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All Roads Lead To Anhydroretinol: The Sneaky Vitamin A metabolite that causes Vitamin A Toxicity
Quote from tim on April 5, 2024, 4:35 amQuote from Bella on March 22, 2024, 10:22 amAnother one by Meri on the retinol and beta carotene content of meat.
The study in question is saying beef contains about 100x more vitamin A than what nutrition databases and other studies say. Why is nobody discussing this?
I don’t think that study is correct.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0889157588900221
After my long and winding path (40 years of searching) here are my conclusions: don't read studies, don't take supplements, listen to my urges, eat 3 square meals a day as my grandparent of 1914 would (that taste good). Take all diets and gurus and even fad ethnic foods "with a grain of salt". Cook at home, move, get outside and be happy. Be very careful what you tell others to do, as well. (haha I guess I'm not following that last bit, am I?)
All I can say is I didn’t consume any appreciable amount of vit c for 2 years. And I didn’t get scurvy or bile acid insufficiency.
You ate fresh meat. It contains vitamin C.
A low vitamin A diet reduces ascorbate requirements because less retinoic acid (acting as a hormone) causes fibroblasts to release less collagenase.
I don’t think that study is correct.
Well yeah it's most probably bad data. It's still an important thing to get different perspectives on though.
Quote from tim on April 5, 2024, 5:45 amAll I can say is I didn’t consume any appreciable amount of vit c for 2 years. And I didn’t get scurvy or bile acid insufficiency.
You ate fresh meat. It contains vitamin C.
A low vitamin A diet reduces ascorbate requirements because less retinoic acid (acting as a hormone) causes fibroblasts to release less collagenase.
I don’t think that study is correct.
Well yeah it's most probably bad data. It's still an important thing to get different perspectives on though.
One of those years I was eating 1-2 pounds of liver a week. Plus taking cod liver oil. And an electrolyte supplement with retinol palmitate in it. I was also cooking the meat. Which denatures the ascorbic acid. I’m still extremely vit a toxic. So I’m endogenously producing lots of retinoic acid.
Quote from lil chick on April 5, 2024, 5:04 amAfter my long and winding path (40 years of searching) here are my conclusions: don't read studies, don't take supplements, listen to my urges, eat 3 square meals a day as my grandparent of 1914 would (that taste good). Take all diets and gurus and even fad ethnic foods "with a grain of salt". Cook at home, move, get outside and be happy. Be very careful what you tell others to do, as well. (haha I guess I'm not following that last bit, am I?)
I agree. You can find a study literally showing anything. Plus who knows what confounding factors influence the legitimacy of the data. Plus scientists typically don’t like to go against the grain. The human metabolism is far far too complex to say we know anything for sure. All we can do is experiment and look at real world outcomes. And symptoms. Then try to backtrack mechanisms.
One of those years I was eating 1-2 pounds of liver a week. Plus taking cod liver oil. And an electrolyte supplement with retinol palmitate in it. I was also cooking the meat. Which denatures the ascorbic acid. I’m still extremely vit a toxic. So I’m endogenously producing lots of retinoic acid.
For the third time. You ate fresh meat. Cooked fresh meat contains vitamin C. If you don't believe me eat dried meat and no fresh meat and you will get scurvy. This is a fact that was known to sailors in the past.
Liver contains more vitamin C than meat.
Some of the most important symptoms of Hypervitaminosis A are symptoms of preclinical scurvy. If you gave yourself Hypervitaminosis A than you gave yourself preclinical scurvy and you would have had some level of impaired bile acid synthesis and gum pathology. If you had perfect gum health while also consuming a very low vitamin C intake you didn't give yourself any significant level of Hypervitaminosis A. You claim your bile acid synthesis was unaffected yet there is no easy way to measure that.
While what you are saying about your personal experience may seem reasonable to you it's not worth much in a debate about the essentiality of vitamin C. No one can verify anything that you are saying but even if it was verified it's explainable without resorting to the absurdity of thinking it overturns hundreds of years of understanding about vitamin C and scurvy.
For Hypervitaminosis A resulting from chronic consumption of retinol supplements, cod liver oil or liver it's a very bad idea to have a low intake of vitamin C and will significantly impair recovery as well as mitigation of harm until it is resolved.
Quote from tim on April 5, 2024, 1:45 pmOne of those years I was eating 1-2 pounds of liver a week. Plus taking cod liver oil. And an electrolyte supplement with retinol palmitate in it. I was also cooking the meat. Which denatures the ascorbic acid. I’m still extremely vit a toxic. So I’m endogenously producing lots of retinoic acid.
For the third time. You ate fresh meat. Cooked fresh meat contains vitamin C. If you don't believe me eat dried meat and no fresh meat and you will get scurvy. This is a fact that was known to sailors in the past.
Liver contains more vitamin C than meat.
Some of the most important symptoms of Hypervitaminosis A are symptoms of preclinical scurvy. If you gave yourself Hypervitaminosis A than you gave yourself preclinical scurvy and you would have had some level of impaired bile acid synthesis and gum pathology. If you had perfect gum health while also consuming a very low vitamin C intake you didn't give yourself any significant level of Hypervitaminosis A. You claim your bile acid synthesis was unaffected yet there is no easy way to measure that.
While what you are saying about your personal experience may seem reasonable to you it's not worth much in a debate about the essentiality of vitamin C. No one can verify anything that you are saying but even if it was verified it's explainable without resorting to the absurdity of thinking it overturns hundreds of years of understanding about vitamin C and scurvy.
For Hypervitaminosis A resulting from chronic consumption of retinol supplements, cod liver oil or liver it's a very bad idea to have a low intake of vitamin C and will significantly impair recovery as well as mitigation of harm until it is resolved.
Define fresh. Because I was buying it all from a farm. Out of a freezer. Could’ve been sitting for months to years. Also like I said. Vitamin c denatures when it’s cooked. So it’s irrelevant how much was in there. All I was saying is that part of the time I was consuming a lot of vit a with no c. And I had extreme vit a toxicity. Insane head pressure and headaches and extremely mentally dull. Also insomnia and anhedonia. Most of it was in my brain. Going low vit a has fixed these issues. To say it’s not hypervitamosis a is ignorant. Like I said going off of studies is not a good way to define this stuff. And I had no gum bleeding or recession. Basically perfect dental health. This stuff doesn’t always manifest by the book. But I still do not think ascorbic acid is essential for anything. Cause I should have scurvy. In fact, I have insanely strong collagenous tissue. Like abnormally strong.
I have already said earlier in the thread that fresh and frozen meat contains some vitamin C. No that's not true cooking does not destroy vitamin C completely. Even potato chips that have been deep fried and then sitting in a packet on a supermarket shelf contain vitamin C. Dried meat is so low in vitamin C though that if you consume that instead of fresh or frozen meat (or other vitamin C containing foods) you will get scurvy.
Things don't always go by the book but exceptions don't make the rule.
Your anecdotal testimony is true for you and you alone. It proves nothing here. It can't be verified if you consumed lots of vitamin A, if you had perfect gum health, what your diet was or if your symptoms were due to Hypervitaminosis A. Nobody is denying your testimony but at the same time it's common for reality to not align with testimony.
You dismiss studies as being a flawed way of obtaining data but you expect your online testimony to mean something in a debate about the essentiality of a vitamin?
What are you trying to prove here? Are you hoping that if you explain your testimony enough that it will show that vitamin C is nonessential? Nothing you can say anecdotally can do that.
People on very poor diets still get scurvy sometimes and it goes away when they take vitamin C. What do we do with these verified cases? Ignore them because you think they contradict yours?
Quote from Janelle525 on April 3, 2024, 11:19 amQuote from AlexM on April 3, 2024, 10:20 amQuote from Janelle525 on April 3, 2024, 7:44 amQuote from Luke on April 2, 2024, 7:51 pmIf the metabolic and enzyme pathways of "Vitamin A" were genuinely undeniable facts, you would have no motive to participate in this forum, and certainly, you wouldn't subscribe to the belief that it is toxic. It's evident that you don't consider these Vitamin A pathways to be factual; otherwise, you wouldn't be present here.
I'm not sure, but doesn't seem like he believes vitamin A is toxic as he is taking a parapack supplement:
Vitamin A (as palmitate and 50% as beta carotene) 2000 IU
Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid) 60 mg
Vitamin E (as d-alpha tocopheryl succinate) 30 IU
Thiamine (as thiamine hydrochloride) 1.5 mg
Niacin (as niacinamide and 33% as niacin) 20 mg
Vitamin B6 (as pyridoxine hydrochloride) 2 mg
Folic Acid (as (6S)-5-methyltetrahydrofolic acid) 25 mcg
Biotin 75 mcg
Pantothenic Acid (as d-calcium pantothenate) 10 mg
Iodine (from kelp) 100 mcg
Zinc (TRAACS® zinc bisglycinate chelate†) 1 mg
Selenium (as L-selenomethionine) 20 mcg
Manganese (TRAACS® manganese bisglycinate chelate†) 1 mg
Potassium (from potassium gluconate and 50% as potassium glycinate complex) 10 mg
Citrus Bioflavonoid Complex (citrus aurantium L.) 50mg
Inositol 25 mg
Betaine (from betaine hydrochloride) 20 mg
L-Tyrosine 10 mg
L-lysine HCL 10 mg
L-Glutamic Acid 10 mg
L-Serine 5 mg
Pyruvate (from calcium pyruvate) 5 mg *
Whole Adrenal Glandular (bovine) 5 mg *
Whole Pituitary Glandular (bovine) 5 mg *
Whole Parotid Glandular (bovine) 5 mg *
@janelle525 I can speak for myself? Not really necessary to make these kind of comments. And you have a habit of doing stuff like this such as when you tweeted GS about something Jessica said.
Its like me saying oh and @janelle525 eats Ice Cream regularly which you do.
Every time I have gone through phases of eating lots of ice cream my health slowly declines. Where as with taking the Para Pack and the other mineral balancing supplements I have only seen improvements. So go figure..
It was actually a binge of ice cream eating 2 weeks ago ( I was eating two tubs a day for a few days), which felt great at the time until I had numbness and tingling in my legs by the end of it and felt lower metabolism from all the constant blood sugar spikes which prompted me to do that prolonged water fast that I found helpful.
So yeah rather than always bringing up I take a TEI supplement that has Vitamin A every time on here like its terrible, try TEIs programme for 3 months yourself first and I can bet you it will improve your health compared to what you're doing now with the ice cream and stuff.
I was making note that it doesn't appear you are here due to vitamin A toxicity stuff. Which is fine, you are free to post here. But it appears this forum has attracted people who don't really care about vitamin A toxicity. I'm unsure why. Maybe you are curious to see how it pans out. This thread itself isn't even about vitamin A anymore! I'm not 100% on board with vitamin A is always a toxin, but I do think people get plenty of 'fresh' retinol if they are eating animal foods, and to purposefully get more via supps or liver is crazy to me, I think that experiment is clearly a disaster for a lot of people. Also another reason I will never take vitamin A is that it oxidizes easily, it's not a stable substance so how can you put so much trust in a pill bottle? Have you done any research on this anhydroretinol thing? Or are you just going to trust TEI?
And why are you still binging on ice cream if the program is so successful? I don't feel the need to binge on dairy, I eat maximum 5 oz a day, never any more than that. That is the only dairy other than a pat of butter I have been eating. I don't even want cheese anymore, but unsure if my health is better since going lower in dairy I've ever been my entire life. It's the fat that I think can be an issue with dairy, same issue I have with sausage. Just clogs up the system if you are a slow oxidizer. Meat and starch/veggies and maybe a little lower fat cheese, is probably the healthiest diet for slow oxidizers, but as you have demonstrated, hard to stick to, so like someone said on my log, probably better to give yourself some leeway so that you don't binge.
@janelle525 I was here originally for the Vit A toxicity stuff as I did have bad Vit A toxicity from eating too many carrots nearly 2 years ago now, but I'm still interested in the topics suggested here. I have also never believed Vit A is a toxin right from the get go.
I might have explained this to you about 5 times already, but the whole point of the TEI supplements for slow oxidisers is to raise the oxidation rate, get the thyroid and adrenal glands working properly, so that the body now has the energy to start detoxing heavy metals and raise NA & K levels in the cells. It's not about getting extra Vitamin A from the supplement I don't know how many times I need to say this to you, I could eat some high Vitamin A foods without any TEI supplements vs taking the Parapack that has Vit A and they are not comparable. TEI are getting the thyroid to start working again with their supplements so that the Vit A is actually used properly and working as it should be. Before TEI my thyroid area felt as a hard a rock and on TEI my thyroid feels soft and that also resembles the changes in energy I had too.
A lot of your concerns seem to be fear based, and this is what happens when you're mainly exposed to only negative stuff about Vitamin A. About Vit A oxidising easily, well with no oxidation you have no immune system so we need oxidation, this is why we have an antioxidant system to balance things. What TEI are doing with their program is they are improving your body's own Antioxdant systems and improving the rate of oxidation in the body at the same time. Once they are both working better then the amount of Vit A in their supplement really doesn't become an issue.
Why do I still binge on ice cream sometimes, well it happens for a few reasons, mainly because when I'm in the shop I see some ice cream and think oh that would be nice (without any huge craving for it) so I buy it, but I have an addictive personality and I can't really stop myself from eating the whole tub at once, which is really bad. Then sometimes after eating one tub, I get huge cravings for more and more tubs in the next days like some drug addict. Other times when I've eaten too much red meat I crave calcium to block some of the iron so that would be another time where I eat ice cream. And lastly lets say I'm going through a detox reaction on TEI with heavy metals coming out, this can raise my glutamate levels and be quite stressful so sometimes I will crave ice cream in one of these detox reactions to feel more relaxed. But I would say now I'm barely having any ice cream compared to last summer, where I was stupidly binging like crazy.
Ok well thats good your eating only 5oz a day I can't see any major issues arising from that.