13 replies to this topic

[John250]

Is this the best mushroom supplement for the immune system? I’ve been using Sacred 7 as I thought that was but I just came across maitake gold 404. Never heard about it until now.

[John250]

Anyone?

[John250]

Hmmmm the forum is about longevity. The immune system is one of the biggest components to longevity. Maitake Gold 404 is supposedly the strongest mushroom immunity extract that exists yet nobody knows anything about it. I’m bewildered.

[YOLF]

You look like a body builder, have you considered histidine? Why are you trying to improve your immune system?

 

Mushrooms basically have beta glucans which are a powerful antioxidant and immune stimulant. The health benefits imo differ only slightly and by origin/growth methods (some are grown with healthier methods than others). The best (safest and generally most inexpensive) source by far for beta glucans would seem to be yeast. Mushrooms, tree types in particular, but any grown on saw dust have been shown to be problematic in the past due to heavy metal contamination, such as high lead content. Yeast on the other hand is grown from food (usually rice) and farmland that must meet environmental standards. Saw dust comes from any old place they can grow wood and could have residues from sandpaper. tools. and other industrial byproducts. 

 

If I were taking a mushrooms supplement regularly (I do have some Reishi and a complex of 5 different mushrooms to take if I get sick), I'd want a potent extract of unique actives that has been checked for contamination and combined with yeast beta glucans.

[John250]

You look like a body builder, have you considered histidine? Why are you trying to improve your immune system?

Mushrooms basically have beta glucans which are a powerful antioxidant and immune stimulant. The health benefits imo differ only slightly and by origin/growth methods (some are grown with healthier methods than others). The best (safest and generally most inexpensive) source by far for beta glucans would seem to be yeast. Mushrooms, tree types in particular, but any grown on saw dust have been shown to be problematic in the past due to heavy metal contamination, such as high lead content. Yeast on the other hand is grown from food (usually rice) and farmland that must meet environmental standards. Saw dust comes from any old place they can grow wood and could have residues from sandpaper. tools. and other industrial byproducts.

If I were taking a mushrooms supplement regularly (I do have some Reishi and a complex of 5 different mushrooms to take if I get sick), I'd want a potent extract of unique actives that has been checked for contamination and combined with yeast beta glucans.

Never took histidine why? It’s just an essential amino acid no? Immune system sucks. When I was a kid I was on antibiotics for years due to ear infections. I think that permanently caused me a weak immune system as I always get sick. I take tons of health supplements and have gotten extensive bloodwork and nothing shows anything is wrong.

I currently use Sacred 7 mushroom blend. Never heard of yeast being beneficial I always though yeast was a negative thing but I’ll have to look into this. What is a good brand/product?

Edited by John250, 26 April 2018 - 03:19 PM.

[YOLF]

I've used stuff from NOW, but I imagine any yeast product could help. Some supplement retailers also sell beta glucans as a bulk powder. 

 

Histidine raises histamine which amps the immune system and T production very significantly, but you need to limit how much you take and what environmental and food allergens you are exposed to while taking it. Similar to beta glucans, including mushrooms, it can cause or aggravate allergies and autoimmune disorders.

 

Anyways, you look very healthy, so I suspect that you have complicated environmental and food allergies that will require nothing short of education to manage/navigate adequately. What happens, is complicated allergies lead to a dysregulated, and maybe even enhanced immune system, inflammation, and then regular opportunistic infections occur which further stoke your immune system into further dysregulation. You're immune system is attacking all the wrong things. With as much muscle as you have, your immune system should/could be awesome, in fact, the constant illness could already be stoking your T levels through histamine response.

 

As for education, allergies are more complicated than simply taking the allergy tests. A highly vigilant immune system such as might be expected in a body builder will be more plastic, or at least it's consistency will be determined by your behavior. As it's gotten out of hand and been that way for a long time, you need to determine the molecular relatives of your allergens, both environmental and food, and completely remove them from your diet as well as things which might be making them more allergenic. Then, after you do that and you have everything worked out, you can reset your immune system and make it stronger than ever some fasting and supplements your probably already own. So you've been doing the right thing, but you've skipping steps you didn't know about.

 

Step 1 - See an allergist or someone who can give you both the food and environmental test, you'll need the complete results, it can come down to minor allergies that your doctor may not feel are worth mentioning. It's a skin test, so adrenaline, age, blood flow, inflammation handling capacity, what you wash and care for your skin with, and tons of other things can skew or understate your results. We tend to select hygiene products that make us look good, and that means they lower inflammation. These tests are considered clinically accurate for it's normal purposes, but more can be done with them now, there is a whole science that hasn't made it to clinical practice yet which is extremely effective and it's really nothing more than eating smarter than anyone's ever eaten before.

Step 2 - Buy a copy of the Boy Scout's Handbook, there is a growing array of exotic foods and allergens in our daily lives, and the BSH (Maybe Eagle Scout's Handbook if there is such a thing, I read an old copy from the 70s and 80s by chance) has an ancient, time tested, method for determining whether things you've never eaten before are safe or allergenic to you and will allow you to fill in any gaps and answer any questions that your doctor can't.

Step 2.5 - Optional, assess food intolerances.

Step 3 - Begin understanding how to predict what you can become allergic to depending on behavior.

Step 4 - Take action, remove everything you could be allergic to for around 2 weeks. Be thorough and decisive. 

Step 5 - Enhance immune system by training it attack what it's supposed to.

Step 6 - Enjoy life, repeat from step 4 as necessary should symptoms return. Limit persistent exposure to allergens as much as you can, clean often and be thorough if allergy profile allows, chop down offensive trees and plants, kill off all weeds and garden plants which are relatives to your allergens. Buy the good HVAC air filters upgrade to UV sanitizers (also destroys allergenic proteins) with titanium dioxide grid, and upgrade return vents to accommodate additional filters, you want MERV 13 HEPA, other standards aren't as well defined and prevent accurate comparison. Carpet also holds environmental allergens and should be replaced with tile. If you can do this by step 4, your results will be much better. Otherwise clean carpets with a shampooer and add proteolytic enzymes to the mix.

[John250]

Thank you. The only tests I got done work for Celiac from my Gastro and a stool sample. I believe a few other blood test for allergies . They said I have no gluten allergies or anything they can see but I don’t think I had a full food allergy panel done. When I get sick it’s not usually a stuffy nose or sneezing or sinus related, it’s always body aches and just that “flu“ type of feeling of malaise. I figured allergies couldn’t cause that but maybe I’m wrong. I’ll try finding a specialist with allergies maybe there something I am ingesting or exposed to all the time. I will tell you this. I have used anabolic steroids for a long time. Never high doses very minimal because unlike all my friends and other bodybuilders who can use high doses I always get sick if I do. And it’s not the quality of the steroids have used everything from underground labs to pharmaceutical grade and no matter what there’s only a few that my body will handle. Anything else I usually end up getting flu like symptoms and feel like shit which was a blessing in disguise because I was never able to abuse my body with high doses. Specific injectable steroids cause what is known as “test flu “in the bodybuilding world when they are shorter esters they are more painful but what’s odd is some people feel absolutely no pain from an injection where others are crippled for three or four days. What I think personally is my body recognizes a foreign substance being injected into it and my immune system attacks it which could leave me feeling sick and vulnerable to picking up any virus floating around but that’s just my theory.

[YOLF]

Allergies definitely do that, I have an allergy that causes the exact same thing. Allergies can be early forms of auto immune disease.

 

The anabolics sound scary with those kinds of side effects. I think something's fishy... I'd stay away from them unless you need them. Bodybuilders can run out of their own steroids if they bulk up too much and can become dependent, but there are doctors for that. There are also plenty of legal ways to boost T. Histidine and DAA being good ones once you master your allergies and add some senolytics. Synergy leads to better results, there is a product out there... I forget the name... which can increase HGH 600% with 5 things that will increase it by 20% on their own. It's all about supporting the various pathways/feedback loops and systems biology. The T precursors get bounced around the body to several different organs before becoming T, each one can be optimized.

 

 

 

[John250]

I’ve been on hormone replacement therapy for years so I don’t have to worry about increasing test or HGH. I just want my immune system to function properly. Every blood test I’ve had shows my immune system is superstrong. My CoQ10 levels are in high end of the range, glutathione high end of range, homocysteine is only 4.6(range 0-15). I thought maybe I had low B 12 even though B 12 levels read super high I went and got a methylmalonic Acid Test Which was in range. Hundreds of other blood tests for overall health and immune system all showing everything is good. I do have a bit of and amphetamine addiction. I’m prescribed Adderall and I take more than I should. Prescribed 60mg some days I’ll take 90. Been on it for years got off of it then went back on it it’s a nasty addition I’m sure it takes a toll on the immune system but before I even used it I had the same problems so I know it’s not a contributing factor. I counterbalance the Neurotoxicity with ALCAR, NA RALA, CBD oil, NAC, and a host of others. But still there is some underlying factor that is causing my weak immune system. I feel like I’ve had it my whole life but it’s gotten worse as I age.

Edited by John250, 27 April 2018 - 06:08 PM.

[YOLF]

You're immune system isn't weak, it's just been using those stretch bands and needs the workout I outlined above

 

Well, adderall can mask symptoms. It will increase adrenaline and blood flow throughout the body, so the allergens and whatever else is causing this problem will get distributed more rapidly around the body where no one system gets overloaded with them. However, you'll let more in too, so it could be a cycle of aggravation and masking the problem by allowing you to handle better and this could be a root cause that is driving the addiction behavior So there's another reason to get all your other issues worked out. 

 

What are your glutathione levels like without the NAC? That raises it. I'd stick to the suggested dose of the adderall. There are some aminos which are good for preventing addiction and other things you can take to prevent tolerance from forming. I've seen lots of people come here for advice b/c they took too much of this stuff and had to fix something. It takes them months to recover. 

 

What's NA?

 

NAC has been shown to increase incidence of cancer as a monotherapy, so if you're going to take it, you should really do need to work out this issue and get your immune system trained and pumped for all the right things instead of the wrong ones.

 

[YOLF]

You might also think of switching to deprenyl instead of adderall if you can stay off it for a year or so. Smokers who quit and eat tomato sauce or pizza will get small amounts of nicotine from the tomato and will relapse to smoking from the micro exposure. Cold turkey is the most effective way to quit per the statistics. Deprenyl gets metabolized to very small amounts of amphetamine (though it is not an amphetamine, substituted amphetamine, or otherwise, it's actually a drug originally intended for parkinson's disease). It can raise T about 200 points, delay certain types of aging, inhibits an enzyme that leads to ADHD symptoms, and makes workouts more enjoyable. I would be very careful with it at first, and do consult a doctor. Don't take it with adderall though, the amounts of amphetamines it produces are very small, but I would think that it wouldn't be safe with any kind of actual amphetamine dosage. Oh and most importantly, it increases the amount of Brown Adipose Tissue you have. People at either extremes of the BMI spectrum (those who are obese and those who have alot of muscle with low BMI, especially from fasting or dieting to look more cut at competitions) can lose Brown Fat if they aren't careful and that can predispose you to disease later on in life. Brown fat can also keep your face from looking old.  Look into Ben Best's articles and suggestions for taking it, it's not necessarily the same as taking it for parkinson's. You take a small dose of it about once a week, though you can also take small doses daily, the life extension benefits may be lessened or lost.

[John250]

Glutathione was 341 range 176-323

This was in 2016 before I ever took NAC

https://draxe.com/glutathione/

I take 600mg milk thistle 2x per day
milk thistle Extract (Silybum marianum)
(standardized to 80% silymarin)(seed)

I take around 150g hydro whey isolate per day

300-600mg ALA, 8-10g Vitamin C and 400iu Vitamin E per day

In that draxe article with supplements that boost glutathione I listed what I was taking at the time.


Also by “NA” I was referring to NARALA

I used to just use ALA. Then switched to R-ALA as it’s superior and just recently read about NA-R-ALA which seems the most superior

https://www.amazon.c...d/dp/B000I4C19G


I will have to research deprenyl more. It’s common in the bodybuilding community as it’s an anti prolactin as certain steroids increase prolactin so bodybuilders use it. Cabergoline is the most popular anti prolactin but the negative is it lowers igf levels. Then Pramipexole took over as being the best anti prolactin out as well as increasing igf levels but only microdoses can be taken or side effects are horrific.

Edited by John250, 28 April 2018 - 06:35 AM.

[EFTANG]

About Maitake Gold, you might want to read this article unveiling how the vendors of this and related products are deceiving you. Maitake Gold is very overpriced. 

 

Good immune supporting mushroom extracts should list beta-glucan as the active ingredients, the more the better. If you're working out a lot, a Cordyceps extract might also help - it increases the ATP levels. Look for cordycepin in this case - this is the active ingredient / quality marker for Cordyceps extracts.

[John250]

About Maitake Gold, you might want to read this article unveiling how the vendors of this and related products are deceiving you. Maitake Gold is very overpriced.

Good immune supporting mushroom extracts should list beta-glucan as the active ingredients, the more the better. If you're working out a lot, a Cordyceps extract might also help - it increases the ATP levels. Look for cordycepin in this case - this is the active ingredient / quality marker for Cordyceps extracts.

Thank you