HI Maff and others, first of all thank you all for your extremely insightful information and everyone's posts. I have many neuro burning issues so excuse my typing and if thoughts are somewhat disconnected. Maff, You had posted some incredibly concise information on how sulfur and hence cysteine feeds yeast, so here are my questions and apologies for their detail

Point 1: I have a seeming genetic issues or it could be just metabolic problems in liver (re cysteine not converting to taurine), relating to what you posted as noted above. That is in 2007, I had a Doctors Data Plasma Amino Acids test which showed cysteine at 90% of norm (very high) and Taurine at approximately 5.0% of norm (very low)...which implied I was not converting Cysteine into Taurine. Somewhere in the lab I was sure it indicated or maybe I thought I had read elsewhere, that this imbalance was a function of either a deficiency of B6 (P5P) or another methylation type issues (low methyl-folate or B12 deficits). However I just looked in the detail on my lab report and it DOES NOT in fact say this. So I must have read it or dreamt it. I have found a good flowchart that says there are two more "processes or steps" involving the conversion from Cysteine to Taurine and one includes a "sulfation step" and the second step is something called hypotaurine which I am not sure what that is..
Question 1:: Have you seen this particular issue cysteine not converting to taurine or heard of it before?
Question 2: Does this lack of conversion possibly involve Methylation or B6 defects. I have Methylation defects in 3667T and 1298C and as Yasko calls, the CBS defect which I understand is in fact our sulfation process
Also I a number of HLA mutations..

Point 2; So whatever the defect is I possibly still have high cysteine which is sulfur and modestly higher taurine, which is also sulfur from the meat eating. Then since both of these are in fact sulfur (taurine is as well I believe ), I am sort of screwed as I need taurine BUT at what costs, as it also feeds yeast being sulfur. I just am recovering from getting very sick on a high cysteine (and taurine diet??) of eggs, fish, meat, onions and cheese...Mostly sulfur. Bad choice, in retrospect I guess. It was good while it lasted. But after about 3 weeks, I developed severe burning pain in spine, base of head and arms which I now suspect was yeast/fungus based.

Question 1: So therefore it must mean (if both cysteine and Taurine, since sulfur) feed yeast, I should minimize all sulfur based food products and supplements if I believe I have yeast-fungus which I now do, given the reaction I had in past 3 months?

Question 2: Therefore for us yeast challenged people we have to minimize taurine as well as cysteine, even though we are very low in taurine? Or with this dysfunction would I lightly supplement with taurine to assist bile flow and stuff like that as taurine is very valuable, since my system seems to be not converting it?

Question 2A-I guess my question in 2 is really with this supposed defect of not converting cysteine to taurine should I supplement taurine as I need it OR not supplement as I likely and seem to have high yeast and ammonia from various die offs right now...as I am doing major detoxing. Also Yasko somewhere has said she does not use Taurine until she gets near the end of the detoxing, so she is the lone opinion on this BUT I think she is almost always right in the detail of Methylation.

Question 3; that means then I presume my glutathione production should be ok as glutathione is subsequently produced from cysteine? Maybe that's what's holding me together. And the more I use the glutathione to detox, the more cysteine I use up? In fact maybe that's why I felt so much better for a few days on the meat and eggs diet as I was low in cysteine from high glutathione demands through heavy detoxing (metals), but then I overdid the meat eating and now have excess cysteine again? sorry for rambling!

Question 4., crap I just thought through this in posting: I still obviously need high glutathione but I have to be careful as IF I am not using up my glutathione detoxing, then I am prone to build up excess cysteine as glutathione draws down cysteine. wouldn't this be so?

Question 5; So does meat and everything always start out as cysteine and then convert to taurine or does some meat/eggs etc start out directly as taurine. I am guessing all sulfur based food starts out as cysteine in us?

Question 6; do you know anything in particular to reduce the potential cysteine build up in me or just avoid the foods and take stuff like activated charcoal?

Kind regards to everyone, sorry for long first post. thank you in advance to anyone who can elaborate or is open to discuss. I am just quite confused and poor function in understanding and then thinking through options
Regards, John

Hi John,

Apologies for taking all week to even acknowledge your post but I'm a "one man band" here at EiR and have been working behind the scenes to make finding other content relevant to the page visitors are currently reading much easier. It's a tedious and time-consuming task but will hopefully make browsing the site a much smoother and user-friendly experience!

Having now read through your post/questions in full I'll have to do a bit of reading and research so as to answer accurately and not lead you off in the wrong direction. Like you say, this subject is hugely complex. I'm happy to read you've been looking at Dr. Amy Yasko's work as she really is the expert in the field of the methylation cycle and all of the biochemical processes that spin-off from it.

If you have a CBS mutation that will most certainly be an area to focus on as this enzyme lies at the junction between the methylation cycle (which you also have inefficiencies in) and the pathway that leads to production of sulfur-containing aminos and other important biochemicals e.g. cysteine, taurine, glutathione etc. The fact you have such an imbalance between cysteine and taurine however suggests to me that there's something very specific going on that's affecting conversion between the two. Without doing my research and refreshing my memory I can't offer anything by way of solution right now but I'd be willing to bet certain B vitamins and minerals are key co-factors.

I'd wager your solution will involve attempting to improve methylation cycle function upstream of the cysteine/taurine conversion, combined with supplementing the specific co-factors required to get cysteine to convert to taurine. I'm not sure where you read 'hypotaurine' but to my mind that simply means you're low in taurine - as you clearly are.

Sorry I can't be of more help right now but I'll try to get back to you with more specific help ASAP. As for the site and the information on it, I'm delighted you've found it informative and that I could be of some help!

Best Wishes,
Maff