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Anthropology, appropriate diets, and Vitamin A questions
I wonder how the men here feel about the actual effects on their hormones, that would mean much more than a study.
Test results but also intuitive over-all feeling. I think a guy knows when things are staying the same, getting worse or getting better (in that department).
Thank you to everyone that commented here. The past week has been a whirlwind and a flury of learning with lots of emotions. I have eliminated Vitamin A from my diet and started a thread in the progress/logs section. Thanks again!
Hello!
Hi Luke.
I recently found this site, and I binged reading a ton of information available here. I really respect and admire the intellectual curiosity by both the author and individuals commenting in this forum. Over the past 10 years, I have naturally recovered my health from shambles. In order to heal and escape from the allopathic hell hole, I had to learn...a lot. I've spent thousands of hours reading books, studies, research articles, and especially enjoy learning about evolutionary biology. I've tried essentially every diet, supplement, lifestyle intervention, etc.
I can relate, I've been researching in my spare time for the last 20 years. I have followed a low vitamin A diet that includes all food groups except dairy for 2.5 years. I take no supplements.
I've settled on a meat based nose-to-tail diet, egg yolks, fruit, and honey. That is essentially all I eat, and what I believe to be the most accurate interpretation of what our ancestors consumed pre Agricultural Revolution (and what the last remaining tribes eat like the Hazda). My UC and Celiac are completely in remission, and don't have any obvious health problems.
I've posted evidence here of paleolithic grain consumption and significant grain consumption by hunter gatherers. It's likely grain consumption was widespread which makes sense of course, it makes far less sense that farmers began consuming a food group that was not already a part of their diet. Hadza may not consume grain but they do go to effort to consume starch from tubers and seeds. The "paleo diet" is based on false assumptions, the only new food group to the human diet in the neolithic was dairy.
I consume beef liver 3-4 times a week which is very high in Vitamin A compounds. I have many carnivore friends that do the same thing. We have all had positive effects since starting the diet. The concept that this may be unhealthy for me is concerning for sure. I have a couple questions that I hope some of ya'll can answer. I ask these questions not to argue or debate, but merely to understand an opposing viewpoint, to learn, and perhaps if the argument is compelling enough, to change my diet. Ultimately, I think we all just want to follow the diet best for our bodies, and I love that even after 10 years I am still learning. So please help me learn!
From an evolutionary biology perspective, humans are omnivores but preferentially consumed meat. Our ancestors typically used the entire animal carcass, and nothing was wasted. If animals organs are high in Vitamin A, and humans have been consuming them for millennia (before the advent of things like obesity, diabetes, metabolic abnormalities, etc.), how can we justify excluding organ meats from the diet? Especially for strict carnivores (like lions, or wild dogs) who consume very large amounts of Vitamin A daily? Why would it be toxic for us but not for them?
Carnivores have shorter intestines, lower transit times and a greater ability to excrete preformed vitamin A. As omnivores, it's probably more of a challenge for bears to excrete vitamin A, in the arctic polar bears evolved the ability to store extremely high amounts in their liver rather than or along with the ability to efficiently excrete it.
The extent to which nothing was wasted I think was dependent on food scarcity. I've read stories of hunter gatherers being very wasteful in times of plenty. Some native american groups had knowledge of vitamin A deficiency and understood that liver was a cure for night blindness just as the ancient Egyptians and other ancient civilizations knew of this remedy. If liver consumption was universal among hunter gatherers then no North American hunter gatherer groups should have ever encountered a need for this knowledge. In the Middle Ages it is said that butchers were sent to European villages to teach people nose to tail eating as a frugal measure hinting that the custom of eating a variety of organ meats was a learned measure to counter food scarcity. Humble Pie was designed as a way to make use of liver and make it more palatable for consumption, it was a food for the poorest in society. Personally, I've always been extremely averse to kidney or liver as a food, I have strong instincts to avoid them.
While I think there is a lot of merit in looking at things from a paleolithic perspective it's important to realize that significant genetic adaptations to diet have occurred since the paleolithic, lactase persistence is a commonly known one. The fact is is that historically since the beginning of the Neolithic at least, the diet of most people in society has been low in vitamin A. Only relatively recently was VAD a common health issue, most of the world is still following a low vitamin A diet, the median Mexican intake is one fifth of the RDA for example. This makes adaptations to vitamin A scarcity possible and means that many of us may much more easily develop Hypervitaminosis A than others. Studies have even shown large variation in vitamin A tolerance among siblings.
I am very skeptical of synthetic vitamins. Especially ones that stored in the body for long periods of time. For example, I recently discovered the dangers of D3 (cholecalciferol) & its role in calcification. It is essentially a movement similar to this one with Vitamin A where the foundational science behind the specific molecule is being questioned. However, Vitamin D compounds exist naturally in animal foods, & cultures & people have consumed them for thousands of years. Vitamin D & Vitamin A are both a class of molecules. I see the hubris and faulty logic of ingesting an isolated synthetic compound in that class of molecules instead of through a food matrix. In a food matrix, you get it all in specific ratios that act on biology in unique ways. Is there a chance that only synthetic Vitamin A is toxic? Why or why not?
There are different enantiomers and isomers present in synthethic vitamins so there are differences. There may be even more subtle differences that are undetectable to science due to the way vitamins are manufactured. Two store vitamins that are not synthetic are vitamin D and B12. Hypervitaminosis A can easily occur in the absence of synthetic vitamin A.
Any clarity someone could provide here would be much appreciated. It is scary to think Vitamin A and all molecules it encompasses are toxic.
There's no controversy about the toxicity of EXCESS vitamin A.
Thanks in advance!
I saw you mention in another thread about K2 and tooth decay. I have previously posted about the importance of focusing on K2:A ratio in foods rather than just the amount of K2 in a given food. Elevated retinoic acid levels are very antagonistic to K2. Lard has a good K2:A ratio and is what I use to cook with. Meat in general has a good K2:A ratio. Butter has a poor K2:A ratio.
Quote from tim on September 2, 2021, 11:28 am.... Some native american groups had knowledge of vitamin A deficiency and understood that liver was a cure for night blindness just as the ancient Egyptians and other ancient civilizations knew of this remedy. If liver consumption was universal among hunter gatherers then no North American hunter gatherer groups should have ever encountered a need for this knowledge....
Quote from lil chick on September 5, 2021, 6:49 amQuote from tim on September 2, 2021, 11:28 am.... Some native american groups had knowledge of vitamin A deficiency and understood that liver was a cure for night blindness just as the ancient Egyptians and other ancient civilizations knew of this remedy. If liver consumption was universal among hunter gatherers then no North American hunter gatherer groups should have ever encountered a need for this knowledge....
Ack! sorry about the double post, don't know why, but my browser won't let me edit the one above. Anywho, just because liver fixes something, it doesn't necessarily mean it is because of the vitamin A. There are loads of other good things in liver! But yes, I've read that story too. And also there was one about actually eating eyes (of fish and things) to help regain sight after times of low nutrition. (for instance, after trying to live off of hard tack for an extended period).
There is a logic to "like cures like". Will eating liver help your liver, or eating eyes help your eyes? There is a thread on tripe. Does the person who has a taste for tripe have a special need the building blocks of a stomach?
But still and all, a very good post @tim-2, glad to hear from you!
It seems to me that one of the reasons we (as a society) are all so confused about retinoids being healthy is that they often arrive along with other important actual vitamins and fatty acids that we need.
But it could be that VA is just an interloper that isn't easy to avoid, even in the "best" of diets and remedies.
This is an interesting video that just dropped about how the races began by admixes of various strains of bipedal primates with vastly different skeletal features (that began widely geographically apart) that mixed and remixed over and over. Not at all one brand of human from one place that just spread out like a tree. I think what it tells us is there are many different evolutionary eco-systems that our genes may harken back to. It's no wonder we're confused about what to eat.
Clickbait thumbnail. Overpromise and underdeliver.
Quote from Hermes on February 10, 2024, 10:35 amClickbait thumbnail. Overpromise and underdeliver.
Hi @christian, Did you watch it? I do agree the thumbnail might be overly titilating. hahaha. Isn't she gorgeous? They don't makem like that anymore. You know when I watch old movies I can't help but think that people had much less visceral fat.
I thought it was very interesting and he had quotes from experts who have backed off of the the "out of Africa" theory due to current genetic testing.
I also like how he ramped up by talking about other species, for instance, tigers vs lions. I think they are a good example. Old fashioned taxonomy of course lumps them together because they look alike, they can have offspring together etc. But they have evolved in different eco-systems and have different musculature, bone structures and social mores.
I also especially like the comments about sweating and how sweating sets hominids apart from other primates. So any art you see of "the missing link" being covered with fur... is just bunk. Man isn't just a bipedal ape.
Oh well, Rober Sepehr isn't for everyone, but I've always liked his vids. I'm a longtime fan so the thumbnail doesn't scare me. I think it's kind of funny actually. IMO what Grant is to medicine, he is to anthropology. I like outside-the-box.
Not the outfit I would choose for cave days hahaha
Hi @lil-chick, of course she's gorgeous. That's the whole point. Now, did that make me want to watch the video? Not really. My brain is in swamp mode right now. Thanks for summerizing some key points that piqued your interest. As for the outfits: I don't think you had much of a choice back then but to walk around like a primordial Baywatch babe. I assume all the guys were hunks, too. Paradise lost!