them?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wider variety of plants, all wild. Wild plants are exposed to more environmental stressors than domesticated plants. To stay robust and survive, the wild plants produce higher levels of polyphenols. They were effectively consuming superfoods in every bite. Supplements can play that role.

Our ancestors lived lives punctuated by short bouts of extreme stress. If they survived, they were more resistant to future stressors, with less inflammation. We don’t have that. We have chronic stress that breaks us down, makes us more vulnerable to future stressors, with more inflammation. If we want similar stress resistance, we must manufacture it and then make sure we get ample recovery time, all while getting a handle on the chronic stress. Supplements can help with that.

Our ancestors likely didn’t deal with the kind of existential crises and psychosocial stress we embroil ourselves in. They break us down and deplete reserves of critical nutrients required for stress resistance. Supplements can replenish them.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll be rushing out in the next few hours to grab chicken hearts, kidneys, almonds and Brazil nuts from the grocery store and forage for mushrooms out in the woods. Right?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

What are your favorite nutrients that few people know about (or ones you’d like me to write about in the future)? What vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient were you taking before it was cool? Take care.

[milenasanchezmk]

5 Obscure Nutrients: Why We Need Them and How Grok Got Them

Everyone reading this knows about the macronutrients. You’re all eating enough protein, fat, carbs, and the various sub-categories, like fiber, omega-3s, MUFAs, SFAs, linoleic acid, and so on. You know the major micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin B12, and most of the minor (but still vital) ones, like plant polyphenols, iodine, and vitamin K2. Today I’ll be talking about the truly obscure nutrients. The ones health food hipsters were super into like, five years ago (“I’m taking beta-1,3-glucan, you probably haven’t heard of it, there’s only one group at Hokkaido University doing any research, you can only get it off the DarkNet using bitcoins”). The ones Grok was super into like, 50,000 years ago.

What are they, what do they do for us, and, if they’re so great, how did Grok obtain them?

Beta-glucans

Beta-glucans are fibrous carbohydrates that make up the cell walls of certain organisms. They’re found in oats, yeasts, and—most relevant to you—mushrooms. Rather than just provide colonic bulk or prebiotic substrate, what makes beta-glucans so uniquely attractive is their ability to modulate the immune system.

Given to critically-ill patients on enteral feeding, they reduced CRP and improved immune function.

They may improve the immune system’s ability to fight tumors.

According to a recent survey of wild and cultivated mushrooms, both types contain appreciable levels of beta-glucans. Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors eating mushrooms? Almost certainly. Recent research into dental residues found that Neanderthals living in Spain ate gray shag mushrooms. They may even have used mushrooms for their medicinal properties, as gray shag contains an antimicrobial protein.

Phosphatidylserine

One of the hardest words in the English language to type, phosphatidylserine is probably my favorite stress-fighter. The body doesn’t make much of it and stress depletes what little we have. PS works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. (And, yes, it’s why I include PS in Primal Calm.) Older folks in particular seem to benefit from PS, enjoying boosts to memory and cognitive function. Kids with ADHD show better attention when given PS, especially paired with fish oil.

After refined soy lecithin, an industrial product Grok never would have had access to, the best source of PS is ruminant brain. If that sounds like an arcane, unrealistic food source, guess again. Before we were top hunters, we scavenged. We ate the stuff the top carnivores couldn’t, like load-bearing bones and heads, both of which we’d shatter with rocks to obtain the marrow and brains inside. After brain, which is no longer available due to Mad Cow disease worries, the best sources are cold water mackerel, herring, and chicken hearts. A 100 gram (3.5 oz) serving of any of them will give you between 400-700 mg of PS, which matches or exceeds the dosages used in the studies.

Inositol

To give you an idea of inositol’s importance, it used to be called vitamin B8. To give you explicit details of insoitol’s importance, I’ll discuss some research.

High dose inositol can reduce anxiety, even comparing favorably with some pharmaceuticals. It can also reduce insulin resistance and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

If you’ve got the right gut bacteria—and since Grok spent his entire life immersed in a decidedly un-sterile world of dirt and bugs and animal guts, he likely did—you can even convert phytic acid into inositol. Or, rather, they can. That means nuts and seeds effectively become good sources of inositol, provided you train your gut bacteria to make the conversion.

Beta-alanine/Carnosine

Carnosine is woefully underrated. Found abundantly in meat, it’s a combo of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine. We can synthesize it in our bodies, but in-house synthesis isn’t always up to par. And if it is, adequate isn’t always optimal.

High levels of carnosine are linked to muscle endurance and it acts as an antioxidant in the brain. There’s something called chicken extract that can enhance mood and reduce anxiety, and speed up recovery from stress-related fatigue, and it’s basically a carnosine supplement.

There’s some evidence that taking beta-alanine as a precursor is more effective at increasing muscle carnosine content than taking carnosine itself. We can absorb carnosine, but it doesn’t seem to increase serum levels. Beta-alanine is one of the fitness supplements with the most support in the literature. If you can get past the pins and needles feeling it provokes, beta-alanine can provide:

Improved muscle endurance.

More anaerobic (sprints, high intensity output) capacity.

More lean mass (perhaps by increasing the amount of work you’re able to complete).

Either way, you could just eat meat, the ultimate source of both beta-alanine and pre-formed carnosine. People with a history of athletics have higher muscle carnosine levels than non athletes, and researchers suspect this might be due to the former’s higher meat intakes.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)

ALA is created in the mitochondria (especially liver mitochondria) to assist in the creation of various mitochondrial enzymes and Acetyl-COA, which we need to metabolize fats, protein, and carbohydrates. In short, we use ALA to produce cellular energy and maintain cellular function. It’s extremely important.

Yes, we make it. We can still use some extra, some of us more than others.

Diabetics: ALA has also been shown to prevent the descent from glucose intolerance into full-blown type 2 diabetes and increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics. It may even reduce diabetic neuropathic pain.

Oxidative stress: In patients with metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction, 300 mg/day reduced several markers of inflammation and improved vasodilation. In healthy exercising men, it reduced lipid peroxidation and increased glutathione.

Kidney has between 3-4 mcg of ALA for every gram. Liver, around 1-2 mcg/g and beef heart, about 1 mcg/g. Spinach, tomato, and broccoli are the best sources of ALA in the vegetable kingdom. If you try to get ALA through food, you’re looking at a dose far smaller than you’d get through supplementation, and far smaller than the doses used in research. Then again, the amount of oxidative stress we face as modern humans is unprecedented, whether it’s from the diets we eat, the psychological stress we undergo, the exercise we don’t get, the lack of sleep, the absence of meaning, the loneliness, the disjointed manner in which so many of us lead our lives. Hunter-gatherers by and large didn’t have these problems. They had other problems, more immediate ones. But they weren’t bogged down by the chronic oxidative stress that requires supplementation.

You’ve probably noticed that the research I cite to support the importance of these obscure nutrients almost always uses supplemental doses unachievable through natural sources. Does this mean we can’t benefit from taking them?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wider variety of plants, all wild. Wild plants are exposed to more environmental stressors than domesticated plants. To stay robust and survive, the wild plants produce higher levels of polyphenols. They were effectively consuming superfoods in every bite. Supplements can play that role.

Our ancestors lived lives punctuated by short bouts of extreme stress. If they survived, they were more resistant to future stressors, with less inflammation. We don’t have that. We have chronic stress that breaks us down, makes us more vulnerable to future stressors, with more inflammation. If we want similar stress resistance, we must manufacture it and then make sure we get ample recovery time, all while getting a handle on the chronic stress. Supplements can help with that.

Our ancestors likely didn’t deal with the kind of existential crises and psychosocial stress we embroil ourselves in. They break us down and deplete reserves of critical nutrients required for stress resistance. Supplements can replenish them.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll be rushing out in the next few hours to grab chicken hearts, kidneys, almonds and Brazil nuts from the grocery store and forage for mushrooms out in the woods. Right?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

What are your favorite nutrients that few people know about (or ones you’d like me to write about in the future)? What vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient were you taking before it was cool? Take care.

[watsonrodriquezie]

5 Obscure Nutrients: Why We Need Them and How Grok Got Them

Everyone reading this knows about the macronutrients. You’re all eating enough protein, fat, carbs, and the various sub-categories, like fiber, omega-3s, MUFAs, SFAs, linoleic acid, and so on. You know the major micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin B12, and most of the minor (but still vital) ones, like plant polyphenols, iodine, and vitamin K2. Today I’ll be talking about the truly obscure nutrients. The ones health food hipsters were super into like, five years ago (“I’m taking beta-1,3-glucan, you probably haven’t heard of it, there’s only one group at Hokkaido University doing any research, you can only get it off the DarkNet using bitcoins”). The ones Grok was super into like, 50,000 years ago.

What are they, what do they do for us, and, if they’re so great, how did Grok obtain them?

Beta-glucans

Beta-glucans are fibrous carbohydrates that make up the cell walls of certain organisms. They’re found in oats, yeasts, and—most relevant to you—mushrooms. Rather than just provide colonic bulk or prebiotic substrate, what makes beta-glucans so uniquely attractive is their ability to modulate the immune system.

Given to critically-ill patients on enteral feeding, they reduced CRP and improved immune function.

They may improve the immune system’s ability to fight tumors.

According to a recent survey of wild and cultivated mushrooms, both types contain appreciable levels of beta-glucans. Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors eating mushrooms? Almost certainly. Recent research into dental residues found that Neanderthals living in Spain ate gray shag mushrooms. They may even have used mushrooms for their medicinal properties, as gray shag contains an antimicrobial protein.

Phosphatidylserine

One of the hardest words in the English language to type, phosphatidylserine is probably my favorite stress-fighter. The body doesn’t make much of it and stress depletes what little we have. PS works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. (And, yes, it’s why I include PS in Primal Calm.) Older folks in particular seem to benefit from PS, enjoying boosts to memory and cognitive function. Kids with ADHD show better attention when given PS, especially paired with fish oil.

After refined soy lecithin, an industrial product Grok never would have had access to, the best source of PS is ruminant brain. If that sounds like an arcane, unrealistic food source, guess again. Before we were top hunters, we scavenged. We ate the stuff the top carnivores couldn’t, like load-bearing bones and heads, both of which we’d shatter with rocks to obtain the marrow and brains inside. After brain, which is no longer available due to Mad Cow disease worries, the best sources are cold water mackerel, herring, and chicken hearts. A 100 gram (3.5 oz) serving of any of them will give you between 400-700 mg of PS, which matches or exceeds the dosages used in the studies.

Inositol

To give you an idea of inositol’s importance, it used to be called vitamin B8. To give you explicit details of insoitol’s importance, I’ll discuss some research.

High dose inositol can reduce anxiety, even comparing favorably with some pharmaceuticals. It can also reduce insulin resistance and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

If you’ve got the right gut bacteria—and since Grok spent his entire life immersed in a decidedly un-sterile world of dirt and bugs and animal guts, he likely did—you can even convert phytic acid into inositol. Or, rather, they can. That means nuts and seeds effectively become good sources of inositol, provided you train your gut bacteria to make the conversion.

Beta-alanine/Carnosine

Carnosine is woefully underrated. Found abundantly in meat, it’s a combo of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine. We can synthesize it in our bodies, but in-house synthesis isn’t always up to par. And if it is, adequate isn’t always optimal.

High levels of carnosine are linked to muscle endurance and it acts as an antioxidant in the brain. There’s something called chicken extract that can enhance mood and reduce anxiety, and speed up recovery from stress-related fatigue, and it’s basically a carnosine supplement.

There’s some evidence that taking beta-alanine as a precursor is more effective at increasing muscle carnosine content than taking carnosine itself. We can absorb carnosine, but it doesn’t seem to increase serum levels. Beta-alanine is one of the fitness supplements with the most support in the literature. If you can get past the pins and needles feeling it provokes, beta-alanine can provide:

Improved muscle endurance.

More anaerobic (sprints, high intensity output) capacity.

More lean mass (perhaps by increasing the amount of work you’re able to complete).

Either way, you could just eat meat, the ultimate source of both beta-alanine and pre-formed carnosine. People with a history of athletics have higher muscle carnosine levels than non athletes, and researchers suspect this might be due to the former’s higher meat intakes.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)

ALA is created in the mitochondria (especially liver mitochondria) to assist in the creation of various mitochondrial enzymes and Acetyl-COA, which we need to metabolize fats, protein, and carbohydrates. In short, we use ALA to produce cellular energy and maintain cellular function. It’s extremely important.

Yes, we make it. We can still use some extra, some of us more than others.

Diabetics: ALA has also been shown to prevent the descent from glucose intolerance into full-blown type 2 diabetes and increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics. It may even reduce diabetic neuropathic pain.

Oxidative stress: In patients with metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction, 300 mg/day reduced several markers of inflammation and improved vasodilation. In healthy exercising men, it reduced lipid peroxidation and increased glutathione.

Kidney has between 3-4 mcg of ALA for every gram. Liver, around 1-2 mcg/g and beef heart, about 1 mcg/g. Spinach, tomato, and broccoli are the best sources of ALA in the vegetable kingdom. If you try to get ALA through food, you’re looking at a dose far smaller than you’d get through supplementation, and far smaller than the doses used in research. Then again, the amount of oxidative stress we face as modern humans is unprecedented, whether it’s from the diets we eat, the psychological stress we undergo, the exercise we don’t get, the lack of sleep, the absence of meaning, the loneliness, the disjointed manner in which so many of us lead our lives. Hunter-gatherers by and large didn’t have these problems. They had other problems, more immediate ones. But they weren’t bogged down by the chronic oxidative stress that requires supplementation.

You’ve probably noticed that the research I cite to support the importance of these obscure nutrients almost always uses supplemental doses unachievable through natural sources. Does this mean we can’t benefit from taking them?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wider variety of plants, all wild. Wild plants are exposed to more environmental stressors than domesticated plants. To stay robust and survive, the wild plants produce higher levels of polyphenols. They were effectively consuming superfoods in every bite. Supplements can play that role.

Our ancestors lived lives punctuated by short bouts of extreme stress. If they survived, they were more resistant to future stressors, with less inflammation. We don’t have that. We have chronic stress that breaks us down, makes us more vulnerable to future stressors, with more inflammation. If we want similar stress resistance, we must manufacture it and then make sure we get ample recovery time, all while getting a handle on the chronic stress. Supplements can help with that.

Our ancestors likely didn’t deal with the kind of existential crises and psychosocial stress we embroil ourselves in. They break us down and deplete reserves of critical nutrients required for stress resistance. Supplements can replenish them.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll be rushing out in the next few hours to grab chicken hearts, kidneys, almonds and Brazil nuts from the grocery store and forage for mushrooms out in the woods. Right?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

What are your favorite nutrients that few people know about (or ones you’d like me to write about in the future)? What vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient were you taking before it was cool? Take care.

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5 Obscure Nutrients: Why We Need Them and How Grok Got Them

Everyone reading this knows about the macronutrients. You’re all eating enough protein, fat, carbs, and the various sub-categories, like fiber, omega-3s, MUFAs, SFAs, linoleic acid, and so on. You know the major micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, vitamin B12, and most of the minor (but still vital) ones, like plant polyphenols, iodine, and vitamin K2. Today I’ll be talking about the truly obscure nutrients. The ones health food hipsters were super into like, five years ago (“I’m taking beta-1,3-glucan, you probably haven’t heard of it, there’s only one group at Hokkaido University doing any research, you can only get it off the DarkNet using bitcoins”). The ones Grok was super into like, 50,000 years ago.

What are they, what do they do for us, and, if they’re so great, how did Grok obtain them?

Beta-glucans

Beta-glucans are fibrous carbohydrates that make up the cell walls of certain organisms. They’re found in oats, yeasts, and—most relevant to you—mushrooms. Rather than just provide colonic bulk or prebiotic substrate, what makes beta-glucans so uniquely attractive is their ability to modulate the immune system.

Given to critically-ill patients on enteral feeding, they reduced CRP and improved immune function.

They may improve the immune system’s ability to fight tumors.

According to a recent survey of wild and cultivated mushrooms, both types contain appreciable levels of beta-glucans. Were our hunter-gatherer ancestors eating mushrooms? Almost certainly. Recent research into dental residues found that Neanderthals living in Spain ate gray shag mushrooms. They may even have used mushrooms for their medicinal properties, as gray shag contains an antimicrobial protein.

Phosphatidylserine

One of the hardest words in the English language to type, phosphatidylserine is probably my favorite stress-fighter. The body doesn’t make much of it and stress depletes what little we have. PS works on both mental and physical stress, improving mood and blunting cortisol after physical exercise. (And, yes, it’s why I include PS in Primal Calm.) Older folks in particular seem to benefit from PS, enjoying boosts to memory and cognitive function. Kids with ADHD show better attention when given PS, especially paired with fish oil.

After refined soy lecithin, an industrial product Grok never would have had access to, the best source of PS is ruminant brain. If that sounds like an arcane, unrealistic food source, guess again. Before we were top hunters, we scavenged. We ate the stuff the top carnivores couldn’t, like load-bearing bones and heads, both of which we’d shatter with rocks to obtain the marrow and brains inside. After brain, which is no longer available due to Mad Cow disease worries, the best sources are cold water mackerel, herring, and chicken hearts. A 100 gram (3.5 oz) serving of any of them will give you between 400-700 mg of PS, which matches or exceeds the dosages used in the studies.

Inositol

To give you an idea of inositol’s importance, it used to be called vitamin B8. To give you explicit details of insoitol’s importance, I’ll discuss some research.

High dose inositol can reduce anxiety, even comparing favorably with some pharmaceuticals. It can also reduce insulin resistance and improve fertility in women with PCOS.

If you’ve got the right gut bacteria—and since Grok spent his entire life immersed in a decidedly un-sterile world of dirt and bugs and animal guts, he likely did—you can even convert phytic acid into inositol. Or, rather, they can. That means nuts and seeds effectively become good sources of inositol, provided you train your gut bacteria to make the conversion.

Beta-alanine/Carnosine

Carnosine is woefully underrated. Found abundantly in meat, it’s a combo of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine. We can synthesize it in our bodies, but in-house synthesis isn’t always up to par. And if it is, adequate isn’t always optimal.

High levels of carnosine are linked to muscle endurance and it acts as an antioxidant in the brain. There’s something called chicken extract that can enhance mood and reduce anxiety, and speed up recovery from stress-related fatigue, and it’s basically a carnosine supplement.

There’s some evidence that taking beta-alanine as a precursor is more effective at increasing muscle carnosine content than taking carnosine itself. We can absorb carnosine, but it doesn’t seem to increase serum levels. Beta-alanine is one of the fitness supplements with the most support in the literature. If you can get past the pins and needles feeling it provokes, beta-alanine can provide:

Either way, you could just eat meat, the ultimate source of both beta-alanine and pre-formed carnosine. People with a history of athletics have higher muscle carnosine levels than non athletes, and researchers suspect this might be due to the former’s higher meat intakes.

Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA)

ALA is created in the mitochondria (especially liver mitochondria) to assist in the creation of various mitochondrial enzymes and Acetyl-COA, which we need to metabolize fats, protein, and carbohydrates. In short, we use ALA to produce cellular energy and maintain cellular function. It’s extremely important.

Yes, we make it. We can still use some extra, some of us more than others.

Diabetics: ALA has also been shown to prevent the descent from glucose intolerance into full-blown type 2 diabetes and increase insulin sensitivity in type 2 diabetics. It may even reduce diabetic neuropathic pain.

Oxidative stress: In patients with metabolic syndrome and endothelial dysfunction, 300 mg/day reduced several markers of inflammation and improved vasodilation. In healthy exercising men, it reduced lipid peroxidation and increased glutathione.

Kidney has between 3-4 mcg of ALA for every gram. Liver, around 1-2 mcg/g and beef heart, about 1 mcg/g. Spinach, tomato, and broccoli are the best sources of ALA in the vegetable kingdom. If you try to get ALA through food, you’re looking at a dose far smaller than you’d get through supplementation, and far smaller than the doses used in research. Then again, the amount of oxidative stress we face as modern humans is unprecedented, whether it’s from the diets we eat, the psychological stress we undergo, the exercise we don’t get, the lack of sleep, the absence of meaning, the loneliness, the disjointed manner in which so many of us lead our lives. Hunter-gatherers by and large didn’t have these problems. They had other problems, more immediate ones. But they weren’t bogged down by the chronic oxidative stress that requires supplementation.

You’ve probably noticed that the research I cite to support the importance of these obscure nutrients almost always uses supplemental doses unachievable through natural sources. Does this mean we can’t benefit from taking them?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate a wider variety of plants, all wild. Wild plants are exposed to more environmental stressors than domesticated plants. To stay robust and survive, the wild plants produce higher levels of polyphenols. They were effectively consuming superfoods in every bite. Supplements can play that role.

Our ancestors lived lives punctuated by short bouts of extreme stress. If they survived, they were more resistant to future stressors, with less inflammation. We don’t have that. We have chronic stress that breaks us down, makes us more vulnerable to future stressors, with more inflammation. If we want similar stress resistance, we must manufacture it and then make sure we get ample recovery time, all while getting a handle on the chronic stress. Supplements can help with that.

Our ancestors likely didn’t deal with the kind of existential crises and psychosocial stress we embroil ourselves in. They break us down and deplete reserves of critical nutrients required for stress resistance. Supplements can replenish them.

If I’ve done my job, you’ll be rushing out in the next few hours to grab chicken hearts, kidneys, almonds and Brazil nuts from the grocery store and forage for mushrooms out in the woods. Right?

Thanks for reading, everyone.

What are your favorite nutrients that few people know about (or ones you’d like me to write about in the future)? What vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient were you taking before it was cool? Take care.

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Originally at :Mark's Daily Apple Written By : Mark Sisson

#Grok, #Need, #Nutrients, #Obscure, #Them #Fitness