Look better, feel better, AND stay healthy....

Today's post: Tuesday, 3-18-2008

Regular exercise does all three of these things. Exercise has been shown to help reduce & prevent depression. (It also improves your sex life.) So you feel better.

It builds your muscles & trims off excess body fat which helps you look better.

And, it helps prevent a whole list of diseases, notably metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, & heart disease, to help keep you healthy.

I found out recently that there is a supplement that does these three things also. Even better, it’s quite inexpensive.

As regular readers of this blog know, homocysteine levels of 9.0 & up put you at significant risk for heart disease, other cardiovascular disease such as strokes, PAD, etc, & various kinds of senility, & death. High levels of homocysteine also increase your rate of aging. Even worse, your levels tend to go up as you get older.

Vitamin B Complex, particularly B12, B6 up to but not over 100 mg a day, folic acid of at least 1600 mcg per day, the supplement NAC at 500 mg once or twice a day AND staying completely away from tobacco smoke, all tend to lower homocysteine levels and keep them where they should be. Further, each of these supplements have other health benefits.

By taking these supplements, I was able to lower my homocysteine level from about 10.8 to 8.6.

However, since it has been a bit since I had my homocysteine level checked as 8.6 & I got just a bit older, my last test for homocysteine was 10.2. (The 8.2 I had hoped for would have been much safer.)

I’d heard that the supplement, TMG, Trimethylglycine, would also do a good job lowering homocysteine. But when my homocysteine level was 8.6 & below 9.0, I hadn’t wanted to spend extra to get it.

At, 10.2 however, I decided I’d better check into it further. Wow !! I’m so glad I did.

Yes. 1,000 mg a day or more of TMG will lower homocysteine levels. Even better, a month’s supply of Jarrow TMG was less than $12 – NOT the $25 or more I had feared.

So taking it will slow my rate of aging & protect my health.

But I found out I may also feel better, be better protected from depression, & gain more muscle mass from my strength training. That will help me lose fat & look better.

I’ve read that the supplement, SAMe, has a good track record in treating depression. But SAMe is VERY expensive.

In addition, SAMe is a form of the amino acid methionine. And, your body tends to produce homocysteine when it converts the amino acid methionine in the foods you take in. So, I was also reluctant to take a supplement that might make my homocysteine go UP.

So imagine my surprise to discover that TMG not only LOWERS your level of homocysteine, it INCREASES your body’s own production & levels of SAMe !!

Plus TMG is far, far cheaper. So taking TMG to feel better is cheaper & possibly safer than taking SAMe directly & definitely has more health benefits. Wow.

But there is still more. If you get regular exercise & do strength training each week, taking TMG will also increase your muscle mass.

That means your muscles get bigger. And, since your then bigger muscles burn some of the calories you take in that would otherwise feed your fat stores, that means you also lose fat.

That means taking TMG will help you look better & feel better in addition to protecting your health by lowering your homocysteine.

When you add in that it’s really cheap, I’m only sorry I didn’t look into taking TMG sooner.

Here is the info I found in the Wikipedia entry for TMG.:

(I’ve just included the parts that apply to this post; but include the exact URL for those who would like to read the original. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylglycine I also put a * by the 4 parts I write about here.)

“Trimethylglycine (also commonly known as TMG, is an organic compound described by the formula (CH3)3N+CH2CO2H. Trimethylglycine was originally named betaine after its discovery in sugar beets (Beta vulgaris) in the 19th century.

Betaine hydrochloride is merely glycine betaine with a chloride counterion and is usually the first crystallised form obtained after extraction from beets. Glycine betaine is a byproduct of the sugar industry.

Betaine is obtained by humans from foods, either as betaine or choline-containing compounds. Food items with the highest content of betaine are wheat, spinach, shellfish, and sugar beets. Estimates of betaine intake are from 0.1 to 1 g/day and as high as 2.5 g/day for a diet high in whole wheat and seafood. Thus, the intake depends on food composition but is probably also related to production of the food items, including growing and osmotic conditions. Alternatively, betaine is formed from choline.

* Trimethylglycine is used to treat high homocysteine levels.[1] Kilmer S. McCully, MD, theorised that cholesterol and clogged arteries were symptoms rather than causes of heart disease and proposed homocysteine as a more likely culprit. If it were not for his work, homocysteine would not have been thought harmful and so supplements to lower homocysteine would not have been thought necessary.

* TMG is used by the ton in livestock farming, paired with lysine to increase "carcass yield," to help increase muscle mass.

Betaine hydrochloride ("betaine HCl") is the chloride salt of TMG. Used as a digestive aid, the hydrochloride is particularly helpful for persons with insufficient acid production in the stomach. Betaine HCl has an acidic taste whereas anhydrous TMG ("anhydrous betaine") tastes sweet with a metallic aftertaste and is usually produced from sugar beets (as is betaine hydrochloride). Both are active as methyl donors, as 'betaine' is retained in both forms

*TMG functions very closely with choline, folic acid, vitamin B12 and S-adenosyl methionine SAMe. All of these compounds function as methyl donors. They carry and donate methyl functional groups to facilitate necessary chemical processes. The donation of methyl groups is important to proper liver function, cellular replication, and detoxification reactions. TMG also plays a role in the manufacture of carnitine and serves to protect the kidneys from damage.

* Trimethylglycine / betaine donates a methyl group to convert homocysteine to methionine in a reaction catalysed by BHMT (Betaine Homocysteine Methyltransferase, E.C. 2.1.1.5, a zinc metalloenzyme). Methionine is then converted to SAMe by Methionine Adenosyl Transferase (MAT) using magnesium and adenosine triphosphate as co-factors.”

X* X* X* X*

Also notice that TMG helps to protect your liver & kidneys directly. And, since it is related to choline, it may also increase your HDL levels.

To help TMG convert homocysteine to SAMe, it also looks like taking 400 mg of so of magnesium would be a good idea. Since that much magnesium also helps protect your health, I think that’s a good idea.

Lastly, betaine HCl is a form of TMG; but it is essentially TMG plus Hydrochloric acid. It tastes like it & tends to give you heartburn. I suggest taking the TMG form, “anhydrous TMG.” My understanding is that this is the form in the Jarrow TMG supplement.