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Carnivore and Bile Acid Malabsorption
I personally got bile acid issues on carnivore only when consuming too much rendered fat. If I had my steaks on the leaner side and consumed the fat raw on the side, I could easily eat 150g+ of fat in one sitting with no issues.
@rockarolla Another problem with such a study is that you need way more specificity in order to draw any tangible conclusion. Were the rats fed that fat in an isocaloric, hypocaloric or hypercaloric diet? What did the macronutrient profile look like? Did they subtract from anywhere else to make room for that fat, and what food were the macronutrients coming from? If we had access to the full study, some of these questions might get answered, but you can get sick feeding anyone any nutrient, be it macro or micro, provided you tweak the variables unfavorably.
Grant's entire rant about the studies 'proving' vitamin A deficiency as a real thing, when they were fed retinoic acid via casein, corn and lard, is a perfect example of this.
My take on the carnivore approach is antireductionist in the sense that it is based on the idea that we cannot [currently] explain why people thrive on it longterm when it appears to be deficient in some nutrients. People claiming that we should eat plants as a necessary part of nutrition are using a reductionist approach to support their claims (i.e. if you add up all the numbers from a nutritional database and your daily intake equals the RDA, then you're good to go). When you look at values for bloodwork, they're being compared to knowledge from dietary science that is derived from a population of people that routinely consume plants in their diet. That doesn't necessarily mean that values that go out of normal range on a carnivore diet are OK, but if we haven't studied human physiology on a carnivore diet much, then we really can't say too conclusively what values may change without corresponding symptoms or health problems. Do you have symptoms of folate deficiency outside of the lab markers?
I haven't tried to put on weight since I've been on a carnivore diet, but my weight has been healthy and stable the entire time. Homo sapiens look to be a species that's built to run, and extra muscle mass doesn't do you any good for running. The images of hunter-gatherers (who eat a traditional diet) I've seen show them to have appropriate muscular builds for individuals that have to move around a lot to get their food. Humans are entirely dependent on tools, and when it comes to getting meat the old-fashioned way, that involved throwing or jabbing prey from a distance, not grappling with it by hand to subdue it.
I'm not sure it fits your scenario, but have you considered whether functional iron deficiency might explain your iron/RBC status? Paul Mason does a good job explaining how inflammation in the body can result in functional iron deficiency that resembles anemia.
My iron panel has been the same ever since I was like 8 yrs old, it hasn't been responsive to diet whatsoever, I just mentioned it in relation to hemoglobin in case you'd attribute it to anemia.
I agree that RDA's are, for the most part, a distraction and could actually do more harm than good. In fact, I personally started to feel worse on any diet variation I've been on when trying to adjust for RDA's obsessively, that's why I even brought up how it would make sense to me that a lower folate intake might not be problematic on a carnivore diet. But I won't risk a deficiency as I watch my blood panel levels go down, especially when I haven't even managed to address my health issues with that kind of diet.
The whole rendered fat thing has confused me a bit when reading about people's experiences on carnivore. Isn't rendered fat basically just fat that's been removed from the biological matrix (protein-based?) that it's held in? When I chew on a piece of beef fat, it feels like I'm releasing fat globules from a matrix that is often unchewable. This is effectively like eating rendered fat, isn't it? It's just harder to get a giant mouthful of fat when it's contained in a matrix of material.
I will say that much liquid fat, whether it's from cooked ground beef or rendered tallow that's been heated, makes me feel momentarily nauseous, which I find interesting. If I eat the same fat cold, no nausea. Makes me wonder if we have some kind of built in mechanism to prevent us eating a bunch of liquid fat for some reason (saturated animal fat that is not rendered is rarely in completely liquid form, whereas unsaturated fats liquify readily, leading me to wonder if it's somehow our bodies rejecting large quantities of unsaturated fats).
What were the bile acid problems you experienced?
It could be the lack of lipase, but then raw fat would be just as problematic.
My guess is that rendered fat could be partially oxidized.
But your theory could also work, since the body starts to produce bile as soon as it senses you eat fat, so rendered fat would act as a spike in the production of bile, whereas raw fat would probably take a while to stimulate that same response. In other words, it could be akin to the difference between eating a whole fruit and juicing it when it comes to insulin.
My bile issues would be diarrhea about 1 hour after eating, which would continue for about 2-3hrs. This would be accompanied by some bloat and sewage noises lmao.
I've been getting diarrhea almost every day for months now, usually in the morning around the time I eat breakfast. Sounds like it might be different from what you experience though. The almost clockwork action of my GI symptoms has led me to believe that it is a result of eliminating Vitamin A in the colon.
I get a fair amount of gas that wakes me up every single night around the same time (between 11:30 PM and 12:30 AM, roughly 12 hours after my first meal of the day). I have to get up and move into a variety of positions to help pass it, and then I eventually fall back asleep, but I often have a very annoying gurgling sensation that persists in my colon for the rest of the night, and then I wake up again with more gas the next morning. Then I usually get diarrhea during or after breakfast. I used to get it after dinner a lot and in the middle of the night, but lately it's more isolated to the morning.
My hypothesis is that glucuronidated Vitamin A (retinoic acid) is getting passed into the colon after being excreted from the liver in the bile. Bacteria in the colon are then breaking down the conjugates (to consume the glucuronic acid), releasing gas as a byproduct and also exposing the colon to retinoic acid, which causes irritation and results in water being drawn into the colon to try to get the retinoic acid out. The diarrhea often burns to some extent, and I very frequently see a yellow liquid (that also leaches out of solid stool), which I suspect is retinoic acid.
It seems to me many body styles aren't about running. But it is fun to think of molding a diet to the body style. I think there are body types for several different eco systems. I was a sprinter once and I see lots of people who look just plain awkward running.
I'm thinking herders were those with the long lines (like Nordic or Masai) (long, strong bones are useful in that context). Those that lived along side water or as fisher folk were more petite and fleshy (like japanese, eskimo or mediteranean). Fleshy keeps you warm when wet and afloat too!
People who lived more naturalistically (like native americans for instance) might have tended toward a robust frame. In agriculturalist societies/urban life mates might have been chosen for other things than robustness (for instance small feet in China, or tiny waist in Europe). "Style" played into genetics, and not just survival. I like to think that a "classic" modest sort of medium build has arisen out of agrictultural societies. A farmer is often a jack of all trades.
Sometimes I wonder if people from the interior of continents, for instance Poland or Russia, have lived through so many famines that they are good at storing calories. Which is the opposite of running, I suppose. 😉
I suppose that the best distance-runner body type comes from Kenja and Ethiopia, the long muscle type. The rest of the world does pretty poorly against the Kenyan and Ethiopian marathoners. And it appears West Africans have the sprinting genes.
"Classic" build
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 17, 2021, 11:06 amMy take on the carnivore approach is antireductionist in the sense that it is based on the idea that we cannot [currently] explain why people thrive on it longterm when it appears to be deficient in some nutrients.
No offense, but I dont know anybody besides Shawn Baker that thrives on it long term. And its only been 4 years for him as well and since he earns money with it, he probably wont tell anyone when he cheats. Everybody else sooner or later starts eating carbs or plants again. Look at the 180 Paul Saladino did. Some people of course are extremely fucked up and have to stay on it to just survive. But they arent thriving. And btw, the carnivore subreddit actively censors people that had bad experiences on carnivore. When I made a thread about my sebderm literally not improving at all and maybe even getting worse after 8 months carnivore, the retarded mod deleted it because in my common history I said that I sometimes ate peeled cucumbers at the beginning xD "you are not carnivore, so I delete your thread". These people are pathetic and full on liars.
And the diarrhea and gas means you are still not adapted for some reason. Dont think it has to do with vitamin A. I took accutane and ate lots of beta carotene in form of fruits and got diarrhea first when I went carnivore and that stopped within a couple of weeks. I doubt I detoxed all vitamin A so fast. Also people without vitamin A toxicity get diarrhea all the time.
I never did find the idea of the 'carnivore diet' very appealing, but the experiences you two describe here are enough to put anyone off it... 🙂 I guess some fibre would help prevent things running out of you at inconvenient times... I'm seeing improvements by lowering vit A and PUFA, without going to anything extreme.