Let’s Talk Supplements
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Wow, I guess I shouldn’t post after drinking my Colombia Pink Bourbon coffee.
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@researchcat If you haven't come across Dave Feldman and his work on cholesterol, highly recommend.
WRT the rest of what you have going on, I have some similar issues I'm working around inflammation markers and joints. I have found it invaluable to feed data into Gemini and Claude (their upper level, high reasoning models) and talk through various issues with them. That together with the ability to order my own tests via Ulta Labs has been tremendous. I literally ran a lab a few weeks ago to settle a bet between Gemini and Claude. Now note: you do have to press them, you do have to ask them questions and point them to things when you think they are off base... but they are more useful than most doctors.
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Thanks. I have been using copilot a bit for this, but I really should get my own claude. I use it in VS code at work, but that isn’t really useful for optimizing lifestyle.
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@researchcat I find different models have different personalities. Gemini is pretty liberal, and insightful about peptides. Claude is a bit more traditional, but very very detailed. The two of them together in my experience provide better results than one alone.
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@peptideed Error: You can only upvote 20 times a day.
Thanks buddy!

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@researchcat have you researched lycopene?
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Not sure.
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After doing more research, labs, and beating the hell out of AI, I have made or am making the following changes:
Remove:
Zinc - Multivitamin already has 15 mg, which should be enough
GABA - Unclear what benefit it provides, as GABA doesn’t breach brain/blood barrier very well (research is unclear)
Pterostilbene - Unclear benefit, plus I eat 8 oz blueberries every day
Iron (Blood Builder) - hasn’t moved the needle, may be dangerous
Tongkat Ali - Unclear if it was helping at all. Might try again laterAdded:
D3/K2 supplement - because of my statins
CoQ10 - because of my statinsNot exactly a supplement, but also added low dose tadalafil.
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After doing more research, labs, and beating the hell out of AI, I have made or am making the following changes:
Remove:
Zinc - Multivitamin already has 15 mg, which should be enough
GABA - Unclear what benefit it provides, as GABA doesn’t breach brain/blood barrier very well (research is unclear)
Pterostilbene - Unclear benefit, plus I eat 8 oz blueberries every day
Iron (Blood Builder) - hasn’t moved the needle, may be dangerous
Tongkat Ali - Unclear if it was helping at all. Might try again laterAdded:
D3/K2 supplement - because of my statins
CoQ10 - because of my statinsNot exactly a supplement, but also added low dose tadalafil.
@ResearchCat if you have low ferritin or iron, you may try Lactoferrin (as apolactoferrin). It helped my wife to bring her levels to normal. apolactoferrin is a polypeptide, has (almost) no iron in it but enhances your own iron bioavailability. It is not safe or wise to take more iron, we usually have enough, just can't utilize it.
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Thanks, I will check that out.
Both are low. Consistently so over the past two labs.
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Thanks, I will check that out.
Both are low. Consistently so over the past two labs.
@ResearchCat Try it. Heme Iron also helped, but I would avoid it if possible. High iron intake is associated with higher all-cause mortality rate, also iron binds to a lot of nutrients making them not bioavailable.
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Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
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Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
I’m having a very similar pain! Right of center, just under rib cage. Does it feel like the ab muscle, or something deeper? My anatomic knowledge is pretty limited, so I don’t know if there are any organs or whatnot in that area that could be acting up.At first I thought I had just overtrained my abs, but it is getting more pronounced. Seeing my (mostly useless) primary care physician this afternoon. We’ll see if she says anything helpful. Usually she just spouts how keto will kill me and that I need to be back on statins.
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Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
I’m having a very similar pain! Right of center, just under rib cage. Does it feel like the ab muscle, or something deeper? My anatomic knowledge is pretty limited, so I don’t know if there are any organs or whatnot in that area that could be acting up.At first I thought I had just overtrained my abs, but it is getting more pronounced. Seeing my (mostly useless) primary care physician this afternoon. We’ll see if she says anything helpful. Usually she just spouts how keto will kill me and that I need to be back on statins.
Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
I’m having a very similar pain! Right of center, just under rib cage. Does it feel like the ab muscle, or something deeper? My anatomic knowledge is pretty limited, so I don’t know if there are any organs or whatnot in that area that could be acting up.At first I thought I had just overtrained my abs, but it is getting more pronounced. Seeing my (mostly useless) primary care physician this afternoon. We’ll see if she says anything helpful. Usually she just spouts how keto will kill me and that I need to be back on statins.
Had the same pain in the same place. Mine was a gallbladder issue. Due to Glp-1s and rapid weight loss a known side effect is gall stones. After various inflammation events they removed mine a month ago. Obviously dont know if this is your issue but figured I would share my experience.
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Very interesting, I've been going down the lab rabbithole myself. My inflammation markers are high, off charts. I just sent them to my doctor and will have to see what they come back with:
Currently taking
Basic B Complex (Thorne)
Magnesium Glycinate (Thorne)
Some blood pressure medicine which I'm still trying to figure out (Olmesartan)Been having a pain under my right side rib cage trying to figure out what they hell is causing it. CT nothing, MRI nothing.
I’m having a very similar pain! Right of center, just under rib cage. Does it feel like the ab muscle, or something deeper? My anatomic knowledge is pretty limited, so I don’t know if there are any organs or whatnot in that area that could be acting up.At first I thought I had just overtrained my abs, but it is getting more pronounced. Seeing my (mostly useless) primary care physician this afternoon. We’ll see if she says anything helpful. Usually she just spouts how keto will kill me and that I need to be back on statins.
Had the same pain in the same place. Mine was a gallbladder issue. Due to Glp-1s and rapid weight loss a known side effect is gall stones. After various inflammation events they removed mine a month ago. Obviously dont know if this is your issue but figured I would share my experience.
@Mydogdaryl423 My wife also had her gall bladder removed due to this kind of pain, but a scan showed inflammation. Unfortunately, it hasn’t completed eliminated the pain, but she had to do it because it was persistently inflamed and her spine surgeon wouldn’t operate while she possibly had a systemic infection.
This was before she started using GLP-1’s, so we don’t know what the cause is or was.
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Thanks! I looked up “gall bladder location” and that is precisely where I hurt. It does coincide with starting Reta. . .
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Depending on when you had your scan, they should have seen something if there was a serious inflammation or other thing. I am not a doctor.
My first labs after starting Tirz showed very high lipase (pancreas), but subsequent labs show it back to normal after reducing my dose and making other changes. No symptoms. We really have to listen to our bodies when researching. And get labs done.
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Depending on when you had your scan, they should have seen something if there was a serious inflammation or other thing. I am not a doctor.
My first labs after starting Tirz showed very high lipase (pancreas), but subsequent labs show it back to normal after reducing my dose and making other changes. No symptoms. We really have to listen to our bodies when researching. And get labs done.
Depending on when you had your scan, they should have seen something if there was a serious inflammation or other thing. I am not a doctor.
My first labs after starting Tirz showed very high lipase (pancreas), but subsequent labs show it back to normal after reducing my dose and making other changes. No symptoms. We really have to listen to our bodies when researching. And get labs done.
My pancreatic function was also abnormal but this wasn't due to the high dose Tirz I was taking. It was due to the gallstones causing inflammation and/or obstruction near the pancreas. This leads to lab tests that show abnormal pancreatic function. Because the blockage usually affects the common bile duct as well, liver values (ALT, AST, ALP) and bilirubin often spike alongside pancreatic enzymes.
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@researchcat I find different models have different personalities. Gemini is pretty liberal, and insightful about peptides. Claude is a bit more traditional, but very very detailed. The two of them together in my experience provide better results than one alone.
@researchcat I find different models have different personalities. Gemini is pretty liberal, and insightful about peptides. Claude is a bit more traditional, but very very detailed. The two of them together in my experience provide better results than one alone.
Tweaking your agent definition can erase a lot of the personality issues.
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