This is a special post for quick takes by Lun. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Lun's Shortform
26Lun
17mako yass
19JustisMills
7mako yass
6garloid64
4dirk
2mako yass
1Cedar
6Lun
11Lao Mein
1garloid64
Someone has posted about a personal case of vision deterioration after taking lumina and a proposed mechanism of action. I learned about lumina on lesswrong a few years back, so sharing this link.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-168042147
For the past several months I have been slowly losing my vision, and I may be able to trace it back to taking the Lumina Probiotic. Or rather, one of its byproducts that isn’t listed in the advertising
I don't know enough about this to make an informed judgement on the accuracy of the proposed mechanism.
1Definitely worthy of attention, but suspicious things about it: Author is anon, writes well despite never having posted before, named after a troll object, and also I've heard that ordinary levels of formate are usually only 4x lower than this.
I don't think high quality writing from a new, anonymous account is suspicious. Or at least, the writing quality being worse wouldn't make me less skeptical! I'm curious why that specific trait is a red(ish?) flag for you.
(To be clear, it's the "high quality" part I don't get. I do get why "new" and "anonymous" increase skepticism in context.)
Someone who's not a writer could be expected to not have a substack account until the day something happens and they need one, with zero suspicion. Someone who's a good writer is more likely to have a pre-existing account, so using a new alt raises non-zero suspicion.
1I can confirm I'm no troll, my vision really has gone to crap suspiciously soon after the moment I took Lumina. I fully admit I could just be imagining the whole thing since no doctor can find anything physically wrong with my eyes or optic nerves and my acuity is still okay AND I can still pass the Ishihara plates but the symptoms are just too perfect- It's dark all the time and I seriously cannot see red normally anymore, everything red appears as some weird faded shimmery orange-pink that contains more yellow than should be possible given the amount of red and the luminance (look up the opponent process theory.)
I'm just very doxable because I have a globally unique IRL name. Even saying that is probably revealing too much. I use the garloid64 alias for everything I don't necessarily want instantly traced back to myself, in this case because I am afraid of getting sued or something. I write well because, I don't know, I'm smart or something? I have "big wordcel energy" I guess. I am certainly not any existing well known rationalist blogger, but I appreciate the compliment. I've been thinking about opening a blog for a while now but I wasn't sure what to write about... and well, given what I'm dealing with now my anxiety spurred me to action.
Basically what I'd like to see is if literally anyone has experienced any kind of vision changes at all since using this stuff, even subtlely, especially that elite few who got it a year ago. I'm thinking about contacting the company but... what exactly am I hoping to get out of that? Will they help me test my own mouth to determine whether it's even in the realm of possibility? Me, a complete nobody who came out of nowhere with a well written hit piece full of plausible but hopefully completely wrong conjecture about the most horrifying thing that could happen? I just dunno.
1In a previous instance when someone suggested Lumina was unsafe, Lumina threatened to sue them for libel. (Extremely bad behavior, which I condemn). Based on this, I suspect contacting the company would not go well. My condolences re: your vision deterioration; I hope you're able to find a solution.
Will they help me test my own mouth to determine whether it's even in the realm of possibility? Me, a complete nobody who came out of nowhere with a well written hit piece full of plausible but hopefully completely wrong conjecture about the most horrifying thing that could happen?
I think it's very likely that they'd at least want to talk to you. If they couldn't rule out your proposed theory, I'd guess they're already equipped to test for it and probably would want to given that a lot of their own people are using the product.
fwiw I made my account in January, which I guess is still very new relative to average age of account here but hopefully means you can trust I didn't make this account just to drop a link to the lumina post.
1My Lumina aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency post was cited by him in support, and I think that it is extremely unlikely he is correct. The mechanisms proposed just don't work - it is far harder for soluble chemicals to reach the optic nerves via diffusion from oral tissues than through blood. There are so many things wrong with his analysis I could do a 3-hour presentation.
I would be willing to bet a bullet to my head (I'll let him pick the bullet) vs. $100 that his blindness did not result from Lumina -> high oral formic acid levels -> direct cellular diffusion to optic nerve -> blindness.
Elaborate. I can't find any information on substance diffusion from the oral mucosa to cross reference with the concentration of formate that could be expected from 10^??? bacteria living in the crevices between your teeth and gums. It would make me feel a lot better to be wrong, since the differential diagnosis is significantly less grim with slow formate poisoning removed. I'd throw down that hundred bucks just for the reassurance, even suffering as I am with medical bills. From this.
And the bullet? I choose a BB, to shoot just your eye out. It's only fair :^)
(I wouldn't actually it's just a bit of dark humor for you)