NeuroTalk Support Groups - B1 and liver extract

Okay here we go.... get some coffee and settle in, because I have reading links for you to consider. ;)

First off I did a little history searching. Where this comes from.
The MS link goes back a decade and is based on information from the 40's or so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pernicious_anemia

Quote:

Whipple discovered that ingesting large amounts of liver seemed to cure anemia from blood loss, and tried liver ingestion as a treatment for pernicious anemia, reporting improvement there also, in a paper in 1920. George Minot and William Murphy then set about to partly isolate the curative property in liver and showed in 1926 that it was contained in raw liver juice (in the process also showing that ironically it was the iron in liver tissue, not the soluble factor in liver juice, which cured the anemia from bleeding in dogs; thus the discovery of the liver juice factor as a treatment for pernicious anemia had been by coincidence). For the discovery of the cure of a previously fatal disease of unknown etiology, the three men shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Medicine.[20].......

After Minot and Murphy's verification of Whipple's results in 1926, pernicious anemia victims ate or drank at least 1/2 a pound of raw liver, or drank raw liver juice, every day. This continued for several years, until a concentrate of liver juice became available. In 1928, chemist Edwin Cohn prepared a liver extract that was 50 to 100 times more potent than the natural food (liver). The extract could even be injected into muscle, which meant that patients no longer needed to eat large amounts of liver or juice. This also reduced the cost of treatment considerably.

The active ingredient in liver remained unknown until 1948, when it was isolated by two chemists, Karl A. Folkers of the United States and Alexander R. Todd of Great Britain. The substance was a cobalamin, which the discoverers named vitamin B12. The new vitamin in liver juice was eventually completely purified and characterized in the 1950s, and other methods of producing it from bacteria were developed. It could be injected into muscle with even less irritation, making it possible to treat pernicious anemia with even more ease. Pernicious anemia was eventually treated with either vitamin B12 injections, or else large oral doses of vitamin B12, typically between 1 and 4 mg (1000 to 4000 mcg) daily.

So now we know liver extract for you would have B12 in it and lots of IRON. I was suspecting that glutathione would be in it too, but I haven't found confirmation of that.

Here is a link to the use of liver extract specifically:
http://www.livestrong.com/liver-extract/

http://www.healthline.com/natstandar.../liver-extract

Here are some papers on what in the extract may be working:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12530518

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9061610

The above 2 were hits from a search using "liver extract neuropathy" keywords

This link has information about repairing myelin with supplements:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/22...ath-with-diet/

This link shows positive results using GLA... which is found in evening primrose and borage oil:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679766

And this one explains how methylation using methylfolate
and methylcobalamin enable myelination . Some people cannot methylate folate properly, this is called MTHFR genetic failure.
About 10% or more (new research suggest up to 30%) may have this affecting their metabolisms leading to disease and damage. There is more about this on the B12 thread here in the stickies.

Now my comments:

Liver extract is very high in iron. This can be quite problematic for males. (many of the studies back in 2000 and treatments then were done with women, with MS who had blood work showing very low ferritin and iron). So yes, liver extract helped THEM.
But there is little evidence of what the results would be for males.
Here is a link discussing iron overload and issues with males taking extra iron, over and above that which is in food:
http://www.menweb.org/alexiron.htm
Iron overload can be hemochromatosis... which also causes PN.
Or it can just be subclinical but enough to be too much for most men, taking iron as a supplement when they have normal ferritin levels.

Another thing liver is high in is Vit A. So do not take any supplements with A in them if you do this. And monitor for any elevated A levels over time. Hypervitaminosis A can cause increased intracranial fluid pressure giving headaches. (also nausea and vomiting are signs).

The risks in the links about disease transmission are serious and need to be considered. Bacteria and parasites may be killed during processing of the liver extract. But PRIONS cannot be killed because they are not alive...they would remain. Without a guarantee that the cow providing the liver was tested for Prions, one would never know for sure. Prions remain on surgical instruments even after sterilization, it has been found, and those can transmit Mad Cow or nvCJD to others during neurosurgery. So now, those scalpels etc are thrown away!. So I would expect any prions present to sneak thru processing of the extract.

The other risks involved with the liver extract are allergic reaction to the foreign proteins from the cow. Allergic reactions are always possible with vaccines and protein/peptide injections.

It is possible there would be some glutathione in the extract, and if so this is a positive thing to help explain how it might work. But, glutathione, purified can also be used IV, more safely.

The thiamine part, is confusing. Thiamine is pretty well absorbed, and you can smell it in your urine within 2 hrs after taking it orally. The new Benfotiamine form, stays in the body longer, and taking it orally has shown in many studies to be useful for neuropathy. I have a post about it in the Subforum above, under Supplements.

If it were me? I'd go for the purified things that liver extract provides, and do it that way. B12, thiamine (benfotiamine) and perhaps the glutathione. (IV glutathione was mentioned on Dr. Cohen's website by a patient with fluoroquinolone neuropathy, and he claimed it helped alot.

If you do not have a damaged liver, from alcohol or hepatitis, your liver should be making glutathione for you. The supplement NAC taken orally can also help manufacture glutathione.

I think the liver extract is a bit creepy. These days, so many organic things are contaminated, or come from China. The heparin problem still persists because of China's contaminated manufacturing. The natural thyroids were taken off the market by the FDA because of concerns about Chinese extraction methods and safety. (this is very controversial and still mired in a political quagmire!).

Also as one last comment---- recent studies have shown that statins (drugs used commonly to lower LDL cholesterol levels) negatively affect remyelination processes in the CNS. Previously statins were thought to help with inflammation in MS patients and were given in high doses. New studies have shown that repair is inhibited by statins, so that for people taking statins and trying to improve nerve damage, this may not lead to any successes. So statin therapy has been abandoned for those patients now.

If you opt for this treatment, I'd at least find out where that liver extract comes from, and talk to the compounding pharmacy or company who makes it, to satisfy these safety concerns.

So please come back and keep us up to date on your decision and if you do this treatment, we'd all like to know if it helped you, etc.