Taurine and CFS/ME

Been a while but I went through one of my withdrawal phases.  It happens.

Anyway, during my absence from here I've been doing tons of reading on MTHFR, genetics and supplements.  Details to follow at a later date.  Suffice it to say I'm seeing marked improvement in brain function now that I've been on Amy Yasko's "short cut" protocol for two months.  I'm reading again.  Woot!!  Still not tons of energy but I'm having more good days more often and shorter recovery periods after my bad ones. Improvement is slow but steady.  Double Woot!!

On to taurine...

I've been fascinated with taurine ever since my foray into trying to understand why Cipro made my CFS symptoms go into remission.  The only thing I could find is that it readjusted the glutamate/GABA balance in the brain which resulted in reduced brain inflammation.  Since I had a severe reaction to Cipro continuing to use it wasn't an option so I started looking for other ways to rebalance glutamate/GABA.  I ran across a couple of sentences in Dr. Wahls' book Minding Your Mitochondria that taurine supplementation would help.  However, it didn't go into why so I started supplementing with it with minor but noticeable improvement.

In the meantime, a Japanese study came out showing that yes indeed brain inflammation was present in CFS/ME patients.  Nice to have my own suspicions confirmed (my CFS symptoms improved dramatically after steroid shots for an unrelated problem but only lasted the month that the shots were effective for). Actual paper:  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24665088

Today I ran across this presentation by Dr. Stephanie Seneff (BA in biophysics, EE in Electrical Engineering and PhD in Computer Science all from MIT and she is currently on staff at MIT: i.e. a very very smart woman) on Taurine and it all ties neatly back in on itself: taurine, brain inflammation, sun exposure, nitrous oxide cycle, mitochondrial dysfuction, toxin buildup, etc, etc, etc.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/WAPF_Slides_2012/taurine_2012.pdf

It gets a little technical but is fascinating how this all appears to be interlaced.  Looks like I'll be adding taurine back in to my supplement regimen.  I had paired down to only Yasko's supplements so that I could see how the raw protocol worked and so that I didn't have any drug/supplement interactions (which did happen. twice. yuk!).  Now I'll add it back in and cross my fingers.  Yasko claimed that taurine could build up in the brain but Seneff says that is a good thing.  My impression is that Seneff has a better grip on taurine chemistry than Yasko does so I'm adding the stuff back in.  And the Grand Experiment continues....