Nine-Year Update

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I’ve now crossed the nine-year point on my vitamin A elimination diet experiment. I’m sorry to disappoint some folks, but I’ve not died, I have not gone blind, and I’ve absolutely no signs or symptoms of vA deficiency.

Other than that, like with last year’s update, I don’t have much new to report on health wise. This past year for me has been pretty much a steady state of good health. The only noticeable change has been that I feel my energy level is a bit higher and more consistent throughout the day than compared to last year.

Diet

I’m continuing with my standard prison food diet. The only change I’ve made is that I often swap out the rice for a white sourdough bread. This change was mostly due to the concern of getting too much arsenic from the rice. However, with the bread there’s a similar concern with glyphosate. Therefore, I now bake my own bread using a locally grown organic flour that’s glyphosate free. However, I do have a preference for rice and still eat it at least a couple of times per week. I just usually cook it using the parboiling technique.


Some specific health indicators:


Vision


My vision remains excellent. I feel that my vision has slightly improved from last year, but I haven’t had an eye exam to measure it. My night vision is very good too. I’ve had no episodes of reduced night vision.


Body Weight and Strength

My weight remains very steady. My strength in the gym remains excellent. I’m cycling more now that it is summer. I try to get in about 20 km per day.


Skin

Overall, I’d say my skin condition / health is about the same as it was last year. However, the age spots on my face have significantly faded this year. Over the years these age spots have cycled through periods of different variations of darkness. After about the first three years of my elimination diet the age spots had faded maybe by about 50%, but with no significant change in their size. Then, at about year five they once again became quite a bit darker again. Those changes in darkness might just have been due to my face being exposed to varying amounts of sunlight over the seasons. But, this year the age spot on the right side of my face has shrunken down to almost nothing. Originally, it was about the size of a dime. Now, it’s about 1/10th that size. I expect that it will be completely gone in a few more months.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a good before picture of that age spot, but you can somewhat see it in this video interview with Judy Cho.

Why Eating Liver May Not Be Good: Unspoken Truths about Vitamin A

The age spot on the left side of my face has also reduced in size. It’s now about one half its original size. But, the damage to the skin there is much deeper and more severe, so I expect that it might not ever fully disappear.

Other:

I continue making plasma donations, and I’m now on donation # 38.

My dental health continues to be very good, with more progress on reversing gum recession. Of course, that improvement has been totally unexpected and most dentists probably consider it to be just impossible.

Another surprising change over the years has been the way my body regulates temperature. I’m now pretty much never too cold or too hot. I’m very comfortable in hot weather and sweat very little, and like not at all until I’m in very hot and direct sunlight for like 20 minutes or more. Even if I cycle 20 km in bright sunny weather I don’t sweat. And somewhat likewise for winter weather. When I go skiing in the cold temperatures (say -20°C ) I’m perfectly comfortable. And since I basically don’t sweat much at all, my feet remain completely dry in my ski boots all day long. That’s a huge factor in dealing with cold winter weather.


The realistic timeframe for health recovery

One of the most surprising things to me is that even after these 8-9 years I’m still seeing these small improvements. Clearly, making a full recovery from vA toxicity can take a very, very long time. I had no idea about that when I first started. Of course, I also had no expectation, or even hope, that a vA elimination diet would yield any results. So, I’m very grateful for the results I’ve had, regardless of how long they’ve taken.

Although using an elimination diet alone does work, obviously we sure haven’t figured out the best and safest way of recovering from vA toxicity and its damage. Realistically, we are still in the early days of figuring it out.

This has got me thinking more about the real timeframe and why it takes so long. I guess it kind of makes sense if we look at it from the following perspective. We are not just talking about reducing or eliminating excess vA from our liver and tissues. No, that’s only half the battle. The second half is then allowing the body enough time to repair all the damage that has resulted from the prolonged vA toxicity. Therefore, if we consider:

  • It usually takes decades of vA accumulation to result in disease. In my case I now know I started to have symptoms of vA toxicity in my mid 20s. Yet, it wasn’t until age 46 that I really got into trouble with CKD. And then it wasn’t until age 54 that the eczema showed up. Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised to see that it can take about half those 30 years of over accumulation of vA to de-accumulate it and to heal the body.
  • We know that it takes about 18 years to fully grow an adult human body. And that’s during the optimal growth years of our lives. Now as adults, say in our 40s, 50s and 60s, after having a chronic disease condition for an extended period of time the body has been significantly damaged. To what extent the body’s tissues are degraded, malformed, damaged, atrophied etc is going to be highly variable and individual. But, in my case I’d guess it to have been about 50% damaged. Therefore, at my age I don’t think I should be too surprised to see that it can take a decade or more to repair and rebuild that amount of damaged tissue. Of course, it also might not be even possible to ever fully recover.

Additionally, different aspects of my health have improved at different rates. I’ve made the following sketches approximating that progress. The health scale is from 0 = death to 100 = perfect health for my age. Generally, my overall health recovery has been a slow, but mostly progressive, process with a few periods of relapses / reversals.

Whereas, my joint health made a much more dramatic improvement. My joint health hugely improved almost literally overnight (on day 21 of my diet) and has never regressed.

The recovery of my skin health has proven to be the slowest and most problematic. I’ve had many setbacks and relapses, and of course with different areas of my skin responding / recovering at different rates. Since the skin on my hands was the area worse affected by eczema, and also severely damaged by steroid creams, it has been the slowest to fully recover.

Anyways, as I mentioned in my Tackling the Detox Setback blog post, I think I might have recovered faster if I had continued taking soluble fibre and activated charcoal. And maybe I could have been more consistent with zinc supplements. But, even that is risky by itself. So, combined with being generally paranoid of supplements I didn’t want to risk messing up my gains.


Repeating the 1925 Wolback and Howe study

For the last three or four years I’ve talked about wanting to repeat the 1925 Wolback and Howe study. That is because that’s one of the standard things you do in science; repeating experiments done by others and proving that we can replicate their results or not. Therefore, I was originally planning on having a university repeat the study using small animals. When the pandemic hit those plans were put on hold.

Then, I was thinking that we probably don’t need to do the small animal experiment at all. If we conducted some lab testing of casein samples heated in alcohol and verified that retinoic acid is indeed produced in the process then that would be sufficient. Finding retinoic acid in casein itself would completely disprove Wolback and Howe’s fundamental claim that their rat feed was vA free.

Of course, I went looking to see if I could find existing research on the heating of casein. At first I could only find reports about the pasteurization of milk mysteriously reducing its vA content by about 30%. The reason I say mysteriously, was because they weren’t asking or explaining what happened to that missing 30%. That unasked question being: what did the missing vA convert into?

Well, a more recent search turned up this paper.

Binding of vitamin A with milk α-and β-caseins
P Bourassa, CN N’Soukpoe-Kossi, HA Tajmir-Riahi – Food chemistry, 2013


The binding sites of retinol and retinoic acid with milk α-and β-caseins were determined, using constant protein concentration and various retinoid contents. FTIR, UV–visible and fluorescence spectroscopic methods as well as molecular modelling were used to analyse retinol and retinoic acid binding sites, the binding constant and the effect of retinoid complexation on the stability and conformation of caseins. Structural analysis showed that retinoids bind caseins via both hydrophilic and hydrophobic contacts with overall binding …


The number of bound retinol molecules per protein (n) was 1.5 (±0.1) for α-casein and 1.0 (±0.1) for β-casein, while 1 molecule of retinoic acid was bound in the α- and β-casein complexes. Molecular modelling showed different binding sites for retinol and retinoic acid on α– and β-caseins with more stable complexes formed with α-casein. Retinoid–casein complexation induced minor alterations of protein conformation. Caseins might act as carriers for transportation of retinoids to target molecules.

Caseins play an important role in stabilising retinol, which does not degrade over time or during heat treatments.

So, there you have it. Casein is not only a natural binder and carrier of both retinol and retinoic acid, it actually does so on more than a 1:1 ratio molecule for molecule. Therefore, the 1925 Wolback and Howe study diet was not only definitely not a vitamin A free diet, it was actually quite high in both retinol and retinoic acid.

Wolback and Howe had assumed that they had removed all possible sources of vA in their rat diet because they had removed all the fats. With the “vitamin” thought to be exclusively fat-soluble they wouldn’t have known, or even considered, that the casein protein portion of their lab diet included substantial amounts of it too.

I’ve updated my 2002 blog post The Early Rat Studies and Casein with this new information.

Anyways, that’s it, it’s game over for the 1925 Wolback and Howe study. As suspected, it’s completely garbage science. It’s toast, dead and finished. The same goes for every follow-on study claiming the ridiculous, and fabricated out of thin air, BS that we somehow need this horrible chemotherapy drug to “regulate” our gene expressions. Or that we need it to control our stem cell differentiation, keep us from going blind, dying, and on and on. Those studies, and it’s probably thousands of them, are now all garbage, complete junk “science”.

Not to be too dramatic about it, but these stupid and corrupt “studies” have resulted in the poisoning of hundreds of millions of people, and of course children, from around the world. Unfortunately, and very tragically it continues to go on to this day. I highly doubt the poisonings will ever stop. There’s just too much money being made off of it.

Naturally, many people will be asking how could so many in medical “science” have been so wrong for so long? Well, it’s primarily due to the nature of this field being almost entirely focused on business and profits. There is actually very little genuine interest in real science as far as I can tell. Secondly, we’ll never get more than a few people from the medical “science” field to come to terms with and accept the new fact that vA is not a vitamin, and that it is therefore nothing but a toxin.

No, there’s no way the medical establishment and governments will ever allow that to happen. They’d have to admit that they’ve been (inadvertently or secretly) poisoning most of the human population for the last 50 years. Then, there’s the fact that vA is highly likely the primary driver behind the chronic disease and cancer epidemics. Those are Big Pharma’s annual multi-trillion dollar sacred cash cows. Actually finding the root cause of disease is the very last thing the medical establishment wants to do. No, all they want to do is to perpetually “treat” di$ea$e.

No doubt many people will react to those statements equating them to some grand conspiracy theory. Well, many corporations and governments are conspiring almost every single day. That’s their normal operating procedure. It’s just a standard business practice, and technically speaking it’s usually not illegal. Then, if and when something does go wrong they just lie and cover it up. That is absolutely another long established standard operating procedure of governments all around the world. It is not a conspiracy theory, it is a conspiracy fact, because it happens all the time.

In the last few years we’ve all had front row seats witnessing just how the corporate-government conspiracy SOP playbook is applied. And seeing how obscenely corrupt and degenerate it really is. Since the roll-out of the poison needle there’s been a huge increase in excess deaths. In Canada it’s running at about 50,000 excess deaths per year. In the UK it’s about 80,000 excess deaths per year. In the USA it is about 500,000 excess deaths per year. In the EU it’s running at about the same rate. So, we are easily talking about one million or more people who have suddenly and mysteriously died that shouldn’t have. To be clear, this is not conjecture, those numbers are based on government collected and sourced data.
Here is a good overview / summary of the situation with the excess deaths.

Of course, the increase in excess deaths is happening in all age groups, including children and youth/ young adults. We had the owner of a casket manufacturing company in the Toronto area do interviews on alternative media about the surge in orders he’s had for child caskets. He said it’s like nothing he’s ever seen before in his 20+ years of being in the business. He said he was even getting bulk orders for the child caskets.

I personally knew one of these innocent young victims. He was my neighbour’s son. We knew him for most of his young 17 years. He was very athletic and played hockey every season with my son. He was a strong, perfectly healthy, happy kid. He had his whole life ahead of him. But, his bright future was abruptly cancelled by the “science”. Similar sequences of events have happened to thousands of young people right across the country, and around the world.

So, what’s been the response from the Canadian government, and actually from all governments all around the world? Silence, absolutely nothing!

What’s been the response from the medical “sciences” community? Silence, absolutely nothing!

What’s been the response from nearly all doctors and pathologists? Silence, absolutely nothing!

What has been the response from mainstream media? Total silence…shh.. crickets…..

How can that be? How can there be ZERO interest from governments to even start to investigate this huge surge in excess deaths, and the deaths of tens of thousands of children? Well, their silence tells us everything we need to know.

Yes, we know exactly why there’s no interest. It’s because they already know precisely what’s going on. Of course there will be no investigations; not now, and not ever. It all needs to be hushed up, covered up and concealed using every and all means possible. Virtually none of our so-called political “leaders” (what a joke) and others in “authority” are going to even mention it, let alone ever admit that they’ve colossally f’d up. Many of these people listed above are also very handsomely paid off (rewarded) for their silence. That is the corrupt standard operating procedure in action.

Of course, we know absolutely what’s happened. It’s the poison needle! I mean seriously, even a child could piece it together. Yet, in the middle of this very serious and real crisis our governments, and law enforcement agencies, are going to do absolutely nothing about it. I’m aware of a police officer in Ontario who wanted to start an investigation, and he was promptly fired. In a somewhat similar case Constable Helen Grus of the Ottawa police force was brought up before a disciplinary tribunal for just accessing a database while starting to look into the pattern of unusual sudden infant deaths (SIDS) in the region in 2021.  Can you imagine that a police officer just starting to look into the suspicious deaths of infants is now effectively a crime.

It’s a very dark and dangerous time in our so-called democracies. Clearly, it’s no longer: government for the people, by the people. No, it’s now: government for Big Pharma, by Big Pharma.


What’s next for me?


I’ll continue with my vitamin A elimination diet for the rest of my life. Like, why not?

Although I’ve been a lot less focused on the vitamin A topic over the last few years, I’ve definitely not lost interest in it. I just feel that the vA toxicity issue now has enough momentum behind it that it’s going to take on a life of its own. What’s needed next are more success stories and better guidance on how to achieve safer, more predictable results.
I’ve become very interested in another major issue that I feel is just as important, and potentially even more so, than the vitamin A topic. Over the next few years that will be the primary focus of my attention.


Thank you so much for your continued interest and participation in this investigation.

More Poisoning For Profit

01 Tuesday Aug 2023

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You might have heard about the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drug named Ozempic.

“The worst-kept secret in Hollywood”

In the last several months, Ozempic has exploded onto the scene, with everyone from Elon Musk to Chelsea Handler talking about taking versions of the drug.

And of course, with that great popularity comes great profits.

What are the ingredients in OZEMPIC®?

Medicinal ingredients: semaglutide. One mL solution for injection contains 1.34 mg or 2.68 mg semaglutide.

Non-medicinal ingredients: disodium phosphate dihydrate, propylene glycol, phenol, and water for injections.

Click to access ozempic-consumer-information.pdf

But, let’s not forget that the injection of aqueous phenol was used in Nazi Germany as a preferred execution drug.

Second World War

The toxic effect of phenol on the central nervous system, discussed below, causes sudden collapse and loss of consciousness in both humans and animals; a state of cramping precedes these symptoms because of the motor activity controlled by the central nervous system.[47] Injections of phenol were used as a means of individual execution by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.[48] It was originally used by the Nazis in 1939 as part of the mass-murder of undesirables under Aktion T4.[49] The Germans learned that extermination of smaller groups was more economical by injection of each victim with phenol.

What Are “Side Effects” of Ozempic?

Ozempic may cause serious side effects including:

  • upper abdominal pain,
  • nausea,
  • vomiting,
  • blurred vision,
  • spots or dark strings floating in your vision,
  • fluctuating vision,
  • vision loss,
  • dark or empty areas in your vision,
  • shakiness,
  • nervousness,
  • anxiety,
  • sweating,
  • chills,
  • clamminess,
  • irritability,
  • impatience,
  • confusion,
  • fast heartrate,
  • more

https://www.rxlist.com/ozempic-drug.htm#description

Oh gee, doesn’t that look like a list of the classic symptoms of a poisoning to you? But, there’s one more important symptom of phenol poisoning; it’s weight loss.

From the CDC

Exposure to phenol may cause irritation to the skin, eyes, nose, throat, and nervous system. Some symptoms of exposure to phenol are weight loss, weakness, exhaustion, muscle aches, and pain. Severe exposure can cause liver and/or kidney damage, skin burns, tremor, convulsions, and twitching. Workers may be harmed from exposure to phenol.The level of harm depends upon the dose, duration, and work being done.

https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/phenol/default.html

Phenol’s Safety Data Sheet

Click to access S25463.pdf

  • Causes severe skin burns and eye damage
  • Toxic if inhaled
  • Suspected of causing genetic defects
  • May cause damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure
  • Causes serious eye damage
  • More

Of course, Ozempic is used repeatedly. It’s prescribed to be injected once weekly. And it is used for prolonged periods of time, like for multiple years. 

OK, two more quick google searches:

What is the main side effect of Ozempic?

Dr. Meera Shah, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, said that by far the most common side effect she sees in patients is nausea, followed by abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhea. Jul 12, 2023

Classic symptoms of phenol poisoning in humans?

Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea are common symptoms after exposure to phenol by any route. Ingestion of phenol can also cause severe corrosive injury to the mouth, throat, esophagus, and stomach, with bleeding, perforation, scarring, or stricture formation as potential sequelae.

https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/MMG/MMGDetails.aspx?mmgid=144&toxid=27

Even though the claim is that semaglutide is the active ingredient in OZEMPIC, I’m thinking that’s not true. Semaglutide is probably just in there as the cover story and for patent protection. My bet is that the real active ingredient is the phenol.

I mean seriously, in 10 minutes or less after knowing this information a freakin mentally retarded monkey could figure out Ozempic is nothing but a god-damned poison. Yet the FDA and Health Canada have, apparently without a conscious thought, rubber stamped their approval of it. Clearly, these organizations have absolutely zero concern for public health.

Even more Poisoning For Profit

What’s next for these geniuses? Why not approve “medicines” that contain cyanide and inject that into people too? Oh wait, they already have. One is called Remdesivir.

Remdesivir is a carboxylic ester resulting from the formal condensation of the carboxy group of N-[(S)-{[(2R,3S,4R,5R)-5-(4-aminopyrrolo[2,1-f][1,2,4]triazin-7-yl)-

5-cyano-3,4-dihydroxytetrahydrofuran-2-yl]methoxy}(phenoxy)phosphoryl]-L-alanine with the hydroxy group of 2-ethylbutan-1-ol. A broad-spectrum antiviral prodrug with potent in vitro antiviral activity against a diverse panel of RNA viruses such as Ebola virus, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. 

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Remdesivir#section=Structures

Yes, it’s the Remdesivir wonder drug that’s been the “standard of care” for treating people with COVID.

I had the unpleasant experience of talking with an ICU nurse here in Alberta regarding Remdesivir. She told me that Remdesivir had been the standard drug used on many patients with COVID during the pandemic.  I asked her how many of those patients left the hospital alive. She said it was virtually none of them. Saying, they all died within one or two weeks after being “given the treatment”.  I asked her if it was ever considered that maybe it was the Remdesivir that was killing them. Her response was very indignant: “No, no way, it’s just because we didn’t get to them soon enough with it.” I then asked her if she knew that Remdesivir contains cyanide. She looked at me, completely dumbfounded, and said “uh Um uh, no it doesn’t.”  

Yep, another freakin “expert”. 

How can injecting people with cyanide be the “standard of care?” Well, it’s pretty obvious, it’s all about the profits!

Tackling the Detox Setback

03 Saturday Jun 2023

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Over the last three years I’ve discussed the detox setback that some people encounter after being on a low vitamin A (vA) diet.  The typical pattern of the low vA diet experience is that people first see a significant improvement in their health and overall sense of well-being. But, then, after about say 3 – 6 months, they start to see those improvements regress. In some cases they regress even more and sometimes even end up being worse off than before they started a low vA diet.  The percentage of people encountering the setback is somewhere around 30% – 40%, with a wide range of various degrees of severity. 

Of course, it would be fantastic if most people could take on this diet and just reliably see their health slowly improve.  Then, regardless of how long their health recovery takes, the low vA diet would be far more acceptable. Although a slow steady recovery has been the experience for many people, it’s too unpredictable and too random. As I’ve stated before, I consider the detox setback the biggest obstacle to the low vA diet gaining more interest and being widely accepted. I consider it being so serious that for the last three years I’ve been very reluctant to promote this diet change.  That does not at all mean that I am losing confidence in the low vA diet. Actually, it’s the opposite, I am completely committed and 100% confident that we are absolutely on the right track. But, asking people to take on a low vA diet and then seeing some of them develop worse health is quite unacceptable.

We’ve had several theories about why the detox setback develops. Some are:

  1. With a significant reduction in vA intake the liver is finally given a break from needing to store it, and then starts to detoxify its own cells and begins expelling extra toxic bile.
  1. The diet just ends up being so restrictive that people develop deficiencies in other nutrients.
  1. A B vitamin deficiency develops because of the additional carb consumption ( too much white rice, etc).

We now know for a fact that the first of those above theories is correct and that the liver is dumping more toxic bile as time goes on. We know this from people who have been doing regular vA serum level checks and sharing their results. What’s happening is that after a while of being on the diet their vA levels actually go up. There’s only a few possible sources of that extra vA. It’s mostly coming from the liver, and to a lesser extent from a reduction in adipose fat. 

The other two theories about deficiencies are probably partially correct too.

Now, I’ll add a few more theories to the list.

  1. Some people take a B multivitamin that includes niacin. It turns out that niacin significantly promotes the release of the fat stored in the liver. With that people start to endogenously poison themselves with even more extra toxic bile.
  1. Some people have taken supplements, such as lactoferrin, that hugely promote the dumping of bile. Obviously, that is highly dangerous. People need to be exceedingly careful with any and all supplements.
  1. Some people already have compromised / partially obstructed bile ducts leading to cholestasis. Then when the liver begins dumping the now extra toxic bile they simply can’t deal with it. In this condition taking any supplement that promotes even more bile dumping is going to be disastrous.
  1. A reduction in soluble fibre will cause an increase in the amount of toxic bile reabsorbed in the enterohepatic circulation cycle.

Okay, so what can we do about it?

Since I’m past the point of being able to experiment on myself, I’ve been taking a wait and see approach to what other people find as potential solutions to preventing the detox setback. One of the reasons and motivations for doing the community surveys was to see if we could spot a pattern that could give us more insight as to who encounters the detox setback and those who don’t. Unfortunately, nothing of significance has been gleaned from the surveys in this regard. As far as the community efforts by others to find a solution goes, there have been a few suggestions, but nothing really concrete.

Choline:

One suggestion is that choline is a key factor needed to combat the excess vA and retinoic acid. There’s some good scientific basis for this and I’ve been really hopeful that it proves out. There’s a long running thread on the forum discussing it. 

Eggs as part of Vitamin A reduction

Please check it out and apply your own critical thinking to it. Personally, I’m taking a wait-and-see position on it.

I do agree that choline would most certainly help capture circulating vA and RA molecules and sequester them back into the liver. If effective, that would go a long way in reducing the severity of the detox setback. Although using choline to help scrub vA and RA from serum is good, it would be much better if we can prevent the extra vA from entering into the serum in the first place. So, maybe using choline combined with other measures will be more effective. However, the concept of getting the additional choline by eating whole eggs is not one that I can personally get on board with. Sorry, I just have too much hatred towards the vile toxic yellow molecule.

Have we been overthinking it?

Yes, I think so.  Additionally, just taking a wait-and-see what develops approach and hoping that others will share their findings has not worked out. It’s time we got back to basics and applied logical thinking to it.

Let’s start with what we do know:

We know that the biggest factor is that as people start reducing the amount of vA they take in, the liver starts detoxifying itself, thus releasing extra toxic bile. I consider bile to be a very toxic yellow sludge. Since about 85% of bile released into the intestine is reabsorbed, people then start to endogenously poison themselves. Here’s a good video describing the enterohepatic circulation process.

Obviously, capturing as much of that toxic bile sludge as possible and preventing it from getting reabsorbed is clearly critically important.

One question I’ve been asking myself is why didn’t I encounter the detox setback (at least not severely)? Additionally, I have some friends (and of my vintage) who have taken on this diet, and they have also not encountered the detox setback. Why? What was common between us? We all used activated charcoal and maintained a reasonable amount of soluble fibre from beans. I wrote about activated charcoal in my eBooks and about how it is commonly used to rescue people and animals from acute poisonings. Well, we now know that having a surge of extra toxic bile being reabsorbed is exactly that; an acute poisoning. Except it’s even worse for us because our now acute poisonings are happening almost everyday.

I used activated charcoal for about the first year of my own diet. I was taking about a ¼  teaspoon of it every 2nd or 3rd day. I wasn’t super consistent about taking it, but I do think what I did take was helpful.  My big mistake was not continuing to use it much after that first year. I now think my overall recovery would have been considerably faster if I had kept taking the activated charcoal.

How about this for a strategy for preventing the detox setback?

  1. Taking activated charcoal is probably not optional, but rather it’s required. And, continue taking it for a good long while, or at least until you’re sure it’s not needed or it’s not working for you.
  1. People need some source of fibre while taking on this diet.  I know a lot of people don’t tolerate beans, so they’ll have to use another source of fibre. Apples would be a good choice, or some supplemental fibre that works for them. Taking too much fibre can obviously also be a problem. So, start slow.
  1. Consider making plasma donations.
  1. Do NOT take any supplements that promote bile dumping or liver “detoxing.”
  1. Be super careful with other supplements. Health is not found at the bottom of a pill bottle.
  1. Be aware of high niacin content foods such as peanut butter. For the same reason, don’t take a B multivitamin.
  1. Keep your mental stress as low as possible (stress causes bile dumping).
  1. Don’t take on strenuous / extreme exercise. Be gentle on yourself. Taking it slow and steady wins the race here.
  1. Carefully self-monitor your progress and setbacks and adjust accordingly.
  1. Be super careful of taking anyone’s advice (including mine of course). Always think for yourself.

The discussion thread for this post is here:

2023 Survey Response

18 Wednesday Jan 2023

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Thank you to everyone who submitted a response. We had 109 responses submitted.

A summary of the survey results is shown below.

Overall, the results of the survey are pretty much inline with my expectations and understanding of where we are at with this project. Rather than typing up a detailed response for many of the comments submitted in the survey I’ve posted a video here sharing my thoughts on it.

2023 Survey Response

1 = No, not at all, it’s a only toxin. 10 = Yes, it’s only a toxin at high doses

For each of the following questions, on a scale of 1 to 10 how much this aspect of health has improved.

Using the following scale:

1 – it’s gotten worse
5 – has stayed about the same
10 – significantly improved

What are the most important next steps / directions we should take on this investigation?

88 responses

  • Find out a way to detox in people that have detox pathways compromised, it seems that a lot of people hit a threshold and can’t keep on detoxing.
  • Investigate benefit of extra choline or eggs from the beginning in preventing adverse detox reactions and speeding up the process. See if stress reduction and/or better sleep habits help. Look into the benefits of exercise for the process.
  • Updated edition of ETFH including new title and current research info. Make it into something that can be given to a layman as an intro to these ideas.
  • I don’t know about the reasons for supplementing the supply, could be nefarious, I just don’t know. I suspect ignorance though. As far as the direction, I personally am interested in the choline angle, as the studies I’ve looked at point to it as being very efficient and necessary for liver health and reducing and preventing fatty liver.
  • Formulating perfect diet
  • choline and betaine look interesting. also, dietary fiber and resistant starch very important
  • Try to eliminate most of the agents that pollute your very important blogg and focus on VA!!
  • How to speed up excretion and at the same time keep detox symptoms at bay? Choline is helpful, what other things are there which would support a good detox?
  • Carefully controlled clinical studies
  • In-depth qualitative data (on focus topics) might help.
  • Gut microbiome testing.
  • Disprove the Wolbach and Howe experiments!!
  • The more research scientists and medical or naturopathic doctors and nutritionists looking at chronic hypervitaminosis A from different angles, the better, but first they have to become interested in doing so. Your planned experiment will hopefully be a good attention-grabber in this regard.
  • Researching on the importance of choline , increase movement , stress reduction and improve sleep
  • Not sure if this refers to VA reduction or reasons behind VA supplementation. If former currently think role of choline seems v important. Why people like me making such slow progress and having so many problems. What is different with people who have more rapid and problem free recoveries.
  • blood analisis
  • Find out how to keep pooping and fixing cholestasis.
  • your new rat study
  • Provide more info about people who have had success with this diet. Take more steps to counter with evidence claims that A is biologically necessary.
  • still thinking about that one
  • Study the effects of casein, and how V/A causes Alzheimer’s.
  • chill on the divisive rhetoric, at its core it matches a lot of my symptoms perfectly but the reproduction/medical establishment stuff is going to drive people away. in the case of vitamin A, it’s not supplemented in whole milk in the USA because they believe the “fat soluble factor” is being removed when making skim milk so they add in a random human modified molecule, just a case of humans being stupid like DDT spraying
  • Get a full test of you Grant and all of your relevant health markers. Maybe especially an extensive eye exam. Get a better idea of how to help someone start a low vitamin A journey. For example maybe not a best practice diet but a few general best practice diets that can accomodate more people that are starting out. Take advantage of the existing negative segment against the Gates Foundation and WEF, to generate interest to reduce vitamin A consumption. Find/create a lab for testing for all sorts of things like vitamin A in casein.
  • Try to replicate the rat studies
  • Keep educating people, sharing successes
  • Rebuild Royal Rifles electric Ray tubes to destroy carotinoids and vit a. Find out how to apply mms correctly in every health state because I know from personal experience as accutane victims that it oxidizes retinoic acid.
  • Trying to figure out “safe” range of vitamin A in normal diet. Trying to figure out best path to detox successfully.
  • “Vitamin” D (D3 receptor is a heterodimer with the retinoid X receptor, cholesterols contain Vit A to begin with, no exception for choleCALCIferOL).
  • Nailing down what exactly is going on with the detox setback phenomena. Thiamine rapidly pulled me out of a deep setback hole that built up from month 6-9.
  • Keep spreading awareness on Vitamin A toxicity
  • Keep spreading the word and doing what you’re doing. I am EXTREMELY grateful for all the books and blogging that you’ve done Grant! Every blog is helpful. More blogging and progress updates would be great. Letting us know your latest discovery, experience etc…
  • Not sure. I have come to the conclusion that no food is good or bad. Restricted eating is dangerous
  • improved methods/approaches for constipation
  • Find ways to speed up detox. Reach more people about toxicity, and do a study proving VA toxicity
  • Continue to educate people so we can share too!
  • Prove vA is a toxin
  • I think it is important to see how choline can help the VA detox process and what other supplements besides lactoferrin and soluble fiber can be useful in aiding the VA detox process.
  • Reduce drawback symptoms
  • Is there an antidote to A? That we could take so A does not do more damage while we are detoxing.
  • Find an antidote to VA
  • Try individual B vitamins to see what supports your journey the most. Thiamine, biotin, folate and B12 were game changers for me.
  • I think retinol conjugation and bile excretion are probably as important or more important than a very low VA diet. I think more emphasis needs to be put in this area. I know cholestyramine has been brought up several times on the forum. Has anyone gotten a prescription for this, and what were their results? I’m not a fan of pharmaceuticals, or the medical industry but I feel like this could be a game changer and reduce or eliminate the detox setback cycle.
  • Microbiome
  • Share testimonials and get the word out!
  • Redo the Wolbach & Howe study – dismantle the “scientific” underpinnings of the retinol as vitamin idea
  • Find out whether if this diet doesn’t work, then nothing ever will as everything is contradictory.
  • Not exposing the global fertility reduction agenda and enjoy our easily stripped crowdsourcing privilege.
  • 1) get a better feel for the likelihood of running into nutrient deficiencies and how to overcome them and 2) find strategies to ensure people do not become so sensitive to vitamin a on this diet that they can never eat it again.
  • Come up with our own supply of food without the additives, preservatives, try to inform people, and lobby (although that’s kind of pointless in the current environment) to have food cleaned up.
  • more research on viruses
  • continue your work to highlight the toxic effects of vitamin a
  • Spread the word that vitamin A can be toxic even with an ordinary diet. But don’t stress that vitamin A isn’t really a vitamin because I think it’s too big of a leap for most people and turns them off to the whole idea.
  • Data Collection on Vitamin A Symptoms and Clearance
  • I don’t know
  • Information through podcast and social media.
  • Understanding the detox setback cycle
  • Detox paths
  • how to make this easier
  • Redoing the Wolbach and Howe rat study.
  • Figure out what people who have been doing this long term and are getting better are doing in common.
  • VAD is real. I started consuming eggs recently only (post 48 months of a strict low VA diet). Please get ERG readings on your cones/rods of your eyes.
  • Vit A is only one of the elements used as poison. Fluoride works faster, gene therapy shots are the best.
  • Repeating original studies in a way that the results would be recognized by the scientific community.
  • I’m interested in the benefits I and others are seeing with adding extra choline and betaine foods. A slower and more balanced approach possibly too.
  • Whether or not it is the lack of vitamin A antogoists that are causing the overspill of vitamin A. For example Vitamin D from sunlight for the hot regions and a high fish diet containing Vitamin D that is traditional for people in the northen hemishpere are maybe protecting against vitamin A. also the modern diet lacking in fibre to bind to bile which contains vitamin A.
  • Study why indigenous peoples with high vit a diets are healthy. Like the Maasai
  • Observe whether replenishing choline positively affects the detoxification of vitamin A in realtime participants.
  • Just continue to openly share and experiment our success and failures
  • To do some new studies
  • avoid all added vitamin A
  • Speed up the healing process, recreate vit A studies.
  • I’ve seen the massive (and literally immediate – as in 2 week) results, but everyone thinks Vit A is a wonderful thing. If a study by a credible authority, or an authority considered credible, could be conducted, I think that would make leaps in understanding. It would also open the door to further research into similar toxins.
  • Continue to have moderate amounts of vitamin a, eggs and healing my gut
  • Not sure – nobody wants to invest the time to read the excellent books you wrote and give something new a try. So many kids with eczema, and so many people supplementing. It’s hard to fight established ideas. Even if you redo all the studies, they likely will be ignored
  • A comprehensive “outing” of ALL vitamins as a scam promoted by the original pill-pushing companies of 100 years ago — they-re all big Pharma now. Not a coincidence.
  • I’d say look into Karen Hurd. She is on to something with the beans/psyllium and frequency of it. That combined with low A is a winner!
  • more randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, clinical trials
  • The choline issue should be properly investigated and debated and not censored.
  • Keep going
  • Figuring out the antidote for vA and copper
  • I’m B- blood type, I tried to investigate more about it and didn’t find a lot of info…it would be interesting to know more, and about the rhogam vaccine that I took twice and rejected the third time they wanted to put… I know it is a different investigation but it’s the only thing I can think of right know…
  • Make it easier for new people to join. Get more testing done of those that have been low vA for a long time and maybe look for common denominators. Try to get more testing done of anything relevant. Get a group working towards ending forced food and water fortification. Make a simple calculator for people to estimate how much vA they might have stored in the liver.
  • Start producing local food . Situation will not get better until young people will not take action and start producing local fruit /meat /vegetables

RE: Is vitamin A a toxin?

The Vitamin A toxicity Studies mentioned:

1) The acute and chronic toxic effects of vitamin A

Kristina L Penniston and Sherry A Tanumihardjo

Am J Clin Nutr 2006;83:191–201. Printed in USA. © 2006 American Society for Nutrition

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16469975/

2) The effect of hypervitaminosis A and other dietary factors on the young pig 

Marlin Dean Anderson

Iowa State University

(1964).Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 3834.

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/3834

3) HYPERVITAMINOSIS A. By Kare Rodahl. Skrifter No. 95.

https://online.boneandjoint.org.uk/doi/pdf/10.1302/0301-620X.35B2.332-b

The 2022 Study from China showing increased vitamin A

Citation: Tian, T.; Wang, Y.; Xie, W.;

Zhang, J.; Ni, Y.; Peng, X.; Sun, G.;

Dai, Y.; Zhou, Y. Associations between Serum Vitamin A and Metabolic Risk Factors among Eastern Chinese Children and Adolescents. Nutrients 2022, 14, 610.

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14030610

“The risk of prevalent MetS, general obesity, high LDL, high TC and hyperuricemia still increased with vitamin A levels. MetS was at a high prevalence level in children and adolescents in Jiangsu that were 7–17 years old. Vitamin A was positively associated with obesity, MetS, dyslipidemia and hyperuricemia.”

The survey responses data is available here.

https://ggenereux.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023-Survey-Responses.xlsx

Eight-Year Update

11 Thursday Aug 2022

Posted by in Autoimmune

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I’ve now reached the eight-year point on my ultra-low vitamin A diet experiment. Surprisingly, even after eight years I’m still seeing small incremental improvements in my overall health and well-being. But, much like with last year’s annual update I don’t have any major health improvements to report this year. So, on one hand, not much has changed for me. But, on the other hand, I do feel that I’ve turned a bit of a corner this year and my health is feeling really good. It’s hard to describe, but I’m just feeling more alive. Without a doubt my health is now the best it has been in decades. Contrary to what’s normal, as I’m getting older my health is still slowly improving. It’s also now clear to me that I was being adversely affected by vA toxicity since my mid 20s.

So, how long does it really take to fully recover from vA poisoning? Oh, it’s about say 3 to 5 to 10 years depending on your own personal situation.

Daytime Vision

One of the hallmarks of vA deficiency is xerophthalmia leading to poor vision, disintegration of the outer tissues of the eye and eventually blindness.  Well, here I am eight years into a virtually 0 vA diet, and my daytime vision is now excellent. I’d rank my vision as being at least as good as it was in my 30s. I have no sign of xerophthalmia, nor any other related disease condition in the eye.  

About seven or eight years ago I had reported the vascularization of the sclera that had developed in both eyes. Now, finally, after eight years, it has diminished. The vascularization is not completely gone, but it has very significantly improved.  

Night Vision

One of the other hallmarks of vA deficiency is poor night vision or what’s been termed night blindness.  I wrote about my experience with it in my 2022 Mid-Year update.  After dropping the onions from my diet the condition has completely and totally resolved. My night vision is now once again excellent. If anyone wants to visit me here in Calgary we can go for a nice walk at night in the dark.

Body Weight and Strength

Last year I had reported that I felt I was still about 2-3 kg or 5 lbs overweight.  Well, with no additional effort at all, I’ve lost 4 lbs this year. For the first time in my life I can see my abs.

I’ve been really busy with work, and some major home projects so I’ve not been able to exercise on a regular basis. I only exercise about once a week, if I’m lucky. Yet I’ve been able to at least maintain my strength in lifting weights. My single rep max on the bench press is 265 lbs. Although that’s nothing too exceptional for a 160 lb guy, that’s the heaviest I’ve lifted in my life. Now at age 62 I’m stronger than what I was at age 22. 

Reversal of Colour Blindness

In a previous update I reported that some of the colours I was seeing were generally getting much brighter. It first started with yellows. Before I started on this experiment a yellow taxi cab, or a yellow traffic light, appeared to be a dull yellow to me. Now they are much brighter. They now appear almost a fluorescent yellow. Then, the same change slowly occurred with greens, and reds. What I didn’t appreciate was what I was really experiencing was the reversal of partial colour blindness. 

About nine years ago I had a painter redo the trim around some interior doors in my house. When he painted the trim he told me that the colour match with the doors had turned out rather poorly and that he’d have to redo them. But, unlike him, I could not at all see the difference between the two colours. To me they were both the same off-white. So, I told him that since I can’t see the difference between them that he could just leave it as is. Well, now nine years later I can easily and clearly see the difference. 

Could it be that my eyes are finally clearing the lifetime accumulation of lipofuscin in the retinal pigment epithelium?

Retinal based lipofscin accumulation with age

Sparrow JR, Duncker T. Fundus Autofluorescence and RPE Lipofuscin in Age-Related Macular Degeneration. J Clin Med. 2014;3(4):1302-1321. doi:10.3390/jcm3041302

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25774313/

A few other people on my forum have also reported reversing their colour blindness. So, this is not just a one-off anomaly. I think this is a really interesting finding since millions of people have partial colour blindness.

Reversal of Varicose Veins

About 10 years ago I noticed that I was developing varicose veins down around my ankles. They didn’t bother me, and there was nothing I was going to be able to do about it, so I ignored it. Well, today, those same varicose veins have completely recovered. That’s another nice long-term win for the low vA diet.

Dental Health

As with last year’s update my dental health is excellent. My teeth and gums are feeling really strong and solid. My teeth are also smoother, cleaner, and I think whiter too. Somehow I still haven’t developed scurvy.

Joint Pain

Before starting this experiment I had a lot of pain in my knees and general joint stiffness. The pain in the knees was moderate but chronic. Fortunately, It was also one of the first issues that I fully recovered from and it has never regressed. Anyways, 10 years ago kneeling down on a hard floor was just unthinkable. Now, I can kneel down on a concrete floor without pain.

An Urgent Need to Pee

Okay, this section is not directly related to my vitamin A elimination diet. Rather, it is about an inadvertent side-effect of it. Last year I started to develop an urgent need to pee. It’s a good thing I was working from home with ready access to the washroom.  A few weeks before that condition showed up I had started drinking coffee again. I had no big reason for adding the coffee back into my diet, other than I liked the extra jump start it gave to my morning routine. I was at the same time still taking in quite a bit of salt with my 2-3 meals a day of my rice and beans soup.  The combination of these two strong diuretics turned out to be too much for me. So, once again, I completely stopped the coffee and also cut way back on the salt. Now I have maybe a small pinch of salt per day. Anyways, within 4 days those two changes completely solved the problem of having an urgent need to pee.

Sleep Quality

My sleep quality remains excellent. I dream every night. But, the intensity of the dreaming changes a bit from month to month. 

Blood Lettings and Other Miraculous Cures

I continue to make regular blood donations and I’m now on my 28th donation. I have a preference for making plasma rather than whole blood donations. That’s mostly because I can make plasma donations more often and it also better matches my goals. However, I do mix it up from time to time. Although, I do think that these blood/plasma donations are helpful I can’t say I notice any effect from them. Except, I do think they would offset any trace amounts of vA I may still take in from my diet. Of course, there is the public benefit of making blood donations. There’s been a large increase this year in the need for blood and plasma products here in Canada so I’m making my small contribution.

Okay, what about the other miraculous cures? Sorry, there are none that I know of. So, for now, I think time is one of the biggest factors in recovering from vA toxicity. Given enough time the body is hopefully able to heal itself. That in itself is a miraculous process. 

Sorry, I have no labs to report this year

A few months ago my doctor’s office sent out a notice that they are overwhelmed and are triaging patients on a most urgent care needed basis. That news wasn’t a big surprise because the same phenomenon is being reported all across the country. For some mysterious, and completely inexplicable, reason there’s been a huge increase in all kinds of serious health issues, and in all age groups too. It includes depression, anxiety, heart attacks and strokes in young adults, partial paralysis, cancers, all kinds of new viral infections, and on and on. 

Oh, gee, I wonder what it could be that caused it? Was there some new and nearly universal environmental factor introduced (forced on us) last year?

Source: https://www.bitchute.com/video/raDO9C4Vq9xg/

I mean, seriously, even a child could figure it out. Of course, the medical establishment will never admit it.

Anyways, given that situation and the trouble I had last year in getting basic labs, and being one of the unwashed (unvaccinated) folks, I felt it wasn’t even worth trying to get some more lab work done this year. The only numbers I can provide are for my blood pressure. Three years ago it was usually about 110/70. Now it’s down to 100/60 and my resting heart rate is consistently ~ 50 bpm. That’s another nice long-term win for the low vA diet.

The Black Swan Rule of Science

It’s time to invoke the “Black Swan Rule of Science” on the ancient vA theory. I think many people probably know the “There are no Black Swans” analogy. But, for those that have not heard about it, in a nutshell, it goes like this:

Let’s say the currently accepted, and long established, science states that all swans are white. Or, just that the experts say “Swans are white”, and therefore it’s a fact. Okay, fine. We can somewhat provisionally accept that statement. But, then one day someone travels to some far away land, and lo and behold they see a black swan and they take pictures of it. That’s it. At that moment the accepted and long established science stating that all swans are white is now trash. The point is that you don’t need to find 1,000 black (or pink etc) swans to demolish the prior science. You only needed one. You also don’t need big complicated studies, and you don’t need to dissect the black swans to prove it. No, it’s done, and just with that one case the previously established scientific fact is completely toast. 

So too is it with the crusty 100 year old vitamin A theory. It is now toast, trash, and junk science. I’m a human and I’ve had virtually no vA in my diet for eight years. But, the well established science on vA claims that by year 4 or 5 with no vA people will get horribly sick, have their eyes and skin disintegrate etc., then they’ll go blind and likely die soon after. Well, nope, sorry, it hasn’t happened in eight years; and it won’t happen in the next eight years either. Of course, I’m not alone. There are quite a few people on muscle meat only carnivore diets (very-low vA) diets who are at or beyond the ten-year point and are in excellent health.

Retinol, retinoic acid etc, are not a “vitamin”. Rather clearly they are a poison, and nothing but a poison. If you don’t like that statement, too bad, it is now just a fact. If you can’t accept that fact then I think you should go for a long quiet walk and THINK about it. Just really, really think about it.

What’s next for me?

I’ve not been very active on the vitamin A topic this year. That’s not because I’ve lost interest in it. It’s mostly because I’ve been too busy with my day job and some big home projects. With those projects now wrapping up, I hope to get back into the vitamin A topic more this fall. One thing we’ve talked about before was to officially redo the 1925 Wolback and Howe study. It’s the cornerstone study supporting the vA theory. I would really like to pull that cornerstone study out and toss it into the scientific trash pile where it belongs. But, due to the pandemic and the related bizarre cult-like pseudo science atmosphere it has promoted I felt the time just wasn’t right for it.  I felt regardless of the results, and how important they could potentially be for human health, it would just be ignored. So, this year I’ll get back on it and try to find a university to conduct this study.

I’ll definitely continue with my ultra-low vA diet for at least the next two years. I want to eventually get a vA lab test that reports 0.0 µmol/L, or whatever amount is below the detection limits of the test.  Beyond that, I will very likely continue with my ultra-low vA diet for the rest of my life too. After all, this highly toxic vitamin imposter very nearly killed me. Therefore, I think it would be almost insane to reintroduce any foods in my diet with anything more than trace amounts of vA.

Thank you for your continued interest and participation in this investigation.

2022 Mid Year Update

03 Tuesday May 2022

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Viruses

Last year in my Seven-Year Update post I mentioned that I was looking into the politically hot topic of viruses. When I first started to look into it I quickly came to the realization that the very basic science and fundamental understanding of viruses is almost completely wrong. It’s on par with so-called vitamin A science, and maybe even a lot worse. 

Last year I said that I was going to write a more comprehensive investigation regarding viruses. But, as the censorship and squashing of any non-conventional information on the topic was cranked up to the maximum effort possible, I felt it wasn’t the right time for a lengthy blog post or maybe a new ebook on the topic. Unfortunately, that plays right into the hands of big pharma and their puppets in government under their control.  Although I’m a complete no-body I think it’s important to choose the right time for picking such a battle. I decided that now’s not the time for it. Hopefully, the pandemic response by our governments and the medical establishment over the last two years has made it crystal clear to everyone just how incredibly corrupt the system is. What happened in Canada earlier this year is so disgusting to me I just can’t put it down into writing how I feel about it. So, for now, all I’m going to say about viruses is what’s below.

“Viruses” sure aren’t what we are being told they are.  I think a key point we all need to fully appreciate is that viruses are not “alive”, and never ever become “alive”.  Therefore, they are most certainly not parasites or pathogens. They don’t and can’t “evolve” or mutate. They consume no food, nor energy, nor resources. They can’t and don’t ever reproduce themselves. They have no locomotion,  no organelles, no respiration, etc, etc. They have no life force, no will, no intent. And, contrary to a recent statement from a very prominent public health official they are not “clever”. They actually have the same intelligence as a rock. Therefore, they are not, and cannot be, out to get us. They are also not out to perpetuate their own “species”, because they are not a “species”, nor any life form. They are not living entities even by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

The key understanding is that all so-called viruses are manufactured by cells; and almost all of them in our bodies were made by our own cells. Therefore, viruses never “replicate” themselves, and they don’t hijack or trick the cell into doing it for them. They are simply proteins assembled by our own cells. However, some of these proteins can harm us.  They are ones that contain defectively structured mRNA proteins. These are usually strands of bad RNA that the cell has decided is too defective to use. These defective garbage proteins (RNA molecules) are potentially so dangerous that they can’t be discarded without first putting them into a protective wrapper. Much like with the RBP that’s used to protect cells from vA’s toxicity. Thus, these protective wrappers are the famous protein capsids surrounding most “viruses.” But, given the right circumstances and conditions some of these proteins can start a chain-reaction, and we might get sick from it running out of control for too long.

There’s more to it of course. Since most harmful “viruses” are just defectively made messenger proteins we need to understand what causes the defective mRNA proteins in the first place. Well, since it is now established that retinoic acid can, and does, fracture DNA it should be one of the prime suspects. There’s no question there are other toxins and environmental hazards to blame sometimes too. But, the key takeaway here is that for the most part “viruses” don’t cause disease. Rather, it’s the direct opposite. Disease causes “viruses” to be created.

To use a more concrete example, let’s say someone gets diagnosed with hepatitis.  Doctors using the now infamous PCR test will usually find a large number of “viruses” and claim the person has acquired a “viral infection” and that infection has caused the disease. But, no, that’s not it at all. The slowly developing liver disease with its corresponding massive number of damaged and dying cells is causing these cells and cell fragments to produce the “viruses.” Viruses are the artifacts of the diseased tissue.

Sometimes these proteins can be transferred between people and that can start a chain reaction in certain vulnerable people. However, we don’t ever really get “infected” with the “virus”. Rather we get contaminated by other people’s defective proteins.

I believe that if people are healthy, and have low vA levels then “viruses” pose almost no risk at all.  Of course, there’s still much more to the story here. There’s also a fascinating understanding that there’s a hugely beneficial and critical role many so-called “viruses” play in our health and even our evolution. That understanding is that the vast majority of the billions of the “viruses” that are circulating in our bodies on any given day are actually extra-cellular message capsules. These message capsules are used to communicate with other cells and organs in the body. The cells of the body have formed a gigantic network of communication between themselves. The data packets used on this network are mRNA proteins encapsulated within “viruses” and exosomes.  Darwin was correct (for those who have actually read his book). It’s not random mutations driving our evolution. Rather it’s our life experiences that’s programming the genetic code in our offspring.  The driving mechanism of that programming is via “virus” encapsulated messages. So, when it comes to truly understanding viruses our current medical science is in the absolute stone age. I’ve only scratched the surface of it here.

But, obviously, big pharma needs to keep the myth of “scary and deadly viruses” alive to stoke endless fear and boost endless massive profits from their vaccines for them.

Bottom line, for the most part, “viruses” are a giant scam.   

My Prison Food and Night blindness 

I reported in last year’s annual update that I had once again encountered a period of reduced night vision. It was also accompanied by having quite dry eyes first thing in the mornings.  Oh yes, I know that those are some of the key, if not the de facto, symptoms of vA deficiency.  But, of course, I don’t believe vA deficiency even exists. I also think that it’s impossible to have a deficiency in a highly toxic molecule.  Moreover, if these symptoms were due to a vA deficiency then they should have shown up and progressively gotten worse as time went on.  Except, that did not happen. The periods of reduced night vision were sporadic and I had always recovered from it.  My previous  incidents of “night blindness” occurred in the winter months when the air here in Calgary, AB is very dry. However, oddly last year the condition was most notable in August. Coincidentally, last summer the city was covered in a lot of smoke from forest fires. It lasted for at least two months. So, at first, I rationalized that it was probably just the excessive smoke exposure that caused it to occur in the summer months this time. However, as the smoke finally cleared my dry eyes really didn’t get much better. So, what the heck was really going on?

Last year, as I am doing so this year, I was sticking pretty strictly to my diet of rice, bison/beef, and black beans. Although I usually cook one cup (measured dry) of rice per day I almost never consume it all in one day. Most days it is more like a half cup. So, a pretty standard practice for me is to put the remaining rice in a container and put it in the fridge. Then, the next day I’ll take the leftover cold rice, and either freshly cooked or cold leftover meat, and some cold black beans and dump it into a bowl. Then I’ll boil some water and add it to the bowl to make what I call my “soup”. 

Prison food

My wife hates that I call it “soup”. Whenever I call it that, she so lovingly tells me: “That’s not soup, it’s prison food!” Yes, it’s darn plain and boring. Except, I don’t think it’s really that bad either. It sure makes my meal planning and food shopping super simple.  It’s also super easy and fast to put together. But, she’s right that it does lack flavor.  So, as I also mentioned in last year’s update, I had gotten into the habit of spicing it up by adding some granulated dry onion powder to it.  With that addition I think I could legitimately call it a soup.  Sometimes my wife would dice up and fry onions and I added that to my soup rather than the onion powder. 

Then, I got to thinking about it. If just cutting into an onion can quite quickly and quite strongly irritate the eyes then maybe, just maybe, it’s not such a good idea to be eating onions either.  With that thought I completely stopped adding the onions / onion powder and went back to the “prison food” version of my soup.  Quite amazingly, within four weeks my night vision completely recovered. Within four months my corresponding dry eyes also fully recovered. I’d rate my current night vision as being excellent. 

I think this is an intriguing little sub-experiment in isolating it down to one probable cause. The only deviation / change in my diet last year was the addition of the onions and then following that change my night vision problems developed. Then when I made the one (and really only) change of stopping the consumption of onions the problem quickly resolved.  So, yes, unlike viruses, I do think many plants are indeed out to get us. For me at least, onions are one of them. If you are eating onions and are also experiencing dry eyes and night vision problems you might want to try to replicate my findings. 

That’s it for now. Overall, my health and well-being is currently very good. I’ll post a more comprehensive health update in August. 

SCURVY

18 Saturday Sep 2021

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The conquest of scurvy and the discovery of vitamin C has been touted as one of the great accomplishments of medical science.

Here’s a dictionary definition:

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic. Scurvy often presents itself initially as symptoms of malaise and lethargy, followed by formation of spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from the mucous membranes. Spots are most abundant on the thighs and legs, and a person with the ailment looks pale, feels depressed, and is partially immobilized. As scurvy advances, there can be open, suppurating wounds, loss of teeth, jaundice, fever, neuropathy and death. Scurvy was at one time common among sailors, pirates and others aboard ships at sea longer than perishable fruits and vegetables could be stored and by soldiers similarly deprived of these foods for extended periods. 

Source: https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/scurvy

As defined, and as we’ve all been told and led to believe, scurvy is the result of a vitamin C deficiency. But is there any truth to it? Surprisingly, there’s not much. What you are about to learn is that there is actually incredibly weak evidence linking scurvy to vitamin C deficiency. You’ll learn that there’s very compelling evidence to show that scurvy is caused by a toxicity condition, and not a deficiency condition at all. You’ll soon realize that scurvy has also not been conquered; rather it has just been renamed and rebranded with other more modern disease labels.

To investigate the scurvy story, I read, and I’ll quote from, this book :

LIMEYS – The Conquest of SCURVY by David I. Harvie

David I. Harvie’s book is a good read and a good historical account of the scurvy story during the Age of Sail. His book very much supports the story that scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency disease. However, the last chapter of his book does list some modern day thinkers and other organizations that do refute the vitamin C theory.

Scurvy – the great disease of Sailors

One of the most important pieces of evidence we need to consider is that scurvy was by far most prevalent and common among sailors while aboard ships at sea. Almost all of the historical accounts of outbreaks of scurvy were of crews of various sailing expeditions. Although there are accounts of “land scurvy”, they represent a small fraction of recorded cases of the “outbreaks”.

Therefore, during the Age of Sail, scurvy was almost uniquely confined to inflicting sailors, and especially the crews of the British navy. So much so that the primary organization investigating the cause and treatments of scurvy was the Royal Navy.  Since scurvy was widely accepted to be predominately a ship-side disease one of the strongest early theories regarding its cause was that it was the cold damp and stale air of the on-board living conditions. The cold, stale air theory persisted for 50 or more years. The Royal Navy developed better ventilation systems for their ships to try to prevent outbreaks of scurvy. However, the better ventilation systems yielded negligible results in combating the disease.

The second most important piece of evidence that we need to appreciate is that the “outbreaks” of scurvy usually started to occur after only 6 to 8 weeks at sea.  Very oddly, the general public, and even sailors while on dry land, weren’t commonly getting the disease.

However, the worst effects of scurvy were seen at sea, and it is a sea disease that it is characterized.

LIMEYS – The Conquest of SCURVY – page 18

James Lind – and the first significant Clinical Study in medicine

What’s regarded as one of the first clinical studies in medicine is that by James Lind in 1747. Lind was investigating a possible treatment for scurvy. Lind was not investigating the causes of scurvy because he presumed he already knew the cause. Therefore, he was only looking for remedies.

As a result of his practical observations with the Channel Fleet, Lind himself was among those that were inclined to believe cold, moist sea air was the most important precondition.

LIMEYS – The Conquest of SCURVY – page 86

If you’ve read my eBooks and blog posts you’ll know that I’m not exactly a fan of clinical studies used in so-called medical research. Nor am I a fan of evidence based medicine (relying on big data sets). I have a lot of reasons for disliking clinical studies. The biggest reason is that by almost exclusively relying on statistical outcomes researchers are often not even attempting to use genuine critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

Some other reasons I don’t like clinical studies is that they are so often fraudulent, or conducted so poorly that they are meaningless. Many studies are probably just deliberately misleading to promote the financial interests of their sponsors. Or, stated more concisely; many clinical studies are just rigged pharma industry propaganda.

Regardless of my personal views, the ultimate acid test for the usefulness of clinical studies is looking at the real world results they’ve yielded.  With there now being millions of peer reviewed clinical studies published, are we, as a society, any better off health wise than we were 50 years ago?  No, we are not. On the contrary, we are only vastly sicker, more diseased in every way imaginable, and are dying sooner.

Lind’s study is rather straightforward, and is documented in its entirety in just a few paragraphs. Lind’s study included 12 men and lasted for just 14 days aboard the ship named Salisbury while at sea.

Lind divided the 12 sick sailors into six pairs, and provided each 2-person arm of the study with a different supplement to their diet. These were: cider, vitriolic elixir (diluted sulfuric acid), vinegar, sea water, two oranges and a lemon, or a purgative mixture. Of course, we sure wouldn’t expect to see much benefit to come from the vitriolic elixir (diluted sulfuric acid), vinegar, sea water or purgative mixture. There was no control group in Lind’s study.

Lind claimed that one of the two men treated with the two oranges and a lemon had recovered and that the other man only somewhat recovered. Of course there was no long-term follow-up to determine if the treatment had only put the men into a temporary remission or not. So, the famous clinical study used to claim that vitamin C is a preventive and cure for scurvy is primarily based on merely one person (maybe two) having seen some temporary relief in their symptoms. What’s conveniently glossed over by modern day medical historians is that the basic diet used by the navy was not completely devoid of vitamin C. Raisins and black currants were a staple aboard ships in this era. Even Lind documents this in his own study write-up.

They lay together in one place, being a proper apartment for the sick in the fore-fold; and had one common diet to all, viz. Water-gruel sweetened with sugar in the morning; fresh mutton-broth often times for dinner; at other times puddings, boiled biscuits with sugar; and for supper, barley and raisins, rice and currants, sago and wine, or the like.

James Lind

About 1 lb of raisins were allocated per man per week. Additionally, black currants actually contain quite a lot of vitamin C too. With one 80g serving of black currants providing almost 200% of the RDA for vitamin C. The navy diet also often included both potatoes and peas; another source of vitamin C.

There’s also some modern day speculation that Lind didn’t actually conduct this study, but rather that he might have just made it up.

Source: James Lind and Scurvy: The First Clinical Trial in History?

https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/leading-figures/james-lind-and-scurvy-the-first-clinical-trial-in-history/

Wouldn’t it be ironically fitting if Lind’s study was indeed fraudulent? It would sure fit right in today with so many other fraudulent or rigged medical studies.

Nonetheless, there’s another major flaw in Lind’s study. Even though he knew that the scurvy was primarily caused by being aboard ships, he’s only looking for some therapeutic treatment to remedy it. In other words, he doesn’t appear to consider that there’s possibly an unknown toxic agent at play (other than cold, damp air) while being on board.  So, his upfront bias is only allowing him to consider the disease to be that of a deficiency. Therefore, he adds supplements to the diet, rather than selectively eliminating items from it.

So uncompelling are Lind’s study results, even Lind himself does not really believe in the curative properties of oranges and lemons to prevent scurvy. So much so that he spent the next several decades of his career as a navy surgeon trying to have the air circulation aboard navy ships improved. Likewise, it took the British admiralty about another 100 years to fully adopt lemons and limes as a possible preventative measure against scurvy. But, a lot of other changes were made in the British Navy over those same 100 years too. There is one very important one we’ll discuss a bit later. 

Just as importantly, even after the British Navy adopts the provisioning of lemons and limes as a somewhat standard practice, there are expeditions where it completely failed to prevent the outbreak of scurvy.  Captain Cook regarded limes and lemons as being useless in combating scurvy. 

I entirely agree with you that the dearness of the rob (the juice) of lemon and oranges will hinder them from being furnished in large quantities. But I do not think it is so necessary; for though they may assist in other things, I have no great opinion of them alone. Nor have I have a higher opinion of vinegar.

Captain Cook in a letter in 1776.

That’s correct. Lemons and limes didn’t at all reliably prevent scurvy, nor did it really very often cure scurvy either.  The use of lemons and limes yielded very, very inconsistent results. So much so that even after conducting several large scale experiments with supplying them the Royal Navy never concluded that it actually worked. Isn’t that odd, huh? Clearly then, there’s something very wrong with the vitamin C deficiency theory.

Other remedies

There were other remedies attempted to prevent and treat scurvy. Just as there is today, there were charlatans and frauds pushing bogus pills and such.  

In the face of two centuries of conflicting evidence and hearsay on remedies for scurvy, it may have been easy, if wholly inexcusable, for the Admiralty to rely on the kind of partisan lobbying that enabled a ‘society doctor’ as Joshua Ward to have his fraudulent pills authorised.

LIMEYS – The Conquest of SCURVY – page 147

Hmm… is this the early genesis of the pharmaceutical industry’s lobbying practice?

But, rather than pills, acidic and alcoholic beverages and fermented foods were the much more commonly attempted treatments.

Charles Bisset was another Edinburgh-trained surgeon who had served in the West Indies. In his treatise of 1755 he blamed salt provisions and heat, and recommended vegetables, wine, rum punch, spirits and in particular rice.

LIMEYS – The Conquest of SCURVY – page 86

Interestingly, one of the most common and standard therapies applied for scurvy was bloodletting.

Humans and Guinea Pigs

Another great claim of medical science is that of all the mammals on the planet, it’s only humans and guinea pigs that can’t endogenously synthesize their own vitamin C.

The claim is that after millions of years of evolution we humans have somehow lost the gene needed for it. We therefore need to get our vitamin C regularly from foods or from supplements. Doesn’t that sound a little suspect to you?  I mean seriously, are we supposed to believe that the lowly rat can produce its own vitamin C, yet we humans, the species at the pinnacle of evolution, or of God’s creation, can’t?  Maybe, just maybe, the “lost gene” theory is just more bad science? For myself, after about 5 years of virtually no vitamin C in my diet, I had this interesting statement show up on a 2019 lab test.

Odd huh? But, it does appear that I may have developed scurvy induced tumours.

Scurvy as a deficiency disease

Even under the slightest bit of scrutiny the theory of scurvy being a deficiency disease quickly falls apart. Once again, the biggest red flag going up here is that the disease commonly developed after being at sea for only 6 to 8 weeks. That just does not at all fit with the reality of life in Northern Europe in the 15th to 20th centuries. If scurvy were to develop in 6-8 weeks due to a vitamin C deficiency then at least half of the European and Russian populations would have died off each winter.  Of course, that did not ever happen. Once again, therefore the vitamin C theory must be just simply wrong.

If we consider more modern day examples of prolonged starvation in large populations there is also a stark lack of scurvy being recorded. As I wrote about in my eBooks both the German and Japanese run POW camps from WWII provide clear evidence. Especially so in the Japanese-run POW camps where their prisoners were generally provided just one cup of white rice per day.  There were all kinds of infectious diseases recorded in these camps, and many prisoners were brutally starved to death, yet there is almost no record of scurvy. How’s that possible? According to the vitamin C deficiency theory all of these prisoners should have died in six months or less from scurvy.

Somewhat likewise for the German-run POW camps – there’s little to no mention of scurvy. But, at least in the German-run POW camps potatoes were part of the food provided and would have been a source of some vitamin C. However, assuming the potatoes were boiled, they would have only provided a small fraction of the claimed to be daily requirement of vitamin C.

There are many other examples from around the world we can add to the evidence. Here are just a few that come to mind.

  • The Maasai of Africa whose traditional food is mostly Blood and Milk from cows. No source of vitamin C, yet, no scurvy.
  • The Inuit of Northern Canada where they live their entire lives without any source of vitamin C. Yet, no scurvy.
  • People following the muscle meat only carnivore diet for years. No source of vitamin C, yet, no scurvy.
  • My own experience. I’ve had virtually no vitamin C in my diet for the last 5 years, yet I have no sign of scurvy. On the contrary, my teeth and gums are now probably the healthiest they’ve been in the last 20 years.

So, what’s really going on here? The answer is the theory of scurvy being a vitamin C deficiency disease is obviously wrong. Okay, if scurvy is not a deficiency disease, then what is it? How about we consider it to be caused by an acute poisoning?

Scurvy as an acute poisoning

One of the major challenges for navies from the 18th through to the 20th centuries was the provisioning of ships with sufficient food stores to last them for potentially multi-year expeditions.  It wasn’t so much the massive volume of food that was needed to be provisioned, rather it was trying to preserve and keep it from quickly spoiling while at sea. Canning using pasteurization hadn’t been invented until 1862 and didn’t come into widespread use until the late 1880’s. Steam powered refrigeration wasn’t adopted aboard ships until the early-mid 20th century. Therefore, some of the mainstays of the ship’s provisions were heavily salted beef and pork, oats, beer, very dry biscuits, and something called “portable soup”.

Portable Soup

What is “portable soup”? From Wikipedia:

Portable soup was a kind of dehydrated food used in the 18th and 19th centuries, originating from Great Britain. It was a precursor of meat extract and bouillon cubes, and of industrially dehydrated and instant food. It is also known as pocket soup or veal glue. 

Quite remarkably, Portable Soup was a staple and standard provision for ships in the Royal Navy for almost 200 years. How long was Scurvy most prevalent in the Royal Navy? For about the same 200 years!

In 1757, the British began stocking their ships with a “portable soup.”[307] The “portable soup” consisted of “all the offals of oxen killed in London for use of the Navy” with salt and vegetables added in.[308] The soup, however, was dried so that it had the appearance of slabs of glue.[309] Although the “portable soup” was unappetizing, it was perfect for the navy because it had a shelf life of years.[310] In addition to the supplies stored at the beginning of each voyage, ships often traded for additional supplies in foreign ports and lands.[311] In particular, rice, wince and other hard alcohols were particularly valuable when trading.[312]

Source: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8852139/Mayberry.html?sequence=2

What are the “offals” of oxen? Well, they are simply quite awful. 

Offal is a pretty broad term which not only includes the internal organs and entrails, but also includes the miscellaneous trimmings of an animal. It essentially includes everything except the muscle and bone.

Source: https://www.chefs-resources.com/types-of-meat/offal-varieties/

Portable soup sounds rather disgusting to me. But, it couldn’t have been that bad because this “portable” soup was an absolute staple among British Navy and merchant ships for almost two centuries. 

The portable soup may have also been used for dipping and softening the other navy staple food of rock-hard biscuits.

It was served with a pound of ship’s biscuit. Hard, ¼ pound disks of flour, baked 2 or 3 times until all moisture was completely gone. The men would soak these, usually breaking them into their stews, or letting them soak up the juices from their meat ration

Source: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/how-royal-navy-fed-sailors.html

To make it ‘portable,’ the soup was made as normal but then reduced using prolonged heating until it was gelatinous and dried. Let’s see here; taking the liver and kidneys with their high retinol and retinyl esters content and boiling it at high heat (enough to drive off the steam) for extended periods of time? What could possibly go wrong with that? How about the production of large amounts of retinoic acid?

Is Scurvy really retinoic acid poisoning?

Once again, one of the important points we really need to appreciate is that sailors usually developed scurvy within just 6 to 8 weeks after being at sea.  But, based on worldwide and real world data we know that’s just way too fast for the disease to have developed from a deficiency condition.  So, how about considering a stress test case with direct exposure to retinoic acid? Here’s just one such example: From:

Nikita Posted September 4, 2006

Hi
I have been on accutane for 2 weeks and have had really sore, red, sometimes bleeding gums for about a week now. Has anyone experienced this while on tane? This is my second course and I haven’t experienced it before, and never heard of it as a side effect so thought I would check if anyone else has had it or if I should go to the dentist to get it checked out!
Thanks in advance.

Source: https://www.acne.org/forums/topic/114246-accutane-and-sore-gums/#comment-1332133

You can easily find many more such firsthand accounts of accutane rapidly inducing gum disease. For example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=receding+gums+accutane+site:www.reddit.com

And we have accounts of earlier researchers directly inducing Scurvy using high dose “vitamin A”.

The Franklin Expedition and Lead Poisoning

Could the “portable soup” have been made to be any more toxic? Well, yes, it could of and probably was. The portable soup, as well as some other provisioned foods, were packaged in tin cans where the joints were sealed with a lead-based solder.  So, we are probably talking about retinoic acid and lead poisoning combined.  This theory is supported by the modern findings of lead poisoning in the human remains of the crew of the famous Franklin Expedition (nicely preserved in Canada’s frozen tundra for the last 170  years).

What about “land scurvy” ?

So far I’ve mostly discussed scurvy inflicting sailors while they were at sea. What about cases of land scurvy? There are indeed quite a few cases of scurvy reported for non-sailors. What then would have caused these cases? Well, we need to appreciate that “portable soup” was not exclusively used by the Royal Navy. It was also sold to the general public.

Mrs Elizabeth Dubois had been advertising the sale of her portable soup in the British newspapers since at least November 1746 when they appear to have first been available in this country.

Source: https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/portable-soup-as-supplied-by-mrs-dubois-to-the-royal-navy-in-1756/

But, of course portable soup couldn’t have resulted in all cases of land scurvy. We do know that eating organ meats was quite a common practice in England during this era too.

Okay, what about in North America? Well, there was another well established, semi-industrial scale, operation that we need to know about during this era. That was the harvesting of cod livers, and cod liver oils.  Here’s a sketch and historical account of the practice from the early Canadian archives.

Drawn on the side of a map of America, this is the only existing image of a Newfoundland cod fishing station. From the days of Cabot and perhaps before, fleets of European fishermen sailed to the banks, and they soon discovered that they could stay longer and bring back more fish if they set up shore stations to split, salt and dry the catch. Some of these men may have overwintered. This would have been an early source for Americans to have gotten trade goods from the Europeans.

  • A View of a Stage & also of ye manner of Fishing for Curing & Drying Cod at NEW FOUND Land.
  • A. The Habit of the Fishermen (clothing, hooded coat, boots and apron)
  • B. The Line
  • C. The Manner of Fishing (casks were slung over the side of the ship and fishermen stood in them)
  • D. The Dressers of ye Fish
  • E. The Trough into which they throw ye Cod when Dressed
  • F. Salt Boxes
  • G. The Manner of Carrying ye Cod
  • H. The Cleansing ye Cod
  • I. A Press to extract ye Oyl from ye Cod Livers 
  • K. Casks to receive ye water & Blood that comes from ye Livers
  • J. Another Cask to receive the Oyl
  • K. The manner of Drying ye Cod

Some fishermen collected the oil out of the fish they caught for cooking.

https://csphistorical.com/2016/01/24/salt-pork-ships-biscuit-and-burgoo-sea-provisions-for-common-sailors-and-pirates-part-1/

So, it looks like ye Oyl from ye Cod Livers was used for both North Atlantic trade and for local cooking. But, what happened to all ye Cod Livers they harvested?  It was often put in barrels and left to ferment in the hot sun, and the resulting fermented mush later used as a spread on toast.  Yum, huh?  

It looks like the practice of canning and eating cod livers has been going on in Canada for about the last 400 years and continues to be so even today. Of course, this practice was not just limited to the Canadian east coast, it has also been going on in the Norwegian and Scandinavian countries for almost as long.  Here’s an example of some current products available.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=canned+cod+liver

Sorry, I’m not offering any discount codes.

Next, we have another account of “land scurvy” from https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/8852139/Mayberry.html?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

The Crusades, however, provide an example of one written account of scurvy during the 13th century.[133] During Lent, when soldiers abstained from meat (except eel) and restricted their diets, a scurvy epidemic likely unfolded as “the barber surgeons were forced to cut away the dead flesh from the gums to enable the people to masticate their food.”[134] However, it is noted that the Crusaders believed that the disease was caused by eating eel which supposedly ate the dead.[135]

Well, I don’t know about eel eating the dead, but what I do know is that eel is very oily and is also very high in vitamin A too.

Modern outbreaks of scurvy 

Even with the determination of vitamin C as the prevention and cure for scurvy there are still modern day outbreaks of the disease.

In Canada the years 1945-65 were marked by outbreaks of scurvy in bottle-fed infants given evaporated milk (then lacking in vitamin C).

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/scurvy

And:

Infantile scurvy emerged in the late 19th century because children were being fed pasteurized cow’s milk,

What do pasteurized cow’s milk and “portable soup” have in common? My bet is that it’s quite likely to be only retinoic acid.

Hooray – Scurvy is conquered and CURED! 

Yes, we’ve all been led to believe that scurvy has been conquered and almost fully eradicated. But, is that really true?  Well, very likely it’s not. Broadly speaking, scurvy manifested as two major disease conditions: 

  1. Swollen, bleeding gums, leading to loose teeth, and the teeth eventually falling out.
  2. Ulcers and blisters on the lower limbs.

However, aren’t these same primary scurvy disease conditions still very common today?  Oh yes, they are indeed:

Gingivitis and Gum Disease

  • Gum disease. A high percentage of older adults have gum disease. About 2 in 3 (68%) adults aged 65 years or older have gum disease.

How about we look at some nice modern day diabetic gum disease? 

Common signs and symptoms of diabetic gum disease

  • Red and swollen gum that bleeds on brushing
  • Yellowish plaque deposits
  • Pus exuding from gums, tenderness or swelling in gums
  • Mobility of teeth
  • Consistent foul odour from mouth

Next up, here’s an early era drawing of the effects of scurvy on the lower limbs. Clearly there are some distinctly different manifestations of the disease. One of dark brown-black blisters, and then the other of inflamed and necrotic flesh.

Source: Limeys and the Cure for Scurvy – JaneAusten.co.uk

But, aren’t these images not almost identical to diabetic ulcers so commonly reported today?  Please judge for yourself.

“Diabetic dermopathy (skin spots) is the most common dermatosis associated with diabetes. Similar to necrobiosis lipoidica, it presents with reddish-brown patches on the shins, but they are usually much smaller (0.5 to 1.0 cm) in size and greater in number (five to 10, or more lesions). Skin spots gradually resolve to leave a brown, atrophic scar. They are thought to be caused by vascular disease, but there is no correlation with the extent or duration of diabetes.”

“ Leg rash is a common symptom in diabetes and can be caused by many reasons and can be prevented.”

Source: https://diabetestalk.net/diabetes/how-to-treat-diabetic-rash-on-legs

A 54-year-old man with type 2 diabetes mellitus 

Necrobiosis lipoidica is an unusual skin disorder that is strongly associated with diabetes mellitus.

Source: https://www.aafp.org/afp/2003/0101/p139.html

Diabetic Leg Ulcers:

Source: https://dermnetnz.org/topics/leg-ulcer

So, no, “scurvy” has not been conquered. It has just been renamed, rebranded and hidden behind the modern day disease labels of  Gingivitis, Gum Disease, and Diabetes.

Now with the massive supplementation with vitamin C in Western society today, why do we still have this massive incidence rate of “scurvy?” Quite clearly, “scurvy”, AKA diabetes, is not a vitamin C deficiency disease. Another way of stating it, “scurvy” is vastly accelerated diabetes. Either way, both “scurvy” and diabetes are the result of a poisoning.

Please have a think about it, and comment as you see fit.

Thanks

Roman dodecahedron – what are they?

28 Saturday Aug 2021

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From Wikipedia,: A Roman dodecahedron or Gallo-Roman dodecahedron is a small hollow object made of copper alloy which has been cast into a regular dodecahedral shape: twelve flat pentagonal faces, each face having a circular hole of varying diameter in the middle, the holes connecting to the hollow center.  Roman dodecahedra date from the 2nd to 4th centuries AD and range from about 2-4 inches across.

The Roman dodecahedron remains a mystery, and no one really knows what they are.

A couple of years ago when I first learned of these objects I immediately had a pretty good idea as to what they really are. Now, with getting more and more bothered by what’s going on in the world of health related topics, I thought it’s time to take a departure from them here on this blog and discuss something else for once.

There are a number of prevailing theories as to what Roman dodecahedron were used for.  One is that they were somehow a range finder device.  Another one is that they were used for knitting gloves. But, I don’t think either is correct.

If someone has a really wild imagination, they might think these are 3-D bronze models of corona viruses as theorized by ancient Roman virologists. Although that would correctly put the ancient level of virology science on par with that of current modern-day virologists; no, that’s not it either.

One major clue we have is that some of the dodecahedrons have been found to have a wax residue in their central cavity. 

So, what are they?  I think they are simply little portable camp stoves used by soldiers while travelling and when stationed at their outposts. The camp stove would have been mostly fueled by a wax candle set up within the hollow core.

The dodecahedrons are actually a bit ingenious too. The shape allows the candle’s flame to be shielded from the wind. The various sized holes would have accommodated different sized candles with different heating capacities. The other holes around the perimeter provide lots of air flow to the burning candle.

The stand-off knobs around the perimeter allow a small pot or cup to be held above the candle’s flame and allow the heat to be more evenly distributed over the bottom surface of the pot. The dodecahedrons can simply be rotated and stood-up on the most appropriate size opening for the cooking task at hand. Say, using a smaller candle for just heating a cup of water and a larger one used for cooking a small meal. So, the dodecahedrons are miniature versions of modern day cooking ranges where we have a number of different and variable sized burners. But, the dodecahedrons are in a nice small portable package that would have been easily carried in a Roman soldier’s pack.

I happen to have a modern day version of a portable camp stove..

Of course, this unit is fueled by propane gas and not a candle. 

Anyways, please have a think about it and share your thoughts as to what you think the Roman dodecahedron are.

Seven-Year Update

11 Wednesday Aug 2021

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I’ve now reached the seven-year point on my ultra-low vitamin A diet experiment. My overall health has remained good this year. As like with last year’s update, I’d say I’ve only seen some small incremental improvements this year. I feel that my skin texture in some areas has slightly improved, and that I have noticeably less gray hair on my chest. But I do still have two age spots on my face that seemed to have only faded a bit more in colour this past year. I think these two age spots are ever-so-slowly improving but I have no idea if they will ever fully recover. It could be that the skin has been permanently damaged in these areas.

Thus, as expected, this year I don’t have any big health improvements to report on. However, what’s surprising, even after seven years of following my extremely low vA diet, there is still some progress being made. It’s quite clear to me now that making a full and complete recovery from vA toxicity is a very long and slow process.

Diet

I’ve not changed my diet much over the last year. I’m still sticking to what I consider to be my primary “safe” foods. That’s rice, black beans, and beef / bison.

However, as I did last year, for a few months this year I swapped out the rice and replaced it with a simple white bread. The primary reason I made that change was out of the concern of getting too much arsenic from the rice. However, I did not have any lab work, or noticeable health reasons, to support that concern.  I did email the rice producer of the brand that I use regularly asking them about the arsenic content of their product. They once again claimed that their products have no arsenic. Of course, I don’t really believe that, and they did not back up their claims with lab reports.  Anyhow, after three months of eating the white bread, I decided to change back to mostly using white and brown rice again as a source of carbs. There’s no big reason that I changed back, other than I find the rice slightly easier to digest.

I’m still getting quite a lot of emails from people asking about my personal diet. I don’t think people should try to pattern their own diets based on what I do. I really think people need to find what works best for themselves. Moreover, I want to be clear that I’m not continuing to follow my extreme (and admittedly somewhat crazy) diet for health reasons. I’m sticking to it because I’m trying to prove a scientific point. Therefore, I don’t think other people need, or should try, to mimic my ultra-low vA consumption. Rather, I think that just being on a low vA diet is probably wiser, safer, and more sustainable.

Anyways, for those who are interested, my current diet is composed of:

  • White / Brown rice – usually white rice for 2-3 days, and then followed by a day with brown rice
  • Black Beans – organic canned
  • Beef / Bison – usually ground – about 75% of the time I go with Bison
  • Salt & occasionally some onion powder
  • Black Coffee

My daily amounts are usually:

  • Rice ~ ¾ cup (measured dry)
  • Black Beans ~ 250- 350 ml ~ ¾ of a can
  • Beef / Bisson ~ 300 – 400 grams

I generally eat two meals per day and don’t snack much. But if I do snack it’s usually toasted white bread with honey.

I very rarely take supplements. However, I did try a thiamine supplement for several months this year. I had no detectable positive or negative response from taking it and have therefore stopped it.

Daily Calorie Consumption

I’ve been tracking my daily food consumption a bit more closely this year using a mobile app (MyNetDiary).

My daily food intake is usually about 1,500 calories. Some days it’s a bit more, some days it’s a bit less. Anyways, that’s probably about ½ of the daily calories that I was consuming before starting my low vA diet. Although 1,500 calories per day appears to be too low for an adult man, I find it perfectly adequate. Actually, I think that 1,500 calories per day is still a bit too much for me now.

As I have for the last 4-5 years, I’ve maintained a steady weight again this year. I’m holding at about 160-163 lbs (73 kgs).  However, I do feel that I am still about 5 lbs (2kgs) overweight. For some reason, that last 5 lbs is just very stubborn and wants to hang around. But I’m not concerned enough about it to try harder to lose it either.

Some people might assume that the reduced need for calories is due to my older age. However, I don’t think so. That’s because I know a young man who’s also been on a low vitamin A diet for the last two years and he’s reported a very similar finding. His daily calorie intake is about 1/3 to ½ of what it was before he started with the diet.

I think the explanation for needing fewer calories can be at least partially explained by:

  1. Overall metabolism is just running more efficiently.
  2. A reduced rate of cellular turnover.
  3. A significant reduction in background inflammation. I’ve read that about 25% of our daily calories is used just to fuel our immune system. Now with a low vA status, and my body no longer constantly auto-immuning in a futile struggle to fight off a phantom pathogen I need 20% or so fewer daily calories.

Whatever the mechanism is, I think this reduced need for daily calories is quite intriguing.

I get a weekly summary report from my food diary tracking app. Here are some noteworthy warnings I get each week.

  • Your average daily 115 mg of calcium does not reach 1000 mg recommended for you. Rich sources include dairy products (milk, yogurt, cheese), calcium-fortified soy milk and orange juice, sardines and salmon with bones. The calcium in dark green leafy vegetables is less bioavailable since it binds with plant acids.
  • Your average daily 4 IU of vitamin A does not reach 3000 IU recommended for you. Animal sources: liver, milk, cheese, and eggs. Plant sources (in the form of beta-carotene): orange colored fruits and vegetables (carrots, sweet potatoes, apricots, cantaloupe, and pumpkin) and dark green leafy vegetables (e.g. spinach and kale).
  • Your average daily 0 mg of vitamin C does not reach 90 mg recommended for you. Rich sources: most fruits and vegetables, but especially citrus, strawberries, cantaloupe, spinach, broccoli, and peppers.

Calcium warning:

Your average daily 115 mg of calcium does not reach 1000 mg recommended for you.

It looks like my daily calcium intake is about 1/10th of the RDA.  I knew that I was low on calcium intake, but not that low. I just assumed that the beans and water I consume would somehow provide enough calcium.

But seeing this warning show up in the weekly report I was getting a bit concerned about what the long-term impact of following my diet for the last 7 years has had on my bones.  Thus, I recently had a bone density scan (DEXA) performed.  The scan results were surprisingly very good. My bone density is perfectly normal for my age, and I was told that I have absolutely nothing to worry about. I think this is another big win for a low vA diet. Apparently, that recommended 1000 mg / day is not needed if vA is not silently picking away at our bones. And, we probably don’t want a bunch of needless extra calcium in our diet that might otherwise contribute to clogging our arteries etc.

Although seeing that my current bone density was normal for my age was reassuring, I’m not exactly thrilled with that result either. I don’t feel that having just normal bone density for my age is ideal. I’d rather it be better than normal. Unfortunately, I have no reference data as to where I started from regarding bone density. I don’t know if it’s gotten better or if it’s gotten worse in the last 7 years.  So, to be on the safe side I’ll probably start adding some mineral water to my diet this coming year. I’ll re-test my bone density again in 5 years.

Vitamin A warning:

Your average daily 4 IU of vitamin A does not reach 3000 IU. 

I’m not sure if that 4 IU the app is reporting is calculated as being sourced from the beans or from the beef / bison. Naturally, I wish it was closer to 0 IU /day, but I’m still okay with it. Oh, I know there will be a few naysayers who’ll claim that it’s those 4 IU that’s keeping me from going blind and not having all of my epithelial / endothelial tissues and their corresponding organs disintegrate.  But that’s one of the reasons I make regular blood donations. I think the blood donations easily offset the trivial 4 IU I still might get from food.

Vitamin C warning:

Your average daily 0 mg of vitamin C does not reach 90 mg recommended for you. 

I knew that my vitamin C intake was very low, but kind of like with calcium, I was assuming it would somehow be OK. Based on the early toxicity studies that I had read I was also pretty sure that scurvy was misdiagnosed vA toxicity. But there’s no question that 0 mg of vitamin C/day is awfully low.

Still, I’m not concerned enough about it, and I don’t plan to supplement with vitamin C.

Anyways, after ~5 years with a very low vitamin C intake I have no sign of scurvy. It’s the opposite. My teeth and gums are feeling really strong and solid; like never better. I think this is another win for a low vA diet.  However, I do still think vitamin C is probably important in the early stages of taking on a low vA diet.

Here’s an interesting little ditty to consider:

A series of studies using guinea pigs with chronic latent vitamin C deficiency has provided clear evidence that bile acid synthesis is reduced in this condition.

Turley SD, West CE, Horton BJ. The role of ascorbic acid in the regulation of cholesterol metabolism and in the pathogenesis of artherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis. 1976 Jul-Aug;24(1-2):1-18. doi: 10.1016/0021-9150(76)90060-5. PMID: 942515.

Could it be that without adequate vitamin C we have a much harder time in clearing vitamin A via bile?  I don’t know, but maybe that’s the real mechanism of action of how vitamin C appears to be able to prevent scurvy?

Sleep quality and Dreaming

One of the health changes that I had reported on in my first eBook was the return of dreaming at night. I was just trying to be complete and reported on it thinking it was probably just a weird personal little quirk. I now think this is an important finding as a number of other people are reporting the same effect. And thus, it’s not just a personal quirk.

I’ve attributed the return of nighttime dreaming to a likely drop in cortisol levels (but I have no personal lab tests to back up that theory).  Regardless, for the last 5-6 years of my low vA diet I was getting a pretty good sleep. However, what’s surprised me is that it has kind of kicked into high gear this last year.  The intensity and vividness of my dreams is often rather amazing.

Also, now when I go to bed I almost always fall asleep within just a few minutes of putting my head down on the pillow. I can also nap almost on demand, being tired or not, and almost at any time of the day.  I’m kind of like a cat or dog in this regard where it appears these animals can nap anytime they want during the day.

The bigger change that I’ve noticed is that I now begin to dream in what seems to be only minutes after going to sleep. It also appears that I dream almost all night long. The same thing happens if I take even a one-hour long nap. I nearly immediately start dreaming. It’s quite remarkable. But like with so many other things on this diet, the intensity of the dreaming changes from month-to-month.  Nevertheless, compared to where I started from seven years ago, my sleep quality has vastly improved. How can that not be a good thing? Clearly, vitamin A toxicity can profoundly and negatively affect our cognitive wellbeing.

Cardiovascular Health

I feel that my cardiovascular health is about the same as it was last year. The numbers are:

mmol/Lmg/dL
CHOLESTEROL3.08119.1
HDL CHOLESTEROL1.5861.1
LDL CHOLESTEROL1.3150.7
TRIGLYCERIDES0.4237.2
CHOLESTEROL RATIO1.95

Historical the numbers looks like this:

My resting blood pressure is usually around 110/60 and my resting heart rate is about 50-55 BPM.  My HbA1C has remained at 5.1% this year.

Other Labs

I was planning on getting more lab work done this year for this 7-year update report. I would have liked to have had a liver enzyme panel and a cortisol level test done.  However, these are not discretionary labs that my GP would authorize. Last year I used an on-line lab service called LetsGetChecked.com.  I was quite impressed with their service last year and was planning on using them again this year for these additional labs. Unfortunately, they have stopped providing their services in Canada.

Vision and Eye Health

I had another comprehensive eye exam performed a few weeks ago. The results were that my eye health and vision remain excellent. There’s no sign of any eye disease. There’s no glaucoma, no retinopathy, no cataract, no macular degeneration, etc. The pressure in the eye is again a low normal (no inflammation).  My vision is also very good. It’s not quite perfect-perfect, but I still don’t need reading nor driving glasses. At the end of the exam, the eye doc said: “Whatever it is that you’re doing with your lifestyle and diet, keep doing it because your eyes are in great shape”.  Naturally, I did not mention my low vA diet.  

However, like what happened a few years ago, I did go through another period of poor night vision for several months this year. 

Blood Donations

I continue to make regular blood donations. I was having some quirky issues with the plasma donations (my blood was sometimes clogging up the machine), so I’ve gone back to just making regular whole blood donations.

Exercise and Fitness

I’ve been far less physically active this year than compared to last. The primary reason is my new work-from-home lifestyle does not require me to make the daily bike commute. The other reason is that all our gyms and other fitness facilities have been shut down for most of the year.

Conclusions

As with last year’s update, the takeaway from this year’s is that it’s clearly more evidence that so-called “vitamin A” is not a vitamin at all.  I mean seriously, after seven years of having virtually no vA in my diet, and having no adverse effects, and my health has only gotten vastly better, how can anyone still legitimately claim it to be a “vitamin” needed by humans?  I firmly believe that vitamin A is nothing more than a toxin and we are therefore hugely better off without it.  I’ll continue with my ultra-low vA diet for at least the next three years.

Other thoughts – the current viral issue

I’ve spent a lot of time this year learning about so-called viruses. I say so-called, because I quickly concluded that they are not even really “viruses” at all. At least not in the sense of the accepted definition of that term.  I see the science of virology as being as dodgy and on par with that of so-called vitamin A science. Vitamin A is not a “vitamin” and “viruses” are not really viruses. I’ll try to write more about this topic in the new year.

2021 Mid Year Update

02 Sunday May 2021

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I’ve been a bit quiet for the last six months. But, I’ve not at all lost interest in the vitamin A research topic. It’s just that, like with millions of other families, we’ve been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Fortunately though, no one in my family, nor myself, have been sick from COVID.

Redoing the 1925 Wolback and Howe study

In last year’s community survey, and in forum posts, I inquired about and wrote about interest in redoing the 1925 Wolback and Howe study.  Towards that goal I had submitted a proposal to have this study replicated at an American University. However, due to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, that proposal was cancelled.

This does not mean that we won’t be redoing this study at all. Rather, it just needs to be put on hold until after things get back to normal. I’m still very interested in having this study replicated. If you want to help me to get it re-organized please contact me directly.

Detox setback / diet failures / diet successes

The detox setback cycle is still being encountered by too many people. It’s often not short term and is causing people to abandon their low vA diets. In the past we’ve had several theories as to why people are encountering the setback cycle. We’ve suspected a vitamin B deficiency due to increased demands of higher carbs etc. on the B vitamins. We’ve suspected the lack of zinc and other resources needed to sustain the increased requirement for ADH and ALDH enzymes. We’ve suspected that a possible increase in protein intake is causing a surge of stored retinyl esters being released from the liver into bile, and with that the addition vA is being reabsorbed into circulation. 

Probably all of the above suspected mechanisms are at play to some degree. Of course, it’s going to vary by individual. Whatever the reasons and mechanisms are, we’ve still not pinned it down enough to where people can reliably avoid getting into this detox state. I see this as a very serious problem, and one that we need to solve. But, it’s way beyond my capabilities to come up with a solution.  We probably need some dedicated research on it.

Of course there’s a lot of good news with the low vA diet too. We are still seeing success stories. I hope there are many more successes as more people get into year 3+ with their low vA diets.

Diabetes

Over the last six months I’ve been looking more into how and why vA toxicity is likely causing both Type I and Type II diabetes. There’s actually a lot of research back over the last 30 years that supports this theory.  So, diabetes will likely be my primary topic of interest next year. I’ve gotten a private email (not shared on my forum) from a parent about their child who has reversed Type I diabetes using a low vA diet. Although it is just one case, I see it as being really important. Firstly, it’s so important to know that the disease can be reversed, and is not always life-long. Secondly, if reversing the disease has happened once, it can most certainly happen again. 

Personal Health

My personal health remains good. I’d say that I’m still seeing small improvements; such as the last few spots of dry/ damaged skin are improving.  In August I’ll post a more comprehensive health assessment with my 7 year update.