Lysine - increases cholesterol and is ketogenic?

[Lone Dog]

I was reading a vitamin & mineral supplement book published here in the UK by author Dr Sarah Brewer. In it, Lysine is said to increase cholesterol and therefore "may contribute to atherosclerosis". I've read this before. I wonder if this is due to it helping to remove cholesterol from the plaque?

I've also read on the internet that lysine is one of few ketogenic amino acids, which can increase acetyl co-enzyme A, which may also be tied up with an increased risk of atherosclerosis and diabetes. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Hopefully lysine isn't harmful for us.

[ofonorow]

I was reading a vitamin & mineral supplement book published here in the UK by author Dr Sarah Brewer. In it, Lysine is said to increase cholesterol and therefore "may contribute to atherosclerosis". I've read this before. I wonder if this is due to it helping to remove cholesterol from the plaque?

I've also read on the internet that lysine is one of few ketogenic amino acids, which can increase acetyl co-enzyme A, which may also be tied up with an increased risk of atherosclerosis and diabetes. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Hopefully lysine isn't harmful for us.

Good questions. Linus Pauling himself cited the one study I knew about, on his first case report about the vitamin C and lysine treatment. Presumably, this was the only study Pauling found in his literature search at that time, and this work was done at Loma Linda. It reportedly showed an increase in cholesterol levels in laboratory animals given lysine.

My general response is that we require at least 1 gram of lysine in our foods daily to exist, it like vitamin C is utterly nontoxic, (there is no known lethal dose), and even if this study at Loma Linda was valid, increased cholesterol is usually a good thing. To my way of thinking, this is because cholesterol is very important substance. I remember not being that impressed with the Loma Linda study (its been more than 15 years). Perhaps the rats were not producing enough cholesterol, and improved lysine nutrition corrected this deficiency?

The cholesterol produced by the human body has a myriad of important functions, not the least of which is a detoxifying mechanism, and production is increased,usually in response to some insult, especially if the intake of vitamin C is low. But I doubt the Loma Linda result. In my case, taking vitamin C for years, my total cholesterol was 180 mg/dl - exactly as predicted by Pauling(Ginter) on my intake of 18,000 mg. However, after adding lysine, my total cholesterol dropped to 160 mg/dl (which I interpret as the loss of Lp(a))

I am not clear on the second part of your question. You seem to imply that a possibility of an increased production of some other factor may be relevant to CVD? Do you have a reference about this concern?

[Lone Dog]

OK, thanks Owen. I tend to think that taking C and/or lysine is not going to increase your cholesterol unless there's plenty of it in your plaque which is going to be released by taking the C and lysine. There was an English doctor who found that her heart patients had increases in cholesterol when taking the PT, but normal patients didn't.

Yes, I've been reading nutritionist Walter Last's explanation of the Krebs cycle, and from what I can see (though it's not an easy article to understand for a layman like myself), Walter talks about a balance being required in terms of oxaloacetic acid and acetyl co-enzyme A for good health. He refers to the former as being something to be increased (by the taking of fruit acids e.g. citric acid in lemon juice, and malic acid in apples) to assist in the clearing of arteries, and the latter to be not over supplied (via fats & sugars). He mentions some amino acids, including lysine, which may increase the supply of acetyl co-enzyme A. I think! Here's the link.

http://www.health-science-spirit.com/HF5-2.html#citric

Since starting this thread, I came across another site where it's mentioned that too much lysine can be dangerous for the liver. This is odd, since I've never seen anything like that before, lysine is usually regarded as totally safe. I post the link here for your reference.

http://www.earthclinic.com/Supplements/l-lysine.html

[ofonorow]

Given that vitamin C and lysine quickly resolve "intractable" heart disease, and that heart disease is at least a 400 billion dollar per year business in the USA, you can expect to read such debunking articles about lysine on the Internet. I would appreciate the links, though, as it can be interesting following the trail of deceit backwards.