Comment by moremetadata | Hacker News Reader

Comment by moremetadata | Hacker News Reader

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Formaldehyde kills Anthrax a bacillus bacteria and we make Formaldehyde from folic acid and folates. Downside of Formaldehyde is it increases the chance of cancer, probably one of the main reasons smokers got lung cancer because of the Formaldehyde in tobacco. UV light reduces folates, but does increase Vitamin D and vitamin D alters gene expression. I think something like 2000+ plus genes are influenced by Vit D, most of them being immune system genes.

Creatine broken down becomes creatinine which has a gram + and gram - antimicrobial effect, which probably explains why people who have 3rd degree burns experience sudden muscle loss with rhabdomyolysis, in order to keep the bacterial levels down.

Never understood why bodybuilders get told to cycle their creatine intake considering the above. Anyone know?

In the meantime, I'll continue increasing my alpha-linoleic acid (£136 million per kilo from sigma-aldrich) for my omega3 intake, as it increases the size of neutrophils, which store our vitamin C and make it a hostile environment for some pathogens, before some CD4 cells carryout the phagocytosis activity.

Wew... So many wrong theories and half-truths here...

1. Lung cancer in smokers is not primarily caused by formaldehyde. There are lots of other irritants/carcinogens in tobacco smoke, chronic exposure of which contributes to cancer. Non-smokers are exposed to formaldehyde in comparable quantities to smokers from various industrial processes, household solvents, etc.

2. Rhabdomyolysis in burn victims is caused by the reperfusion of massively damaged muscle tissue.

3. The breakdown of muscle tissue in rhabdomyolysis releases creatine kinase, not creatinine.

4. Creatinine does not have antimicrobial effect at concentrations available in the human body. You would need to increase its plasma concentration 100-fold to get an appreciable effect on microbes. Suffice to say, that would be quite unhealthy for your kidneys.

Where did you get these ideas from? r/nootropics?

1. Chronic Exposure, a term that fails to quantify with units of measure, but it sounds psychologically shocking, to the point the elevated stress hormones conveniently not measured by so called medical experts, might start impeding the neutrophil functionality in turn impairing the wider immune system. Probably explains why the saying Ignorance is Bliss exists.

2. Reperfusion. Damage that occurs after blood supply is restored to a tissue or organ after a period of ischemia. Ischemia, a condition in which blood flow (and thus oxygen) is restricted or reduced in a part of the body. I guess someone had to get a leg of lamb and pump some blood around it whilst cooking it in order to demonstrate the restriction of the blood?

3.Anerobic exercise elevates creatine kinase as a marker of exercise. The supplementation of creatine can not be differentiated in kidney function tests, which are used by medical experts.

4.Neither do neutrophils or immune cells in general. >You would need to increase its plasma concentration 100-fold to get an appreciable effect on microbes. Why would it be unhealthy for your kidneys again?

Where did you get these half baked theories and ideas from University or med school? You are certainly not a medical researcher!

Why neutrophils? They’re not implicated in solid tumours or the regulation of them. Do you know what function neutrophils perform?

It’s a LLM

That’s demonstrably not the reason why smokers get lung cancer and here is a thought experiment to prove it out.

Alcohol is metabolised into formaldehyde. It’s one of the reasons why we get hangovers and definitively the reason why people with the ALDH2*2 mutation get such bad hangovers (and flushes). Quantitatively, having more than a standard drink or two produces more formaldehyde than many cigarettes. A given unit persists for the same time in both smokers and drinkers, because it is further metabolised in the blood stream (which it reaches immediately in smokers).

Perhaps it’s some of the 200+ other chemicals (or a combination of them) that is the most likely aetiology of lung cancer?

You dont think cysteine intake like N-Acetyl Cysteine aka Salt and Vinegar crisps might influence the livers ability to metabolise said chemicals? NAC consumption will produce mucus very quickly in the lungs within minutes on an empty stomach and then maybe some glucose to increase CD4 cells to increase phagocytosis?

Inhalation could be viewed as an internal topical application of formaldehyde... bypassing liver (and kidneys where applicable) metabolism. Maybe its the same reasons why some people inhale salt, for its antimicrobial activity, jigging with the bacteria's Na+K+-ATPase pump.

> jigging with the bacteria's Na+K+-ATPase pump

I was kind of hoping you'd have come back to contest, because the inhalation of sodium is a topical application to recruit T Helper 17 cells to a site, even though that topical application happens to be the lungs.

Ironically those people inhaling salt would probably be better off inhaling sodium bicarbonate because the bicarbonate will invariably through some localised chemical changes increase co2, and when co2 levels get to 1000-5000ppm in the lungs, the recruitment of immune cells increase.

I’m sorry, but I’m having a lot of trouble following your tangential and, from my position, erratic, line of thought.

You started off with the minute quantity of formaldehyde being the reason the combustion product of tobacco, which contains dozens to hundreds of known carcinogens, causes lung cancer. It is barely even associated with fucking cancer in alcoholics, who exist with significantly higher levels. And since it’s distributed in body water instantaneously, you can’t claim local effect.

Then you’ve gone onto NAC and sodium and creatinine.

What is the point you’re trying to put across? Because it’s scatterbrained, point and shoot, seems to have little in the way of actual scientific literacy beyond that picked up through the deep search of narrow knowledge and the subsequent cross linking, I believe somewhat erroneously at times, from the spars you have thrown between where we started to NAC, sodium and somehow co2 reaching 5000ppm.

Let’s just focus on that last part for a second. Clearly you have not studied respiratory physiology in any way, shape or form. In a functioning human who is not in respiratory arrest, it is NOT POSSIBLE to have alveolar (or frankly anywhere else in the lungs) concentrations of CO2 of 500-1000. It would mean a significant respiratory acidosis and death, because the efficiency of gas exchange is such that the alveolar concentration MUST reflect the venous gas level.

On reflection, you really haven’t given anything to provide anything to discuss against besides a wildly moving target of quasi linked subjects that seem to be the subject of your fascination, an impression that this is a hobby interest rather than a lifelong learning.

If I have misjudged, I hope you will provide a more coherent explanation of why I have and how the disparate subject areas you have discussed are linked

>N-Acetyl Cysteine aka Salt and Vinegar crisps

Salt and vinegar crisps don't contain any NAC (although they do contain sodium acetate, which sounds similar).

Its either NAC or ALCAR which smells like Salt and Vinegar crisps, but NAC will certainly help the liver deal with state licenced poisons like alcohol and paracetamol aka acetaminophen.

Are you a LLM?

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