Amino acids and energy production

[Creekside]

I cannot think of any possible mechanism for becoming sensitive to proline.

Proline is used in so many reactions in the body that it's more surprising that more people don't develop sensitivities to it, or any other individual amino acid. My guess is that there's some reactions in some cells that are proportional to local proline levels, which in turn affect my ME symptoms. At present, my double-vision is definitely proportional to proline content in my diet. It seems to take only a few hours for my eyes to start going wonky after some meat or wheat. The effect is different for each eye, so I think the affected cells on one side of my brain are more affected than the other side.

While you might differentiate between foods that are high or low in something, finding a threshold would be difficult.

Yes, my experiments are not something to base a research paper on, but they still have value. I haven't found any foods with high proline levels listed that I don't respond to. This predictive reliability is what makes it a theory rather than just a guess.

 

[Hoopoe]

I tried glutamine and seemed to get an energy boost from it for a day. The stimulation then triggered a mild worsening.

I find that it's not difficult to stimulate the body in various ways. The challenge is in increasing tolerance for stimulation and activity in a sustainable manner.

That said I would like to see some clinical testing of the effect of supplementing the things research has found are low in ME/CFS energy production systems. Which are, from memory: anaplerotic amino acids, carnitine.

 

[Midnattsol]

Yes, my experiments are not something to base a research paper on, but they still have value. I haven't found any foods with high proline levels listed that I don't respond to. This predictive reliability is what makes it a theory rather than just a guess.

What about other compounds in these foods?

I tried glutamine and seemed to get an energy boost from it for a day. The stimulation then triggered a mild worsening.

I find that it's not difficult to stimulate the body in various ways. The challenge is in increasing tolerance for stimulation and activity in a sustainable manner.

That said I would like to see some clinical testing of the effect of supplementing the things research has found are low in ME/CFS energy production systems. Which are, from memory: anaplerotic amino acids, carnitine.

Some compounds that are low might be low as a safety mechanism, and artificially increasing them could cause harm. Without knowing what's going on supplementing is problematic.

 

[Creekside]

What about other compounds in these foods?

It's a matter of correlation. I tried a wide variety of foods, and my symptom increase correlated only with proline. I didn't bother to do a detailed statistical analysis using 1000 unrelated foods or anything like that, but the principle is valid. From my experiments, I'm confident that proline is the factor in those foods that affects my symptoms.