Hartnup disease is discussed in the thread that haidcat started. See my responses in the thread.
Treatment is often suggested as a high protein diet with extra niacin so, on those grounds, I didn't think that taking extra b vitamins and protein would hurt
Hartnup is interesting as it is a disease that is both genetic but not obvious from birth. It's onset can be a period of stress (hormone related), poor nutrition, gastric illness etc.
When it does become obvious, the symptoms resemble niacin deficiency a.k.a. pellagra
A person with Hartnup disease cannot absorb amino acids properly from the intestine and cannot reabsorb them properly from tubules in the kidneys. Excessive amounts of amino acids, such as tryptophan, are excreted in the urine. The body is thus left with inadequate amounts of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. With too little tryptophan in the blood, the body is unable to make a sufficient amount of the B-complex vitamin niacinamide, particularly under stress when more vitamins are needed.
Honestly, we could have this or we may not. I've no idea. All we know is that supplementing niacin works but niacin is also useful in stress management. For example, if you had something else that elevated norepinephrine then niacin might bring some relief if not a cure. It's very difficult to even say that you have an illness because the cure of that illness appears to work for you. The effect from niacin may be related to COX-2 inhibition or it may not. The benefits Demo is getting from testosterone may be because testosterone helps reduce cortisol and norepinephrine levels or it may not.
It's all up in the air.
My doctor is happy to say I have markers of ongoing allergic reaction but to what... A psychiatrist and an allergist all seem to think that the major symptoms I'm describing are to do with a stress response but they don't know to what. By the way, reaching plateau's of a particular dopamine boosting treatment not working or not producing major improvement after a huge boost at the start is "normal". It is NOT a placebo effect. In the same way, anti-depressant medication can take months to work properly as drugs like Prozac that appear to increase levels of Nerve Growth Factor take a while to do so and brain cells take a while to mature. I'm not a doctor but my opinion is that, somehow, POIS disrupts the maturation of new brain cells and disrupts learning. It is known that elevated cortisol during a stress response will do this.
This is what happens to people who are depressed. No matter how POIS starts out, the physiological and psychological stress appears to lead to depression. This isn't any surprise. How could someone live with an illness which effects their cognitive and physical performance almost every day but remains undiagnosed
WITHOUT FEELING DEPRESSED. The point is, we have a reason to be depressed and, even if we didn't, it appears POIS affects our brains in much the same way.
I do think it's really interesting that at least one POIS sufferer had low progesterone and was cured by progesterone supplementation. I looked at the NSF discussion about these results and I don't think enough attentions was given to this. Probably because it's difficult to convince any doctor to prescribe progesterone to males, never mind young males.
The root cause (aetiology in medical terms) of POIS remains a mystery. And the unfortunate thing is that there are illnesses out there that have been studied much more than POIS where that is still the case. That's not an excuse not to conduct research, just something that we have to prepare ourselves. A good result from further research is
any viable treatment regime with greater
but not definitive insight into how it works. It could take years to understand the cause of this disorder (if indeed it has only one).
