What Helped Me - Kale, Blood, CPAP, X-tiamine, Methylphenidate
post by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-03T13:22:11.700Z · LW · GW · 12 commentsContents
13 comments
Here are some things that in the last 6 months have helped me a lot, mainly with handling chronic fatigue and ADHD. This post is very quickly thrown together and it seems more appropriate for a short form, however just in case this is exactly the information that somebody needs to hear, I'd like to increase the visibility by making it a regular post.
I did take bupropion [LW(p) · GW(p)] in the past as an antidepressant. However, I have discovered that eating 500g of well-cooked kale works better than Bupropion an antidepressant. Bupropion works ok but gives me insomnia. I put frozen pre-chopped kale in a pressure cooker and heat it at maximum heat until the maximum pressure is reached. Then I continue to heat the pot such that it stays at approximately maximum pressure for 15 minutes, and then I let it cool down on its own.
Starting to take 600mg benfotiamine daily might have had a big positive effect but I have not confirmed this rigorously. I am borderline diabetic which is why I think this might be important.
I am also eating 200ml of pig's blood once or twice a week. I put it in a pod and steam it for 15-25 minutes until it turns into a solid pudding-like substance. Nuking it also works. It might be the case that I am very bad at absorbing the iron supplements that I tried so far. Or maybe blood has another effect like raising IGF-1 or something like that. I think I fucked myself by not eating meat for many years. Empirically it seems that I am more awake when eating meat, but when eating blood this effect is much stronger, which seems like weak evidence that iron is the issue as there is much more in blood.
I also got a CPAP device, which probably helps significantly.
I know the blood thing sounds probably ridiculous but I am very sure that it has a very strong effect. Even before the CPAP I ate blood every day for some time, and it made me think that I cured myself because I was just so much more awake. But with CPAP and potentially the other things it got even better.
Also, I am very sure that the kale has an antidepressant effect. First I stopped eating kale two times and each time I could feel my depression coming back. This effect was so strong that I googled if kale had an antidepressant effect which Google told me it has. I did not start eating kale because I thought it would cure my depression but just because I thought it was a generally healthy thing to do.
Also, I now have a methylphenidate prescription which is pretty magical. I can now steer my mind. Before my mind was going into random directions all the time. It still does this, but making a course correction is very easy on methylphenidate whereas before it was almost impossible, even when I noticed that I was on track.
Even when I am not on methylphenidate I am just feeling a lot better and my best guess is that the things mentioned before are responsible for that, or at least some subset of them. But just sticking to the thing that works (it has been working for over 2 months now I think) seems to be the best course of action right now, instead of trying to figure out e.g. how much of a benefit benfotiamine really gives.
So in summary probably at least some of the things listed here are spurious but I hope for somebody in my previous situation this is a useful pointer in the right direction.
12 comments
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comment by Elizabeth (pktechgirl) · 2024-01-03T20:44:09.876Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
For anyone who is struggling with iron but reluctant to drink pig's blood: there's one brand of iron on amazon that uses heme iron (the kind found in animals). Some people find this easier to absorb than non-heme iron.
Replies from: mcintcomment by Nisan · 2024-01-03T23:35:18.573Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Wow, that's a lot of kale. Do you eat 500g every day? And 500g is the mass of the cooked, strained kale?
Replies from: johannes-c-mayer, mcint, Dagon↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-04T21:39:27.655Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
500-600g frozen prechopped Kale. It contains a small amount of liquid (or rather ice). I'd guess maybe 5%-10% of the weight is the liquid. I am not sure if they count the water. I would buy the thing that says either 600g on the packaging, or 1kg, and then use half.
Also, I always drink the cooking liquid. I am not sure that is required, but it has a pretty strong kale taste so I'd guess there is probably at least some more kale goodness in there.
Replies from: mcint↑ comment by mcint · 2024-01-05T01:12:56.213Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It looks like kale has been absolved of high oxalate concerns, in contrast to spinach.
You might benefit from mixing in ground mustard seed (or fresh / thawed chopped cruciferous vegetables), per https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/kale/.
Chopping it and then waiting at least 40 minutes before cooking it or mixing some mustard powder to cooked kale helps produce the anti-cancer nutrient, sulforaphane.
For other dark leafy greens, boiling is not best nutritionally, although if you're drinking the water, you're probably well covered.
“The main purpose of cooking vegetables is to make them more edible, palatable, and digestible.” The downside, though, is that “cooking may adversely affect the levels of nutrients, especially the heat-sensitive and water soluble ones.” But even if you boil greens for 10 minutes, the drop in antioxidant capacity, for example, which is a rough proxy for phytonutrient retention, isn’t that much. Yes, there’s a significant drop in each case—a 15 to 20 percent drop—but most of the antioxidant power is retained, even if you boiled lettuce for 10 minutes. The single nutrient that drops the most is probably vitamin C, but as you can see, collards start out so vitamin C-packed that even collard greens boiled for 10 minutes have twice as much vitamin C compared to even raw broccoli.
You can see the vitamin C in spinach really takes a hit. Even just blanching for five minutes can cut vitamin C levels more than half, with more than 90 percent dissolving away into the water after 15 minutes, though most of the beta carotene, which is fat soluble, tends to stay in the leaves. But just keeping it in a regular plastic bag, like you get in the produce aisle, can protect it. The refrigeration is important, though. Even in a bag, a hot day can wipe out nearly 50 percent. Not as bad as drying, though, which can wipe out up to 90 percent of the vitamin C, suggesting that something like kale chips may pale in comparison to fresh—though vitamin C is particularly sensitive. Other nutrients, like beta carotene, are less affected across the board.
What does cooking do to it? Fresh is best, but steaming’s not bad, with microwaving coming in second, and then stir-frying and boiling at the bottom of the barrel.
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Cooking by microwaving and steaming preserves the nutrition more than boiling, here measured in watercress. A little steaming or microwaving hardly has any effect compared to raw, though boiling even two minutes may cut antioxidant levels nearly in half. Watercress is a cruciferous vegetable, though—a cabbage- and broccoli-family vegetable—so it’s prized for its glucosinolate content, which turns into that magical cabbage compound sulforaphane.
Explaining sulforaphane production with respect to cooking techniques, pre-nutrient plus enzyme reaction time between mechanical breakdown and cooking.
Sorry, this comment is not well editing for length. I find myself wanting to explore these interactions with a graph model, taking inspiration from wikidata and software mindmaps, beyond just tree relationships.
↑ comment by mcint · 2024-01-05T01:01:00.323Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
It reduces a lot if you exclude the water. It's quite easy to eat if you can serve it mixed with grain and protein, rice, lentils, thick stew, as a kind of hot salad (in cuberule.com sense, or "nachos").
comment by Oleg Kondratyev (oleg-kondratev) · 2024-01-06T21:22:59.138Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
How do you ensure the absence of parasites in blood, if you do?
Replies from: johannes-c-mayer↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-07T00:59:23.464Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I steam the blood until it solidifies. It all gets heated to approximately 100 degrees Celsius. That gives you a sort of black pudding (there are literally dishes called black pudding in the UK that use blood like this).
comment by mike_hawke · 2024-01-04T02:09:29.637Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
probably at least some of the things listed here are spurious
If I have read this all correctly, you're saying "Probably benfotiamine and/or CPAP are spurious, but I am very sure that the rest are not."
Replies from: johannes-c-mayer↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-04T21:36:17.568Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Yes. Note that benfotiamine has a slight stimulant effect (at 600mg) that appears very quickly and lasts for 1-2 hours. So it is pretty good to take just after waking up just for that effect alone.
comment by Mir (mir-anomaly) · 2024-01-03T15:04:16.330Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Did you diagnose sleep apnea before getting the CPAP?
I'm surprised at your mention of kale (will look into it!) and pig's blood. I think it's good to mention here that pigs are prob sentient, and that it's mean to eat them unless there are very strong utilitarian reasons to do so anyway. I think you prob have such reasons, because you are competently trying to save the world, so I'm glad you're making moral sacrifices to get stuff done.
"Also, I now have a methylphenidate prescription which is pretty magical. I can now steer my mind."
<3
Are you able to ask your psychiatrist for a larger dose? I think it could to at least 60mg, but idk.
Replies from: johannes-c-mayer↑ comment by Johannes C. Mayer (johannes-c-mayer) · 2024-01-04T21:45:31.439Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think eating blood is not that bad, because afaik the blood would be used as fertilizer on fields otherwise, or fed to animals.
You need to get diagnosed for sleep apnea before being even able to get a CPAP device (at least in Germany). I did sleep 3 nights in a sleep lab with electrodes and all for that.