Quote from Ourania on October 28, 2022, 4:39 am

The Flynn effect must depend on what kind of tests were used.

There is another side to this renewed ability to remember numbers on sight : the situations in which I feel overwhelmed are now basically nil. Lots and lots is happening in my life at the moment, I am in charge of a lot of this and I find no difficulty in facing it all.

Maybe because less vA around means more thiamine available and thiamine is the fuel of the ajna chakra, meaning I give my orders to the world, and reality is arranged as I see fit, so less effort really, all goes smooth and fast.

I hope this lasts!!!!

Quote from ggenereux on October 28, 2022, 5:42 am

Hi @ourania,

Thanks for sharing this update. That’s really interesting and very encouraging.

BTW, I have also experienced something similar. My immediate memory has noticeably improved; for numbers, names, addresses etc. Additionally, I’m now easily recalling people’s names and events from my youth and childhood. These old memories were once long gone. 

But, this improvement in memory did not start to happen until around year 5 or 6 of my diet. 

I think another cognitive improvement for me has been my handwriting. It is now much nicer, smoother/ stylish than it was before. Have you noticed something similar?

 

Quote from Ourania on October 28, 2022, 6:13 am

Hi @ggenereux2014,

Old memories too. Last week I remembered most of the names of my shool friends when I was 10 years old! I looked them up on the internet, unfortunately most of them died around 60.

Improvement to my handwriting : it has come but went away, it came again and went away again. My signature is better, so is the handwriting for scripts other than the Roman script, scripts I learned between 12 and 30 years of age. I was pretty good at scripts, including writing beautifully on a blackboard. The Roman script I learnt first as a child is not consistently better. Yet?

Quote from Hermes on October 28, 2022, 10:10 am

@ourania

As a kid, I got stickers in my handwriting notebook by the teacher. Each time the students performed well writing the letters nicely, we would get a sticker for it. So I was proud to write nicely. Sadly, my handwriting really took a nose dive in my teens. I'm still waiting for such improvements. By the way, I remember some member of the forum mentioned how his drawing ability improved on a low vA diet. Another activity which needs good hand-eye coordination. Probably balance and sports performance could improve too.

 

@ggenereux2014

Do you have any idea how vA is affecting the brain? It looks like with less vA around the brain has a better capacity to organize itself in meaningful ways. It's so fascinating how far-reaching the effects of vA toxicity are.

Quote from ggenereux on October 29, 2022, 5:06 am

Hi @christian,

Here’s a paper about the involvement of RA in cognitive decline.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8442538/

I 'm not surprised by their finding:

The results support the conclusion that, surprisingly, increased RA signaling in the aged hippocampus is associated with poor cognitive outcome.

I don't think that the RBP, and the STRA6 receptors are part of RA signaling at all. Rather that they are just the responses to retinol toxicity. And the STRA6 "receptor" is really a defective protein resulting from the DNA damage caused by RA.  I'm assuming that there are STRA1, STRA2, STRA3, STRA4, and STRA5 receptors too?? And they all slowly accumulate on the cell membrane with age. Of course, with the cells producing all these defective proteins AKA "receptors" the cell is also not producing other needed proteins correctly and the tissue and function degrades.

Quote from Hermes on October 29, 2022, 10:00 am

@ggenereux2014

Fascinating! Thanks for the link to the paper. It becomes more and more evident that vA is involved in so many different maladaptive changes in the body. Brain function is effected (handwriting, drawing skills, memory formation, probably speech fluency, I wouldn't be surprised if spatial skills were affected too), digestion, liver health, probably coordination. It's as if vA damages the integrity of the body.

Quote from Liz on October 29, 2022, 1:40 pm

This is so very encouraging!!! My past and childhood is a big black hole, I used to be very good at remembering, learning and recalling. I have a high IQ, yet have felt very dumb for many years, unable to use my brain. Have started to finally "wake up" a little, I no longer need google maps to find my way home to the same extent and even my friends have noticed better recognition to my surroundings. This really gives me hope. Thank you so much for sharing!! 

Quote from ggenereux on October 30, 2022, 6:49 am

Hi @christian,

Here a good page describing the almost head to toe destruction of human body that can be caused by the active form of this "vitamin".

https://www.acne.org/accutane.html

Scroll down to see the nice graphic under:

Side Effects

Quote from Hermes on October 30, 2022, 8:47 am

@ggenereux2014

 

A shopping list of symptoms freely delivered to you by Accutane. This drug is outright dangerous. Here's the author's take on it who wrote the article:

My bias: I suffered with moderately severe acne in my adolescence and early adulthood. I took Accutane at age 20 but do not recall the dosage my doctor prescribed. It cleared me up completely within weeks. I transformed from a shy introvert to an outgoing college student. As a result of my skin clearing up, my mental state felt relatively light and good, albeit still somewhat anxious as I had always been. My short-term side effects included severely dry lips, extremely dry skin, dry eyes, and sometimes severe joint pain. I now live with two long-term conditions which may be from taking Accutane or may be coincidence. Since Accutane, whenever I sprint or exert myself in quick bursts my joints react with pain and inflammation, thus limiting my sports endeavors. I also have a mild version of an eye condition called pterygium, which is an irreversible and not-so-attractive growth on the white part of both eyes. My acne relapsed post-Accutane somewhat aggressively to what would be described as moderate acne. I am now able to control my acne symptoms with The Acne.org Regimen."

Another Accutane victim. And besides the physical symptoms, he experienced some personality changes, which seems concerning too. If only psychiatry knew about this.