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Cassava Diet
Cassava is a staple in many countries. It is very low in VA and supplies starch and micronutrients however it is high in thiocyanates and causes goiter in low iodine areas. The clip below is of a man that claims to have been incarcerated in a Madagascar jail for many years where they feed only cassava to the prisoners, one meal per day of boiled cassava. To be honest I don't understand how they survive on that, they should all have goiter, a lot of them must buy some other food or die. The interesting thing about this man is despite suffering extremely harsh conditions and suffering from malnutrition he has a full head of mostly black hair, he claims to be over 70. He has probably never had much VA in a long time yet he does have some graying indicating graying is not solely caused by VA, VA probably just greatly accelerates the damage that causes it. Clip of the old man is at 30:44
Old man with severe greying and male pattern baldness from West Papua where they eat mostly sweet potatoes. Native people living on traditional diets are not immune to this.
Maasai Warrior, they eat a lot of dairy.
Yes I agree VA problems aren't just a European/Asian issue as I was musing it may be. The post I wrote about mice-that-get-lupus made me start to throw out that theory. I'm starting to think it happens when you have various VA-stingy genes coming down your family tree on multiple sides. And of course, even if you aren't "stingy" with VA you can probably still get overloaded if you eat more VA than your burn rate.
I do want to point out that both men appear to have pretty good facial (not pinched) development. Perhaps showing that they were not VA toxic during growth? Or perhaps facial tightening was just not how it expressed in their case. I feel that it does express that way in my family. (I remember once Judy pondering if VA toxicity is a thing that creeps up on many in old age and is naturally part of what limits your life span.)
When I was looking into lupus this week I read a breakdown by race and it was surprising to me that this particular auto-immune disease is "is two to three times more prevalent among women of color—African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders—than among Caucasian women.[3] Recent research indicates that lupus affects 1 in 537 young African American women."
It also appears to be more rare in men. "Over 90 percent of people with lupus are women between the ages of 15 and 45. " (Oh look, the fertile years. As most women here would agree, hormones make VA problems worse)
As we know, though, "lupus" is only one of a long list of aggravations that VA can cause. (if you ask me, it's more of a "catch-all" diagnosis) I suppose VA overload symptoms arise differently in men than women, with some overlap of course. The singer Seal is an example of a male person of color with lupus: "Not only did DLE cause Seal's cheek scars, but he had significant scalp involvement, causing hair loss." According to Wikipedia, Seal has a Nigerian mother, and Afro-Brazilian father.
Not all men will get male pattern baldness with high VA! Hubs has the same amount of hair as 3 people on his head, and has had eczema his whole life. His grayness increased steeply in the last few years though.
I know a young girl who began to get migraines at about 12 (onset of fertility) and she also lost a lot of hair. I think my hair has seen thinning due to VA and I barely have any eye lashes. So hair loss isn't just a male thing. I do have more nasal hair than is strictly necessary though. (just as an aside, I had my first migraine about that age too)