Did you use those hard clear plastic baby bottles early on with your child, say before they were a year old?
We did with our kid, back in early 2000s when controversies over bisphenol A (BPA) weren't well known yet. And based on what I know now, we did everything wrong. Used it to store and feed breastmilk, which as a a high fat food, will leech BPA. We exposed the bottles to heat by washing in dishwasher, boiling to sterilize, or occasionally microwaving.
This question came up in my mind not from his Crohn's, but trying to figure something else out. So I dug deeper, and read some things that makes me really think hard about this.
Let me start by pointing out that my kid has two mutations of the MTHFR gene, which the body uses to break down folate into its usable form. His mutation apparently gives him a 60% efficiency at it. I know this from a 23AndMe analysis. Apparently some variant of the MTHFR gene is not an uncommon in most populations.
L-methylfolate (what MTHFR produces from folate) is used in the cystein cycle to form methionine, which in turn is used to synthesize glutathione. Glutathione is a strong anti-oxidant enzyme in the body that scavenges toxins and heavy metals, getting rid of them. It also is used to make tetrahydrobiopterin. Now this is where things start getting interesting. Tetrahydropiopterin is one of the necessary co-factors for the production of nitric oxide (NO) by various nitric oxide synthases. One of these is the induced nitric oxide synthase (iNOS or NOS2), which is activated by immune system signaling to produce large quantities of NO during oxidative stress (inflammation), and infers macrophages with cytostatic and cytotoxic activity against viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, helmiths and cancer cells. Sounds like this is how macrophages kill off the intruder.
I'm thinking maybe with my kid, his early exposure to BPA compromised his already suboptimal metabolic pathways that lead to the production of NO, and led to a downward spiraling cascade of events that somehow got him to Crohn's.
Not sure if I can reach any solid conclusions, just an intriguing idea at this point. I'm going to ask the GI about it in a couple of weeks and see how loud the chirp of crickets will be in the room.
Your thoughts?
We did with our kid, back in early 2000s when controversies over bisphenol A (BPA) weren't well known yet. And based on what I know now, we did everything wrong. Used it to store and feed breastmilk, which as a a high fat food, will leech BPA. We exposed the bottles to heat by washing in dishwasher, boiling to sterilize, or occasionally microwaving.
This question came up in my mind not from his Crohn's, but trying to figure something else out. So I dug deeper, and read some things that makes me really think hard about this.
Let me start by pointing out that my kid has two mutations of the MTHFR gene, which the body uses to break down folate into its usable form. His mutation apparently gives him a 60% efficiency at it. I know this from a 23AndMe analysis. Apparently some variant of the MTHFR gene is not an uncommon in most populations.
L-methylfolate (what MTHFR produces from folate) is used in the cystein cycle to form methionine, which in turn is used to synthesize glutathione. Glutathione is a strong anti-oxidant enzyme in the body that scavenges toxins and heavy metals, getting rid of them. It also is used to make tetrahydrobiopterin. Now this is where things start getting interesting. Tetrahydropiopterin is one of the necessary co-factors for the production of nitric oxide (NO) by various nitric oxide synthases. One of these is the induced nitric oxide synthase (iNOS or NOS2), which is activated by immune system signaling to produce large quantities of NO during oxidative stress (inflammation), and infers macrophages with cytostatic and cytotoxic activity against viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, helmiths and cancer cells. Sounds like this is how macrophages kill off the intruder.
I'm thinking maybe with my kid, his early exposure to BPA compromised his already suboptimal metabolic pathways that lead to the production of NO, and led to a downward spiraling cascade of events that somehow got him to Crohn's.
Not sure if I can reach any solid conclusions, just an intriguing idea at this point. I'm going to ask the GI about it in a couple of weeks and see how loud the chirp of crickets will be in the room.
Your thoughts?
