MK4 vs. MK7 K2 Self-Experiment

N=1 Science: The Great K2 Debate

By Lomeloth - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 

Many years ago – 8?? I'm not really sure – I started supplementing vitamin K2. I began taking it for reasons of heart-health. However, after I started supplementing it I discovered it had a noticeable and almost immediate effect on my oral health. Suddenly my teeth were glossy and smooth. They felt like after a professional cleaning. 'Morning breath' was also very noticeably lessened, absent even. After a year or so I even stopped brushing my teeth in the morning, seeing no point to it – I don't eat breakfast except on weekends. I do brush afterwards on days I eat breakfast. I also brush every evening immediately before bed using a Philips Sonicare toothbrush.

I also noticed that if I ever went much beyond a week or so without supplementing K2 I'd be reminded by a combination of my teeth no longer feeling smooth and glossy and a return of “morning breath.” It wasn't bad morning breath by any means, more of a not fresh-in-the-mouth feeling, but compared to nothing at all, which is to say having my mouth feel pretty much the same first thing in the morning as anytime else during the day, it was an unmistakeable difference.

Results!

Our results became available last week. I ended up spending a large part of this weekend summarizing the results and re-organizing the graphs from AmGut into something I hope folks find a little bit more interesting and easier to digest (heh).

I hope to make the raw taxonomy data available later this week. Until then, please enjoy the slides. I'm going to hold off offering any of my own thoughts for a while. There are a lot of folks considerably more knowledgeable in this stuff than me anyway.

Finally, special thanks to Grace and Tim for offering suggestions on the slides, Mr. Heisenbug for offering suggestions on the experiment protocol, and last but by no means least, to Richard for bringing the considerable weight of his readership to bear on the fundraiser.

Obviously the slides on the large side, but you should be able to download them for more convenient side-by-side viewing. Enjoy!!

Omega 3 Self-experiment

Not resistant starch or anything to do with gut bugs, but hopefully interesting to folks nonetheless. 

A couple weeks ago I left a comment on Seth Robert's blog concerning how I discovered omega 3 helped my wife's mood when she was in her 3rd trimester with our youngest son. He liked the comment and sent me an email asking if I'd like to expand it into a guest post. I took him up on the offer, and added the story of how I discovered omega 3 also helped my son with some ADHD symptoms he was experiencing.

Part 1: O3 & 3rd trimester moodiness

Part 2: O3 & ADHD

And now, more waiting

The "after" swabs were sent at the beginning of the month. Now we wait. If the American Gut project stays on schedule we should have some interesting before and after comparisons by September.

I do have a few parting thoughts until then.

Food Journal: Monday, March 31

Breakfast:

Child 1 - 2 eggs scrambled, melted cheese on top; yogurt w/ granola

Child 2 - 2 eggs scrambled, melted cheese on top; yogurt w/ granola

Adult 1 - coffee & half-n-half

Adult 2 - coffee & whole milk

Lunch:

Child 1 - almonds, raisins, banana, thai drunkin noodles (leftovers from restaurant)

Child 2 - reheated mashed potatoes & barbecued pork country ribs

Adult 1 - reheated black beans & barbecued pork country ribs

Adult 2 - reheated mashed potatoes, sauteed kale, beef chuck roast

Dinner:

All - Beef short ribs, twice baked potato wedges, green beans w/ salt & butter

Child 1 - 1 TBSP PS & 1 TSP ground psyllium husk both in water

Child 2 - 1 TBSP PS in water

Adult 1 - 4 TBSP PS in water

Adult 2 - 2 TBSP PS in Nancy's Peach kefir

Evening snack:

Adult 1 - couple handfuls granola w/ milk

Food Journal: Sunday, March 30

Breakfast:

All - Scottish style oatmeal w/ walnuts, raisins, honey and milk, and the usual coffees for the adults (yes, same as Sat.)

Lunch:

All: Cheese quesadillas on corn tortillas and a hard boiled egg.

Dinner:

All - Hamburgers (homemade patties, no bun), baked polenta, sauteed kale

Child 1 - 1 TBSP PS & 1 TSP ground psyllium husk both in water

Child 2 - 1 TBSP PS in water

Adult 1 - 4 TBSP PS in water

Adult 2 - 2 TBSP PS in Nancy's Peach kefir

Evening snack:

Adult 1 - 1/5 bar 85% dk. chocolate & milk

Food Journal: Sat, March 29

Breakfast:

All - Scottish style oatmeal w/ walnuts, raisins, honey and milk, and the usual coffees for the adults

Lunch:

All - Reheated black-eyed peas, topped w/ left-over enchilada (cubed chuck, sweet peppers, cheese, flour tortilla)

Adult 1 - 2 TBSP PS in water

Dinner:

All - chicken sausages (grocery's meat counter); sautéed kale & red cabbage topped w/ raw sauerkraut; re-baked potato wedges

Child 1 - 1 TBSP PS & 1 TSP ground psyllium husk both in water

Child 2 - 1 TBSP PS in water

Adult 1 - 2 TBSP PS in water

Adult 2 - 2 TBSP PS in Nancy's Peach kefir

Evening snack:

None. Well, none yet. It's only about 8:30 as I type this. ;)