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Brooke Goldner: Goodbye Autoimmune
Quote from lil chick on February 10, 2024, 7:25 amThere was the smoker study in which it was shown that outcomes were worse with the beta carotene, and the sweet potato eaters who end up blind and handicapped.
Personally, I've seen itchyness with foods that are orange as they come through the pipes. As I've said before I think pigments in general are problematic. I think that is why we convert them, to make them not-pigments. So they don't dye our cells like the plastic tub that holds your spaghetti.
I remember that smoker study. What is interesting is that smoking causes carotenes to be cleaved in random spots, rendering them null, converting them to retinol, thus skewing the beta-carotene:retinol ratio more to the retinol side. Beta-carotene seems to be more anti-inflammatory and antioxidant while retinol seems to be more inflammatory/immune stimulating. Again, the ratio may be what the body strives to have to have the best of both compounds. Not sure about it, just thoughts.
Yes, mine are just thoughts too.
I have noticed that people have distinct amounts of urges for these foods. They don't really want to eat butternut squash every day.
Believe me, I've tried to get my family to think of butternut squash foundational food, ain't no one got time for that hahaha.
Most years I had shelves and shelves of it.
Butter, on the other hand... IS a lifestyle haha
Quote from lil chick on February 10, 2024, 8:45 amYes, mine are just thoughts too.
I have noticed that people have distinct amounts of urges for these foods. They don't really want to eat butternut squash every day.
Believe me, I've tried to get my family to think of butternut squash foundational food, ain't no one got time for that hahaha.
Most years I had shelves and shelves of it.
Butter, on the other hand... IS a lifestyle haha
Maybe (if people listen to their tastes, as many actually do) its somewhat self regulating. Hey, peaches! Eats one, is done for the year. One piece of carrot cake, done for the year. etc. You don't see people buying up pumpkin pie like they do chocolate chip cookies.
Of course, tell them over and over that carrots fix their eyes and they will override their instincts.
The foundational fruits and veggies that make up the vast lexicon of cooking... are not orange.
Tomatoes though... (a new-world veg)... they do end up in many foods in the American diet, and we talked about that nutrition guru who grew up in a pizza shop who got lupus young. I get the urge for sauce pretty regularly...it appeals to the taste buds. Carotene is only one of the bad veg toxins we are talking about with tomatoes. Of course El has told us that it might be that it has come good things too. Perhaps many of these foods are dual edged swords.
Of course, when it comes to beta carotene we are always talking about foods that have other veg toxins (and nutrients too) coming along for the ride.
Jalal et al. [121] showed that the excessive growth of Proteobacteria, harmful bacteria, led to the damage of the mucosal epithelial cells and an increase in the permeability of the intestine, which provoked a decrease in the absorption of carotenoids. Another study, that used colonic fecal samples, showed that new compounds were generated during the fermentation of carotenoids by the intestinal microbiota, indicating that carotenoids were metabolized [122]. Although the absorption of carotenoids can be different depending on the individual [123], the studies mentioned before indicated that the composition of the intestinal microbiota has an important influence on the absorption and metabolism of carotenoids [120].
Other studies revealed that the composition of the intestinal microbiota can be regulated through dietary carotenoid supplementation such as lycopene, which inhibits the reproduction of Proteobacteria and promotes the growth of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, maintaining the harmony of intestinal immunity and mitigating the symptoms caused by anxiety and dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis and depression [124]. Astaxanthin has been associated with a relief of inflammation and a decrease in lipid accumulation, through a decrease in Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria abundance and an increase in the population density of Verrucomicrobiota and Akkermansia sp. [125].
Supplementation with β-carotene also increased the abundance of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria and decreased the abundance of harmful bacteria such as Dialister and Enterobacter, which corroborates the positive effects of this carotenoid in intestinal health [120]. In addition, a dose of administered β-carotene also influenced the composition of the intestinal microbiota, since low and medium doses increased the abundance of Bifidobacterium and Collinsella strains and high doses increased the abundance of Lactobacillus strains [120].
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10220829/
Results: β-Carotene reduced LPS-induced intestinal inflammation in colonic epithelial cells. β-Carotene also promoted the levels of tight junction proteins, which might lead to enhanced barrier function.
Conclusions: β-Carotene could play a role in modulating the LPS-induced TLR4 signaling pathway and in enhancing tight junction proteins. The findings will shed light on the role of β-carotene in colonic inflammation and also potentially in metabolic disorders since higher levels of LPS might induce features of metabolic diseases.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.723480/full
Polyphenols, carotenoids, antioxidants are poorly absorbed by the body (unless oil is added with carotenoids) but influence the microbiome, many in positive ways. I feel the hysteria is overblown.
Quote from Jessica2 on February 10, 2024, 4:13 pmI want to reiterate here that just because you ate carrots or sweet potatoes and your palms turned orange...in no way does that mean you are "toxic" or that your liver function is suffering or that you damaged your liver.
In this case study, the man with carotenemia had normal liver function and the yellow color went away after a month. Now many sources say that it could indicate hypothyroidism and that's important I think but it doesn't >cause< hypothyroidism.
https://www.cureus.com/articles/21858-carotenemia-a-case-report#!/
A certain doctor would like ones to believe that if you ever got orange like that, you will be toxic for years to come, as if the body has to convert the beta-carotene to retinol and go down that metabolism route. Beta-carotene seems to be much less acutely damaging as the conversion seems to be much more restrained and can be dumped unchanged into the bile, and then eaten by the microbes.
The crux of the theory was that the body absorbs beta-carotene by default and has to convert it to retinal in order to eliminate it from the body. Well, beta-carotene excreted in the bile throws a massive wrench in the theory, IMO.
Also, on the list of eczema triggers, why would it be constrained to a few beta-carotene containing foods? Wouldn't practically all of them be listed if beta-carotene was the culprit?
Quote from Jessica2 on February 10, 2024, 6:09 pm@armin Yeah a certain doctor likes to conflate jaundice with turning orange from carrots or sweet potatoes. I think that's a bit hysterical and certainly misleading.
good point about the eczema lists, are carrots, sweet potatoes, and spinach even on the list of eczema triggers?
On many lists are wheat, avocadoes, and grapes (!) Which are low carotenoids:
Yes, and where is kale, cantaloupe, peaches, pumpkin, chard, mango, papaya, squash, kelp, peas, etc?
For me, milk and dairy products have been my triggers. It has been 2 years since I've had eczema and that was coming from eating dairy, after a year of cutting out beta-carotene.
I think it is the cooking of retinol containing foods that potentially turn it into retinoic acid, because we know that retinoic acid overload and accutane can wreck ones.
My mind puts anything with any type of VA into "the VA basket". A "VA basket" food has to to be pretty delicious for me to eat it.
@anon33 Since I posted about Dr. Goldner here last summer, I’ve been following some of her advice (eliminating oils, eating lots of flaxseed and cruciferous veggies) and reading the anecdotes shared in her private Facebook Group. There are many people seeing remarkable recoveries on her program and thriving for years, but some members also report continued sensitivities to certain fruits and vegetables (in some cases, carotenoid foods: mangoes, sweet potatoes, in others, oxalate foods: spinach, chocolate, or high histamine foods: avocados, bananas), and when this happens, Dr. Goldner advises removing fruit from the diet until the sensitivities improve. There was also an unfortunate case of an individual who ended up in the hospital from oxalate poisoning due to drinking spinach smoothies every day for a few months. 😕
It’s important to emphasize that Dr. Goldner says patients must avoid all foods high in omega 6 (including that found in whole foods like nuts and seeds) in order to recover.
Grant doesn’t eat much omega 6, either, and I recall him mentioning he did have ground flaxseed for the first year or so of his experiment. In one of his books, I think he mentions the omega 6/3 ratio—or at least excess PUFA consumption—and wonders if that could be one piece of the autoimmune disease puzzle.
In this article for Hormones Matter, dietician Meredith Arthur says MUFAs and PUFAs (I dunno if she means omega 9, 6 and 3? Probably?) increase the conversion of beta carotene into retinaldehyde:
https://www.hormonesmatter.com/oxalate-a-potential-contributor-to-hypervitaminosis-a/
Could this be one reason those who are strictly avoiding MUFAs/PUFAs in favor of saturated fat feel better doing so?
Now, though I agree with @armin in theory, my experience does lead me to believe too much beta carotene can cause serious problems. I do not personally feel beta carotene is a poison, though.
When I was a kid, I ate carrot juice powder on my oatmeal porridge instead of sugar. This wasn’t nearly as disastrous for me as Cod Liver Oil would later turn out to be, but I believe it did set me up to be more sensitive to retinol later... This is why I think that turning orange, while arguably much safer than taking accutane, isn’t benign: some may remember I have posted here a few times about lipofuscin, a pigment of aging, which I had in my sweat since I was quite young. Now, this is important, because it wasn’t just me. Others of my family members eating the carrot juice powder and drinking the fresh carrot juice, who turned orange from doing so, also had lipofuscin in their sweat (and serious health problems of their own). And they were not drinking Cod Liver Oil. That’s really quite alarming, eh?
If you look at the image in Meredith’s article above, you see that excess retinaldehyde can potentially produce lipofuscin.
And it seems individuals who have genetic weaknesses with regards to their ability to produce the appropriate enzymes necessary to metabolize vitamin A efficiently would have more problems with this:
http://weakthereforestrong.com/altered-vitamin-a-metabolism-and-neurological-decline/
I have thought for a while that is makes sense beta carotene would generally be beneficial when consumed in whole foods, for most people, but since I still can’t eat watermelon without breaking out in a rash I don’t think it’s entirely harmless, either.
Context is everything.
As @lil-chick always reminds us, we should remember there are many environmental toxins. Antibiotics seem to have led to increased oxalate sensitivity. Growing up surrounded by glyphosate didn’t help my lipofuscin situation, and I think glyphosate must be hurting most of us now that it’s contaminating our food supply as much as it is. Would beta carotene cause as many problems if glyphosate weren’t dirtying up our genes? I’d like to hope not.
Quote from lil chick on February 11, 2024, 7:28 amMy mind puts anything with any type of VA into "the VA basket". A "VA basket" food has to to be pretty delicious for me to eat it.
I'm more interested in how carotenoids could be useful to the microbiome when they aren't absorbed by the body. Other than avocados, they all seem to be absent of fat, therefore not being naturally absorbed.