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Carnivore and Bile Acid Malabsorption
The sandpaper skin definitely sounds like Vitamin A toxicity. Judy Cho interviewed someone who was on carnivore and appeared to have gotten Vitamin A toxicity from eating liver, and she reported having very rough sandpaper-like skin from the toxicity.
I'm really not sure about measuring copper. @jiri has spoken out a lot about how to test for it, you might consider what they have to say on the subject. It seems like measuring nutrient levels in the blood is a total crapshoot. Sometimes the results are relevant and actionable, but it seems like they're more often unhelpful and confusing. I just had a HTMA test done and I'm waiting to consult with the guy I ordered it from (Rick Malter, who was on Judy Cho's podcast). I'm skeptical of how accurate the HTMA test is, but I figured I'd go ahead and do one so I could compare the results with serum and Spectracell MNT results I got at the same time. If it is accurate, the HTMA might be a good way to investigate copper:zinc balance. I'll try to report on the comparison once I've gotten Malter's interpretation.
Insulin resistance to the point of weight gain on a carnivore diet seems pretty unlikely to me. Again, my own experience with Vitamin A detox and carnivore/meat-based has been weight loss, not gain. Unfortunately, there's hardly anybody else I've come across who stuck with a carnivore diet when intentionally going low Vitamin A to detox. In fact, aside from you, the only one I'm sure of who's commented on this thread a few times is @shaun, maybe they have something to contribute to your questions.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on April 20, 2022, 2:46 pmInsulin resistance to the point of weight gain on a carnivore diet seems pretty unlikely to me.
I agree with this. The only possible ways I could see weight gain on carnivore is:
Overeating by significant amounts, especially if coming from a calorie-restricted diet (which is not the case here)Increasing toxicity (like that from high doses of vA) that could promote fat production as a means of storing the toxin "spillover" from what the liver can store/deal with (probably not the case here)- Detoxing toxins from the liver (and other tissue) too quickly (similar reasoning as above; a possibility in this case?)
Some odd hormonal imbalances that may happen during a transition phase when starting carnivore (again, not the case here)- A super-high protein carnivore diet that lacks adequate fat intake (<65% calories from fat); while I do not think gluconeogenesis is an issue and hyped up more than it should be in the carnivore community as a concern, I think it can become an issue over the long run if you are not supplying the body with adequate fat intake as a primary fuel source (not sure if this can be an issue in this case)
Those are my thoughts, at least. Feel free to disagree; I like to hear other people's views. I am neither pro nor against carnivore and will not tell someone to stop doing what is working for them. I definitely believe in the toxicity of plants, as I myself discovered I had an issue with oxalates. I have even tried the carnivore diet and had a good experience in terms of how I felt, but got freaked out by some blood tests after 3 months on the diet.
I believe meat is optimal food for humans, but while I am going through my vA detox journey, I am currently sticking with lean red meat and white rice as a main source of calories. Once my blood levels of vA drop to 20 ug/dL or lower, I plan to give a muscle-meat only carnivore diet another try. I hope by then that my liver can handle the high fat intake. I do have some concerns with high fat diets long term and their effect on liver health, but I can be convinced otherwise; I'm still learning.
I would also add genetics but with some trepidation because many will say that we don’t yet know genetics enough to match it to the best or worse diet.
My report states that I should avoid saturated fats due to weight gain issues. True or false - it seems to be exactly what happened. I was down to 400g of fatty meat per day and still gaining. But it could have been all the liver and vit. A as well. Who knows…
The majority of people who come to the VA detox table want to loose weight, and they often do. I think this is a good example of how people should approach weight loss: not "cut back on calories" but instead "cut back on toxins". From your diet, from your body.
I've always believed there was more going on to weight loss/gain than calories in, calories out, and toxicity is one of those issues. There are others, too, like thyroid and blood sugar and the fact that some weight gain isn't even fat, it's myxedema.
I'm betting that many people loose weight here because their thyroid/adrenal balance is just working so much better. And it could be that I was kind of "highish thyroid" before (it's all relative)
I'm one of those who didn't come to the VA detox table wanting to loose weight, and strangely enough I didn't loose, I gained weight. But I don't think I'm overweight. I'll leave it for my body to sort out. I was probably supposed to be this weight, if I had been sleeping good, not puking all the time, etc.
Quote from Nina on April 20, 2022, 12:46 amWith the weight: I'm not overweight by any means and I probably needed a little more weight. But it is strange that I all of a sudden gain weight (and fat) with the same foods I stayed very lean before. In the past I could eat all the protein in the world and nothing happened. I wonder if maybe inflammation plays a role here? It could increase cortisol which leads to more insulin resistance and thus causes weight gain. Is that possible?
Organ meats are very lean, you are probably eating more fat/calories now you are have replaced them with muscle meat cuts. Also coffee will suppress hunger so you could be eating more now that you have removed it.
@wavygravygadzooks your comments about heart and taurine are really interesting, i use to eat a tonne of heart along with liver and kidney, when i went low vit A carnivore i also stopped eating heart. i have recently started eating beef and pig heart again and have seen an up tick in the incidence of diarrhea. Isn't turkey also very high in taurine? did you notice the same affects with that?
Quote from Shaun on April 25, 2022, 8:40 am
...i use to eat a tonne of heart along with liver and kidney, when i went low vit A carnivore i also stopped eating heart. i have recently started eating beef and pig heart again and have seen an up tick in the incidence of diarrhea. Isn't turkey also very high in taurine? did you notice the same affects with that?
I ate beef heart last week for three days and had worse sleep, excessive urination and gained weight. I lost the weight by dropping the heart and going back to beef muscle meat only, in the form of flanken-cut short ribs. Both the heart and the short ribs were grain-finished, to my knowledge. The heart was from a local supermarket chain and the short ribs were from Whole Foods.
I also did a SpectraCell micronutrient test and won't worry more about micronutrients until the results come back.
Very interesting. Yes, I do believe (based on my food journal and mental recollection) that the few times I've eaten turkey and chicken on my low Vitamin A diet, it's made my GI symptoms worse, including diarrhea. I'm pretty sure most of that taurine is in the dark meat.
I think I'm getting close to distinguishing which cuts of beef have more taurine based on when I get hydrogen sulfide gas. Aside from heart, it seems like the arm roasts might be the next richest source, which makes sense if taurine is highest in muscles that get used all the time - you'd expect to see that in the big leg muscles (which is also where all the dark meat is on chickens and turkeys).
I'm always grateful to hear about your experiences since they seem to mirror mine pretty closely. Please do comment whenever you think you have anything even remotely interesting to say!
I'll be curious to hear what your Spectracell test says.
I've had two of them about 2 years apart, the most recent one being at the beginning of this year. Strangely, the first one said I was slightly low in Vitamin A even though I was obviously toxic from it at the time, and the more recent one said I had improved my Vitamin A status even though I'd been avoiding it almost entirely for 1.5 years! That has made me very skeptical of the test.
It also said I was super deficient in zinc despite eating a very high protein mostly carnivore diet for the previous 1.5 years AND supplementing up to 30 mg of zinc regularly for months prior to the test...it seems like there's no possible way I could be deficient in zinc. A serum test at the same time showed zinc at the upper threshold of reference range, and I had been getting a metallic taste in my mouth that went away when I stopped supplementing zinc.