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chickadee's rough start, and hopeful recovery
I’m actually not sure off the top of my head which nutrients support ADH and ALDH…I’m more familiar with what to avoid because it ties up those pathways (alcohol, fructose, sulfur from vegetables, supposedly excessive Vitamin C supplementation, etc.)
As far as I know, if meat is actually remaining in your stomach too long (and it’s not just a sensation of heaviness that you might mistakenly think is meat sitting in your stomach too long), the main reason is lack of stomach acid. The main reasons I’ve heard for lack of stomach acid are lack of chloride and lack of zinc. I would make sure you’re eating enough salt (you could use potassium chloride if you’re avoiding sodium for some reason), and consider supplementing zinc (not sure which form is best…I used zinc picolinate for a while but recently became aware of a Chris Masterjohn video warning against that form, and after reading the papers he cites in the video, I have to say there is something fishy about the picolinate form). It sounds like you probably benefited from Betaine HCl in the past, but you suspect it caused other problems…I would consider trying that again if zinc doesn’t help. Or you could try adding other acids to your meal, like apple cider vinegar, and see if that helps.
I’m not sure why you think lettuce helps, but I doubt it is. Any other solids or neutralizing liquids consumed with the meat are just going to dilute whatever stomach acid you have and make it harder to digest the meat.
I’ve taken just about every nutritional supplement out there over the past 5 years. I recently cut it back to almost nothing. Now I’m starting to play around with them again. I think it’s hard to go wrong supplementing with a bit of molybdenum or other trace minerals like selenium here and there, just be cautious about doing it regularly. I would put taurine very high on the list of things to try. I would very much like to try supplementing with taurine regularly, but I get wicked hydrogen sulfide gas from it, and usually diarrhea, which is probably because of an overgrowth of sulfur reducing bacteria in my colon. I keep trying to knock those buggers back with probiotics and experimenting with fermentable fibers…I wonder if I really have to just stop eating meat and stop detoxing for a period long enough to starve them out…
When I said to start slow, I meant don’t swing your diet straight into extreme low Vitamin A detox mode overnight because if you’re toxic with Vitamin A it’s going to cause some wicked symptoms when it starts coming out of the tissues.
I don’t track macros…I crave fatty meat and will eat as much animal fat as I can to the point of getting intolerable detox symptoms. I get bored of lean meat pretty fast, but I typically eat 3-4 pounds of approximately 80% lean meat per day (I’m 165 pounds and am fairly active). When I feel like I need more calories that shouldn’t come from fat, I eat white sushi rice that I soak overnight, rinse repeatedly, and then boil in excess water that gets drained off. I would bet that I am ketosis in the morning, as I usually restrict eating to between 12PM and 7PM, but I’ve never tried to measure ketones.
I think Vitamin A is a necessary nutrient just like all the rest. Aside from all of the research that’s been done on it, there’s some pretty basic logic that suggests as much…the body circulates it in the blood regularly even when you DON’T have toxicity, it’s ubiquitous in the milk of mammals as far as I know, and it is routinely stored in large quantities in the livers of animals. If it was purely toxic, we should not see any of these things…natural selection would have led to a much better solution. That being said, it’s obvious you can become toxic from excess consumed from food, supplements, or pharmaceuticals.
@saraleah11 Thank you for sharing your journey with the vitamin A detox. It seems like we can relate about the blood sugar issues. I haven't tried going that low carb for a long time. It sounds like you don't eat much fat. Do you think you're in gluconeogenesis instead of ketosis? Is your blood sugar more stable now?
I'm trying to decipher my fasting blood sugar. It's not always reliable. E.g. the morning after a day when I have fewer carbs, my fasting can be 100-110 (mg/dL). But after a high carb day, it can be more like 75-85 in the morning. Also, my blood sugar seems to spike like 30-60 min after eating. I've heard the experts say that what matters is where the blood sugar is two hours post-prandial. By then, my blood sugar is below 140. It's the first hour or so where my spike happens, and it can go up to 200 or higher if I eat the wrong thing. And then the plummet.
@wavygravygadzooks I started watching a video with Dr. Greg Nigh about sulfur per your post on @mmb3664's thread, and I feel it's relevant for me. I've known for years that cruciferous vegetables are an issue for me. I did better with them fermented, but have cut them out since starting this detox. He also mentioned glutathione, which is crazy because my naturopath has insisted on a daily regimen because it's the cure to all my woes. She's obviously not thinking about sulfur. In fact, I told her about my intense reaction to radish sprouts and that the reason I reacted was because of the sulforaphane, and she said that's what makes them so healthy. I looked at her funny and moved on. I wish I had trusted my instincts instead of continuing to believe she was guiding me towards health. I am going to dive into that info by Dr. Nigh more when I have some time, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff there. He says that most people with this problem can't tolerate garlic, even after eliminating it for a while. It makes me look at the labels of my turkey pepperoni, etc. and realize that I've been getting "healthy" junk with the poultry snacks I've been consuming.
Re: poultry in my stomach, today and yesterday I've been having plain turkey with melted ghee and Celtic sea salt. It seems to be going pretty well and sits much better with all the fat and salt, though I'm somewhat bound up bm-wise with the lack of vegetables. I couldn't believe it - I put away like 1.5 pounds of turkey yesterday. I haven't had much else with the turkey except a tiny bit of organic lettuce. I'm eating apples, grapes/raisins, and maple syrup away from the meat. Blueberries don't seem to go well, I get dizzy and tired. I'm weaning myself off chocolate and tree nuts, as I really crave fat, and stopped all coconut products. Maybe I need more ghee?
Which probiotics / fibers have you been trying? I don't agree with Dr. Garrett Smith about a lot, but one thing I heard him say on YT is something about carnivores experiencing putrefaction and to stay away from lactobacillus, and use bifidobacterium. Or maybe it was the other way around, ha. Either way, pretty sure he recommended not taking both types of strains at once except when digestion is going great. What's so great about taurine? Have you tried any antimicrobials, i.e. oil of oregano or grapefruit seed extract? (not that I recommend them, just wondering)
Ohh I thought you were 100% carnivore. When / why did you start eating rice?
I'm noticing my taste buds are changing (one of my kids says her taste buds changed when she doesn't want to eat something hahah). I thought my Berkey was broken, but I think I can taste the metal in my stainless steel water bottle. Not sure, but it's interesting.
OK, I see what you mean about vitamin A. Like why would our livers be designed to keep 2 years' worth on-hand if we don't need it at all? It's an interesting idea. And why would mothers' milk have it, etc. What are your thoughts about D3 supplementation / food sources?
Oh by the way, I didn't want to go off-topic on @mmb3664's thread. I think that magnesium does get absorbed through the skin. I think a lot of things can, like nicotine, birth control, CBD, biological weapons, etc... Why not minerals?
"Magnesium might be able to get into the lymphatic system beneath the dermis and enter the circulatory system, bypassing the regulation through the GI tract and hereby increasing serum magnesium [23,24,25]. However, we cannot yet recommend the application of transdermal magnesium." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579607/
Obviously not well-studied, but a suggestion perhaps.
"This pilot study suggests that transdermal magnesium chloride applied on upper and lower limbs may be beneficial to patients with fibromyalgia." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26343101/
As someone with fibromyalgia, I can attest to that, and I also believe we can overdo it. I recently purchased authentic Dead Sea Salt in order to soak in a more balanced ratio of minerals.
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I take it you've seen this paper? Not very well written, but it's a stab at a meta-analysis. I think the main takeaway from this and other sources of information on magnesium is that substances that are not lipid soluble do not penetrate the skin well, and are limited to entry through the hair follicles and sweat glands, which represent a miniscule area (1% I think?). Magnesium is not lipid soluble, and therefore gains entry through the hair follicles and sweat glands, which is why I said that a full body bath is going to be the best way to get it transdermally, because you can make all 1% of your body's avenues available to the magnesium in the water.
But why on earth would you bother doing this when you can absorb so much more magnesium so much faster and more efficiently by ingesting it? You have to pour cups of salt into a bath to get a small amount of magnesium, when you could probably absorb the same amount by ingesting 1/4 teaspoon. I feel like the same argument could be made for absorbing sulfur from Epsom salt.
I've gone back and forth experimenting with white rice in an attempt to moderate detox symptoms. It seems like when I eat enough fat to sustain myself on carnivore, I get unbearable detox symptoms (lately, that's gum recession and colon motility problems). I hate resorting to eating carbs, but my body needs energy and I feel like I'm still getting damaged badly with too much fat at the moment.
I don't think you're going to get much D3 from food without also getting Vitamin A. It seems like there is good evidence that D3 supplements are extremely low risk for toxicity. I would either supplement based on testing, or try using a UVB lamp like a Sperti. I've been using a Sperti for a couple years now. Unfortunately, the one time I actually tested my D levels during that time I had been taking small amounts of oral D3 recently as well, but I had pretty darn high storage levels for the middle of winter in Alaska and I would bet a lot of that came from using the lamp.
I've used a variety of antimicrobials, both individually and in concert (e.g. Biocidin). I've tried manufactured prebiotics like Megaprebiotic. Or just eating anything with fiber...I mean, any FODMAP is basically a prebiotic, and virtually every plant food contains some level of FODMAPs, so all you should really have to do is eat plant foods of some kind. Whatever path I've gone down seems to have tipped the balance towards sulfur reducing bacteria, and now that they're in place they're probably loving all the taurine they're getting from Vitamin A-bound taurine complexes as well as any little bits of undigested meat bits like gristle.
I recommend taurine because it is very important to processes in the liver, including bile salt production and detoxification. I don't seem to malabsorb other sulfur compounds in meat, otherwise I would be getting hydrogen sulfide gas every single day. Therefore, I don't understand why I would malabsorb taurine but not the others. I identified taurine as a source of symptoms by taking it in supplement form. From all that, I deduced that every bit of "extra" taurine I get from meat is quickly being used by the liver to conjugate Vitamin A and then getting pumped out in the bile, and when those taurine-Vitamin A complexes reach my colon the sulfur reducing bacteria are consuming the taurine, which creates H2S gas, and the unbound Vitamin A then angers my intestines and leads to inflammatory diarrhea.
In fact, my best current hypothesis for my incessant muscle twitching, cramping, and fatigue is a relative taurine deficiency due to channeling all of it towards detox. I've tried supplementing with all the electrolytes. I've tried reducing salt intake. I've been low oxalate for over 2 years now (although I do wonder about endogenous production with all the glycine I get from meat and being potentially low in B6 due to its use in detox). Nothing has resolved the muscle issues, which preceded my Vitamin A detox.
Putrefaction should really only be a problem if you're not digesting your meat well. It's funny that everyone ignores the downsides of fiber fermentation, such as the production of methane, but demonizes protein fermentation. I think Smith's probiotic recommendations are ridiculous...I don't know where he came up with them, but just like so much else on his site, it's way too simplistic and clearly does not reflect reality. I watched the predictable mayhem after he first released the recommendations, as all the people on his site tried to figure out what "group" they fit into and started playing around with different probiotics, and of course very few of them fit neatly into any of the categories that Smith mentioned because they were false categorizations.
Once again, if things were that simple, nobody would have GI problems anymore. Practitioners would have the probiotic method down pat. Smith thinks he's special, but he's just another pseudoscientist, and a conspiratorial one at that. Anybody who has to market themselves by some silly name like the Nutrition Detective (or...Nut.Dick as I like to call him) instead of using their given name and official title and letting their reputation speak for themselves is immediately suspect in my book.
I'm heading out the door but wanted to share this article from Mercola before it disappears in less than 48 hours [eye roll]:
I don't agree with Mercola about a lot, and haven't researched glyphosate extensively. Not sure what you think about glyphosate, I know Garrett Smith discusses it a lot. It might be discussed in Grant's books but I haven't finished them yet. Do you eat organic meat / rice?
I'm starting to believe eating organic and local is a better investment of my funds than all these consults and labs, which are either inconclusive, have me spending more on supplements which end up hurting me, and show that with time I've actually been getting worse under the care of "experts," not better.
I've been eating exclusively organic food for many years now, except for the food I buy from locals. But I feel I have a good relationship with the people I buy meat from locally and trust that they are being honest when they say they don't use glyphosate themselves, or supply feed that would contain glyphosate. Nevertheless, there's always the possibility that they aren't fully aware of what's in the feed, or that the soil was previously contaminated unbeknownst to them...all reasons that I am trying to generate as much of my own food as possible, or get it from hunting wild animals.
I have detectable glyphosate in my urine regardless of whether I eat grain-finished or grass-finished beef (I am carnivore). Urine glyphosate is a little higher with grain-finished meat but still a decent size with grass-finished. I think the main source of urine glyphosate for me at least is air pollution, as in the glyphosate hypothesized to be in the air from the grains used for biofuels. I heard that idea from Stephanie Seneff. Glyphosate could also be used on golf courses about a half mile from my house.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 13, 2022, 1:08 pmI've been eating exclusively organic food for many years now, except for the food I buy from locals. But I feel I have a good relationship with the people I buy meat from locally and trust that they are being honest when they say they don't use glyphosate themselves, or supply feed that would contain glyphosate.
Being from Alaska means that the population density is lower and there is likely less glyphosate wafting around, unless you are in a polluted valley.
Man, that is potentially discouraging to hear about your glyphosate levels on a carnivore diet regardless of feed type...
Any thoughts on whether that urinary glyphosate is actually your body cleaning out old stores of it from before you were carnivore, rather than it coming from recent intake?
How often are you testing for it?
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on May 13, 2022, 3:51 pmAny thoughts on whether that urinary glyphosate is actually your body cleaning out old stores of it from before you were carnivore, rather than it coming from recent intake?
How often are you testing for it?
Tests I did last fall and winter:
- Three urine glyphosate tests from Great Plains Lab. Doing grass-finished beef got it down to 0.55 from the grain-finished level of 0.70 for two tests. 0.55 is far from zero. Both values are below those from the average American, although not way lower.
- Four urine tests from HRI Labs all came back zero despite varying up the type of meat. I don't believe this lab's urine results.
- Hair glyphosate from HRI: came back with a positive number but I don't know much of a reference range.
- Tap water glyphosate from HRI: came back zero although again who knows with this lab
I have been carnivore since 2017 and strict meat-based keto for a year before that so I don't much of a recent history of intaking plant food with glyphosate, although I suppose it is possible that one can detox glyphosate years later. I have eaten grass-finished beef for most of my time as a carnivore, only doing periods of grain-finished beef after I adopted a lower vitamin A diet a year ago.
The bottom line is that I would not eat grass-finished beef for its slightly lower glyphosate level alone. For those on a carnivore diet, the amount of glyphosate in the air from biofuels and spraying is probably a more serious issue for those in agricultural or urban areas. Lucky you if you live on top of a mountain or something!
Glyphosate in food is a bigger deal for those who eat plant foods.