Pyrroluria or Hemopyrrollactam Uria (HPU)

Polly: Bill Walsh (Pfeiffer Treatment Center, Naperville, IL) and Hugh Riordan (BioCenter, Wichita KS) found that a significant subgroup of patients with ADHD and Autism has pyrroluria high levels of pyrroles in the urine. Pyrrole is a toxin that interferes with liver detoxification and with heme production. When pyrroles are elevated, there will be a very high requirement for zinc and B6. You can get a urinary screen for elevated pyrroles for $32 from BioCenter Laboratory in Wichita. (800) 494-7785. Collect the urine with the child off all zinc and B6 supplementation for two days prior. Put the specimen in the provided transport tube, freeze it, and ship it in dry ice overnight, with it scheduled to arrive mid week. Keep the specimen away from light.

Tessa, from the forum, alerted us to a Dutch book (June 2000) on pyrrolurics called Heeft u HPU? or Do you have HPU?. (HPU is an acronym for hemopyrrollactam uria, which is also called pyrroluria.) It is a popular version of a scientific book called Pyrroluria by Dr. John Kamsteeg. There are plans for an English translation. This is a website with a little information in English about the book. www1.tip.nl/~t159602/hpue.html#english.html These are some symptoms of HPU as listed in that article.

paleness of the skin, especially of the face (pallor)

recurrent ear infections, colds allergy’s

hay fever, skin reactions hyperreactivity

dermatografy headache

migraine

easy bruising

anemia

inability to climb in a rope, climbing rack, or flying rings

abdominal pain in the upper left

convulsions

in summer the shin is yellowish or golden brown

a bad set of teeth

hypermobility of the joints

growing pains, especially of the knee (left)

changes in handwriting

white marks on their nails

sensitivity to sunlight

loss of appetite

stretch marks on the skin

sweetish breath odor

constipation but more often a excessive stool mucus with bloating

light colored stool

learning and behavioral problems

There is also some background information in Carl Pfeiffer’s book, Mental and Elemental Nutrients. Here is a list of a few things that might help.

1. Zinc picolinate may be preferred to other zinc supplements since due to the lack of B6, the formation of picolinate may be suboptimal. Manganese will be required to balance the relatively large doses of zinc.

2. There may be a need for niacin because B6 is required to convert tryptophan into niacin.

3. Many of the children with HPU have low levels of histamine, which may make them more sensitive to allergies. Carl C. Pfeiffer, PhD, MD said that folic acid and B12 will help raise histamine. (www.ithyroid.com/aluminum.htm)

4. Many of those with pyrroluria have low AA fatty acids (AA is arachidonic acid). To support the production of AA, Dr. Woody McGinnis puts these patients on evening primrose oil. (If available, I’d try Mead oil instead. It is an analog of AA and it has much better anti-inflammatory properties.)

5. One source of the elevated hemopyrrollactam (pyrroles) is intestinal bacteria (Irvine and Wilson 1976). Sometimes forms of the antibiotics tetracycline and kanamycin turn off the production of pyrrole.

6. HPU belongs to the non-acute porphyrias. In porphyrias there is elevated porphyrins in the urine. Hormones play a part in the porphyrias. Dr. Raymond Peat has observed improvements in people with porphryia when they were placed on thyroid and/or natural progesterone. [37] He also states that vitamin E is recognized as a factor in the control of porphyrin synthesis. [38]

Avandish: I came across an activist group in D.C that had published papers on multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) that linked it to porphyrin metabolism problems. The MCS advocates had an article on a lawsuit of Boeing Airplane producers, where hundreds of workers developed MCS, often disabling. They had no good lab test to distinguish these people from healthy people until someone explored porphyrin metabolism. All of the sick workers had impaired porphyrin metabolism. This test helped them win one of the biggest lawsuits ever. Without it, they were told as candida sufferers are, that “your problems are psychosomatic” or all in your head with no physiological cause.

Hal Huggins, DDS, (famous mercury free dentist) states that heavy metals cause interference in heme metabolism, oxygen saturation and transport, and cause elevated levels of a number of porphryins in urine. I have multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and I had elevated heavy metals including lead and mercury that appeared on a provocative urine challenge with the chelating agent DMSA. I did the porphyrin urine test to verify my suspicion. Some of the porphyrins were elevated. By the way, the Mayo Clinic doctor that I asked to run the porphyrin test said it was genetic and didn’t believe I would have elevated levels in the urine. Anyway, he did run the test and he was wrong. Hal Huggins was right on the money.