Malic acid supplement, sumac

Thanks for the updates @MeSci! It’s great that you managed to avoid PEM those days. I had similar experiences—outings which reliably triggered PEM for me suddenly didn’t anymore if I took malic acid ahead of time. I’m glad that the sumac seems to be helping you even though you have to balance the negative effects.
 
@jnmaciuch I just came across a paper about about dietary malic acid enhancing oxidative muscle fiber types (slow twitch fiber that came up in Wust’s research) that I thought was really interesting. I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned this before because I can’t read through this whole thread. I’ll attempt to post a link below.

I’d googled malic acid fiber because I’ve been taking sumac once in a while and it seems to have a stimulant effect on me, hard to say if it’s actually energy though. I took it with a high fiber supplement yesterday and didn’t feel as much hence the search.

Dietary Malic Acid Supplementation Induces Skeletal Muscle Fiber-Type Transition of Weaned Piglets and Further Improves Meat Quality of Finishing Pigs - PMC

The aim of this study was to investigate effects of dietary malic acid supplementation on skeletal muscle fiber-type transition during nursery period and the subsequent meat quality of finishing pigs. Results showed that malic acid supplementation ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
 
winterwren said:
@jnmaciuch I just came across a paper about about dietary malic acid enhancing oxidative muscle fiber types (slow twitch fiber that came up in Wust’s research) that I thought was really interesting. I’m not sure if you’ve mentioned this before because I can’t read through this whole thread. I’ll attempt to post a link below.

I’d googled malic acid fiber because I’ve been taking sumac once in a while and it seems to have a stimulant effect on me, hard to say if it’s actually energy though. I took it with a high fiber supplement yesterday and didn’t feel as much hence the search.

Dietary Malic Acid Supplementation Induces Skeletal Muscle Fiber-Type Transition of Weaned Piglets and Further Improves Meat Quality of Finishing Pigs - PMC

The aim of this study was to investigate effects of dietary malic acid supplementation on skeletal muscle fiber-type transition during nursery period and the subsequent meat quality of finishing pigs. Results showed that malic acid supplementation ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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Thanks for the link, that’s interesting!
 
Im wondering if it may only work for people that, for some reason, notice symptoms in let's say, less then 5 hours after activity? Does it only seem to work for people with immediate PEM?
 
Alinda said:
Im wondering if it may only work for people that, for some reason, notice symptoms in let's say, less then 5 hours after activity? Does it only seem to work for people with immediate PEM?
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Good question—that seems to not be the case for @MeSci who reported usually experiencing PEM several days after activity. But I don’t know for sure about others.
 
Turtle said:
@jnmaciuch
Can I try sumac when I also have diabetes?
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I don't know about sumac specifically, but its reportedly (I have not confirmed this in the science) of benefit in diabetes. Malic acid is also thought to be of benefit, but again not read specific studies. I tried malic acid 25 years ago, with great benefit, but could only buy it as sherbet at the time, so very high sugar. so moved on to other things.

This week I tried a very small amount as a test, and it did nothing. However I get severe muscle problems if I try to sleep in certain ways, and suddenly they were gone. Then some hours later they were back. At a very low dose it seems to be of muscle benefit for maybe 8 to 12 hours. I am still testing, and ramping up dose.

I have tested doing more resistance training, and I can do so on malic acid, at least so far. Long term problems might still arise. I am using what I call the Perikles protocol, but with much more rest. Treat exercise as hypoxia, do not exercise for more than 30s, never get out of breath (so no aerobic exercise) and rest two minutes between exercises. Except experimentation showed I need to rest until I had at least a few hours OK sleep. Now I do not seem to need to exercise only after prolonged resting. I am only on day two of testing exercise so far, but I managed a half dozen resistance sets yesterday with no issues. Even if it does not appreciably benefit my ME, being able to increase my strength more while still having ME is a game changer ... unless there are complications. So far there is still no evidence I can use exercise to boost endurance, its still broken.
 
MeSci said:
I tried Co-Q10 years ago and couldn't tolerate it.
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When I first tried CoQ10 I had such severe brain dysfunction afterward that I essentially had amnesia. I finally figured out where I might live, went there, and my key worked. So I went in and rested, and was fine the next day.

Most times I tried CoQ10 it did nothing. Some supplements (especially one now hard to buy called EnQten) had a major impact, and got me through years at university. The impact on my health has been highly variable.

However anyone over 50 or so has limited capacity to make CoQ10 as it declines with age. It seems more likely to be of benefit the older a person is.
 
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jnmaciuch said:
I would just be curious for the people that didn't report a noticeable effect from the malic acid: did you happen to track whether you still got PEM after activity that normally triggers it for you
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As I just reported in a post, I moved from being able to do resistance training once a day if I was lucky, for 30s, to six times yesterday with no crash or PEM. That was on a trace of malic acid, not sumac. However its effect on my muscle issues seems to last between 8 and 12 hours. The exercise was done with many minutes or some hours between sets.
 
poetinsf said:
The point was that, no matter how rigorous you are with n=1 trial, it's still an anecdote.
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N=1 trials are very valuable for individuals. They just cannot be generalized to populations. As for anecdotal, there are more and more N=1 trials being done so far as I can see, but are considered case studies. Case studies are useful to establish some viability of an hypothesis, but larger trials are needed at some point.
 
Thanks for the update @alex3619 ! I’m glad you’re noticing at least some benefit, I hope it continues for you.

Same as you, malic acid relieves muscle stiffness/pain for me and increases my capacity to do activity without triggering PEM. The more I hear from others, it seem likely that the immediately noticeable symptom relief I reported is probably a combination of malic acid + a stimulant, and possibly the weird biology of a lucky few.
 
Snow Leopard said:
People are trying this in tablet form (eg Source naturals brand) rather than powder form right?

The tablets are not locally stocked in Australia and I think all the local listings come from the USA.
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In Australia you can buy malic acid by the kilo or less at brewing supply stores, in powder form. Health food stores were no help.
 
jnmaciuch said:
I guess I should also note that it’s now been ~6 months of consistent effect of the malic acid for me.
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I have had supplements that worked for years suddenly fail or generate intolerable side effects. This includes CoQ10, cold processed whey protein, and some others I am having trouble recalling just now. More frequently these issues occur within a few days. When there is a rise in some metabolites there might be more demand on additional nutrients, which then might become deficient.
 
Still way too preliminary to be sure of things, but here are three tentative observations.

1. My improvement in muscle pain declined. I am starting to go back to how I was before.

2. As I start slightly higher doses the less than 12 hours limit has gone away. Now I am improved at up to several days after a dose. This includes slightly increased tolerance to resistance training. Since I am using malic acid powder it is difficult to check dosage.

3. Malic acid seems to improve sleep. Unless its a coincidence, and it might be, it seems to induce sleep in the normal time range at least some of the time (I have at times major circadian disruption), and I have gone from sleeping 3-6 hours per day to 6-10 hours per day. That is helping. It also needs a lot more testing.
 
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