databased's Blog

Taking a Vitamin B complex seems to matter to zinc's effectiveness on my acne. I had been ascribing this to B6 helping zinc absorption, or B6 directly being synergistic with zinc against acne in the skin, or both. However, now I see that the tryptophan->serotonin conversion requires Vitamin B6 and magnesium, which makes me wonder if the bulk of the...

One of the simplest environmental differences between us and the acne-free neo-Paleolithics is simply sun. The two tribes Cordain studied are relatively close to the equator, so they both are likely to get lots of vitamin D and to have longer, darker sleep periods than us. But another interesting difference is all the sunlight in their eyes.

Sun in the...

I continue to think about the birth control pill clue. Birth control pills can improve acne and lower serum levels of zinc, and the "missing" zinc may be moving into carbonic anhydrase in the red blood cells. How to manipulate that process (without taking birth control pills!)?

Today, I got a bottle of carnosine, a carbonic anhydrase...

Hadn't gone completely off zinc in so long that I forgot what my acne really used to look like. Amazing how quick you can get used to clear skin even after decades of suffering with acne. But it also reminds me that there's something significant here. Going from zero to 150mg of zinc (combined with innumerable other things, such as being Vitamin D...

This morning, I have an honest-to-God undeniable red spot forming on my nose. I only took 50mg of zinc yesterday, and am still struggling to get my excessive REM sleep back under control, and I guess I did eat half a large pizza that contained at least a modest layer of cheese (though I usually expect to get away with some cheese when I'm on ~200mg...

I continue on focusing on my melatonin cycle as a means to be 100% clear with <= 100mg zinc. Alas, last evening I botched my treadmill run, as I kept getting interrupted, got off the treadmill, got back on. The resulting sleep was crammed with excessive REM, extremely lengthy dreams. I particularly liked the one where I rode a bicycle around the town...

Last night, I committed to paying for a real melatonin cycle. To actually be asleep by 10pm, I tend to have to "shoot for" 9pm. So, at 8pm, I got on the treadmill and took 2 4-gram glucose tablets. Glucose raises your insulin up, insulin drives amino acids out of the blood, but one of the last it drives out is tryptophan. That means that all the...

I was wrong. It turned out that yesterday there were a couple of zits in out of the way places that I didn't notice. I was so fully expecting to be zit-free, I just spent 60 seconds turning my face left/right in the mirror and declared myself clear. This is a really interesting failure, because I had actually fallen off my own regimen but apparently...

Continuing on 300mg ECGC, 100mg zinc. No new zits, as expected. Most old ones healed. There is one week-old spot that was in the middle of erupting when I upped the dose of zinc. There is now a tiny white mark there that could be turning into a tiny nodule. I've seen this before and ascribe it to the relatively rapid transition from having inflammatory...

Three days of anything is way too soon to judge its effect on acne, but I have to say things look pretty good today, especially after definitely not having a full melatonin cycle last night (up til 1am, sleeping only til 7am). Of course, I've been on ~150mg zinc picolinate for a bit, so maybe it's all from the zinc. As usual, moving back to...