Low Homocysteine

[Nancye]

Hi Andrea,
I am loving your site, it has heaps of useful information on it.Just wondering what your thoughts are on low homocysteine, and what you consider to be low.

I am homozygous for C677T. I have been taking methylcobalamin and MTHF for some time and now my homeocysteine is down to 5, I have been advised to stop taking both of these until homocysteine comes up, however I am trying to conceive (1 month only thus far) so worry about NTD. I have lots of folate in my diet, and by RBC folate is 3200! B12 is 700. I feel ok with current protocol, but still lots of fatigue, brain fog, low energy/mood etc. Appreciate any feedback, or links to previous comments regarding low homocsyteine protocols. Thanks in advance.

[Andrea]

Hi Nancy!

This article is really good to explain the significance of low homocysteine. Five does sound a bit low - your body needs homocysteine, just not too much of it.

Are you working with a practitioner? I really don't recommend trying to troubleshoot this yourself, especially if trying to get pregnant.

[Andrea]

Hi again

So your post has been a bit topical for me today and I wanted to come back and fill in more information.

What happens when your homocysteine gets too low is that your body can't make glutathione, which requires the cysteine. Your symptoms are all characteristic of low glutathione.

I'm curious about what your symptoms were when you first started out. Did you have any or did you just treat because you found out you had MTHFR? I'm going to have to do a post about all of this soon because I want people to know that just because a person has MTHFR doesn't mean he or she needs to load up on methylfolate. Yes, you want to stop folic acid and live a clean lifestyle, which is the focus of my blog, but not everyone is going to need extra methylfolate. It really just depends on the health issues and some of the biomarkers and symptoms.

So I'd love to know more about your health background and MTHFR story if you're willing to share so I can better assist you and point you in the right direction

[Nancye]

Hi Andrea,

Thanks so much for you reply.. this really does all get a bit overwhelming at times. I agree with you about methylfolate as I have read so many posts of people say they felt fine until they started taking it!

So I am now in my early 30's and have always suffered from back pain (DX of fibromyalgia), fuzzy/foggy thinking, memory/concentration troubles and tendencies towards mild depression and anxiety. In more recent years I have had endometriosis like symptoms such as pain with sex and during menstruation - however I have wanted to avoid laparoscopy unless absolutely necessary.

I now live a fairly healthy lifestyle, which helps my symptoms a lot, but still never feel 100%. Which is why when I found out about MTHFR I though maybe this is the answer to all my problems! So far I am not sure it has made me feel better so I'm unsure if I have other things going on, as per Ben Lynch site, or perhaps I simply don't need it. If I weren't trying to conceive I probably wouldn't take it, but my main concern is the health of a baby right now. However I also wanted to try to get my nervous system working better as I want to minimiuse any risk of post natal depression.

I have recently started taking n-acetyl-cysteine for my endo symptoms, I think this might help with glutathione production?

Once again thanks for your time to respond and think about my case.

:-)

[Andrea]

Thanks for this additional info, Nancy. Sorry to hear of your troubles...

So did you feel noticeably worse when you started the methylfolate? The fact that your homocysteine dropped so low tells me that perhaps you don't need as much as you're taking. I was taking quite a bit of methylfolate and methylcobalamin for about two months and my homocysteine stayed steady at 6.3. I haven't had it checked recently though.

The other thing you can do if you want to delve further is to test for additional SNPs through Yasko or 23andMe. This may shed some more light. Some people don't do well with methylfolate. I have a special guest doing a post in the coming months on this but in the meantime Dr. Lynch has information on his site and you can also read Dr. Yasko's work (find it on the resources page, first section)

NAC is tolerated by some people, not by others. I took it for about two weeks and then started to become really tired on it. Keep me posted on how you go with it!