Post by Debra on Oct 20, 2011 3:16:35 GMT -5
Two and a half years ago I figured out that if I ate nothing but chicken and rice I felt great!! After many years of rarely feeling well and often feeling extremely tired and constipated with no rational cause.
So I worked with a gastroenterologist to find out if I had HFI. I took the genetic test and had a liver biopsy but everything came back either normal or low normal so I consulted a biochemical geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle and he said I must be missing a different enzyme in the pathway. Well that just piqued my curiousity and since I was about to become an empty nester and since I had a reliable energy level now...for the first time in my life! I decided to go back to school and study biochemistry. Sure enough after a year in school I have identified a possible enzyme that IF i am missing it then it might produce symptoms very similar to the known form of HFI.
Now I am attempting to get a researcher interested in this possible variant form of HFI or maybe I will have to get into graduate school and study it myself.
In the meantime, I have my liver enzymes tested regularly and I have found that I function best on a very simple diet consisting primarily of rice, meat or fish, and dairy products. Most other foods cause my liver enzymes to elevate and my energy to go down!
Interestingly, about 4 years ago my sister submitted to a genetic test with the National Geographic Society and it came back that our mother's mother's mother's...etc....line are descended from the earliest people to leave the mediterranean. They are sometimes called the Ursula clan...mtDNA haplogroup U5. They moved to to coldest most Northern regions of Europe, Scandinavia. One of the oldest groups in Scandinavia is the Saami people and their diet consisted of Reindeer and Reindeer milk products as well as fish and seaweed. It would require a serious research project to find out if the mutation I have might be able to be traced back to that time period or these specific people but you have to wonder if this could be the origins of a mutation like this. Some Europeans used to refer to the lands of the Saami people as "the land where no vegetables grow"....interesting!
So I worked with a gastroenterologist to find out if I had HFI. I took the genetic test and had a liver biopsy but everything came back either normal or low normal so I consulted a biochemical geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle and he said I must be missing a different enzyme in the pathway. Well that just piqued my curiousity and since I was about to become an empty nester and since I had a reliable energy level now...for the first time in my life! I decided to go back to school and study biochemistry. Sure enough after a year in school I have identified a possible enzyme that IF i am missing it then it might produce symptoms very similar to the known form of HFI.
Now I am attempting to get a researcher interested in this possible variant form of HFI or maybe I will have to get into graduate school and study it myself.
In the meantime, I have my liver enzymes tested regularly and I have found that I function best on a very simple diet consisting primarily of rice, meat or fish, and dairy products. Most other foods cause my liver enzymes to elevate and my energy to go down!
Interestingly, about 4 years ago my sister submitted to a genetic test with the National Geographic Society and it came back that our mother's mother's mother's...etc....line are descended from the earliest people to leave the mediterranean. They are sometimes called the Ursula clan...mtDNA haplogroup U5. They moved to to coldest most Northern regions of Europe, Scandinavia. One of the oldest groups in Scandinavia is the Saami people and their diet consisted of Reindeer and Reindeer milk products as well as fish and seaweed. It would require a serious research project to find out if the mutation I have might be able to be traced back to that time period or these specific people but you have to wonder if this could be the origins of a mutation like this. Some Europeans used to refer to the lands of the Saami people as "the land where no vegetables grow"....interesting!
