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Documenting my experience
Thanks for your response. I'm not arguing basic science with you. I am well aware of the essential role protein plays in our bodies and I am by no means saying it is not important. Proteins are the most abundant and important organic molecules. My concern is that we think we need more than we do. You say you don't know how much we need (and I don't either). You also say you think that too much protein might be harmful. So if you don't know how much we actually do need, but also believe that too much may be harmful.... well, you see where I am going with this.
Since neither of us know this magic number, we're looking for other data points to attempt a best guess. You didn't address my comment about recycled proteins in the human body. Organelles inside of a cell are constantly being broken down, and it is much more efficient for the body to recycle these proteins intracellularly to create new proteins than it is to "export" them from the cell and "import" brand new material. Therefore, if a good portion of the protein in our body is recycled, then we don't need to consume very much protein, as the process is largely endogenous.
This was my point about mother's breast milk and its low protein content, which you also did not address. The process of protein recycling is not well understood in the human body and therefore open to interpretation (just how much protein is in fact recycled?), but the composition of human breast milk is pretty black and white. I am truly curious your thoughts on why the protein in human breast milk is "low" during arguably the most crucial stage of human development.
I do recall the study you mention. I'd be very curious as to the exact "zero protein" diet fed to the participants of this study. A zero protein diet is very difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. I can tell you this zero protein diet was most definitely not fruit, as fruit does contain some protein. I average 30-40g of protein a day, and while I agree this is by no means considered high, it is also most definitely not zero.
Hi @michele,
Firstly, I want you to know that I think you might be on to something important here with your change to a fruit based diet. But, I need a bit more time to gather my thoughts around it. I'll try to share some more by the end of the day..
Agreed, I don't know how much protein is needed.
RE: You didn't address my comment about recycled proteins in the human body
Sorry, I didn't comment on that because I just don't know much about it. But, yes, I can totally see that many proteins are going to be recycled.
If I don't comment on something it is often because I'm in general agreement.
RE: I'd be very curious as to the exact "zero protein" diet fed to the participants of this study.
I've never tried to look up that study. I was just too troubled by what I was told. I suspect that that study was never published. But, I don't know if it was or not. If you want to try to find it; here are some details.
Conducted in 2005 - 2006.
It was a joint study conducted by the University of Calgary medical school, and UK researchers.
One of the lead authors was: Dr. Farshad Sepandj, who's a Nephrologist in Calgary
RE: I'm not sure I follow your point about the RBP case studies
I'll try to find a reference. But, my point that just an increased protein intake (and in the case report it was someone coming from a low protein diet) caused a significant surge in their RBPs levels. I'm not at all saying that that's a good outcome. Rather, it's just the opposite, as I think it could be a somewhat toxic condition. I think it indicates that the liver is holding on to retinol until it has the protein resources needed to expel it.
RE: and that the amount of bison/beef you consume is rather moderate (maybe 6-8 oz a day if memory serves?)
Yes, that's correct.
Once again, I'm not disagreeing with your diet change. I think it is very smart of you to have taken the evasive action, and to have gotten yourself out of the detox phase. I'm actually super curious. More later.
Thanks
@michele @ggenereux2014 Grant might be referring to this case study: https://www.gastrojournal.org/article/0016-5085(82)90132-9/pdf
The patient had high liver stores of Vitamin A and had been eating a low protein diet. After they were instructed to eat a higher protein diet and cut back on the Vitamin A intake, their liver stores began decreasingly dramatically. This led the doctors involved to hypothesize that the lack of protein in the diet was a primary cause for Vitamin A pooling in the liver without elimination. Notably, the patient had little to no symptoms of Vitamin A toxicity when first presenting, indicating that it's possible for your body to be in big trouble without it necessarily showing.
If the body is in a well-balanced, healthy state, it may be true that minimum protein requirements are quite low. However, Shawn Baker and some of the other carnivore folks are showing with their performance, health, and bloodwork, that what was previously considered a ceiling for protein intake was probably a false one, and that there may be previously unrecognized benefits to higher protein intake.
What is indisputable is that the human body is highly resilient. What is forever at play is what diet(s) is optimum for a particular lifestyle, and what diet(s) is optimum for recovering health. Unfortunately, answering these questions becomes rather difficult when non-invasive measures like bloodwork are often not sensitive enough to detect initial health declines, and when the degree of symptoms (or lack thereof) are not always reliable indicators of underlying health trends.
Hi @wavygravygadzooks, @michele
Yes, that’s the study I was referring too. I seem to remember another similar one; (a case study from India??) but can't find it at the moment.
Here’s how I think the change to a fruit based diet could have stopped the detox setback.
For some people who have traditionally been following a low protein diet their liver will have unknowingly been accumulating more vA than compared to a person who has been regularly including protein in their diet. So, a person's past protein consumption may be an important factor in whether or not they end up encountering the detox setback.
Then, when a person who has historically been on the low protein diet makes an abrupt dietary change to include a lot more protein they’ll potentially surge their production and release of RBPs from the liver.
There are some other factors that can make the scenario worse. One is that including any lecithin (sunflower seeds, soy lecithin, chocolate, etc) in the diet at the same time will effectively wash/pull the captured retinol out from the newly released RBPs. Other emulsifiers such as polysorbate 80 may act similarly.
Then, there’s rice. Here’s a snippet from a non-published paper I’ve come across.
The liver thus plays a major role in the regulation of blood glucose concentration, extracting glucose from the portal vein after meals and storing it as glycogen. Hepatic glucose uptake is stimulated by hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia. Insulin suppresses hepatic glucose production and augments glucose uptake by the liver and gastro-intestinal tract (DeFronzo et al., 1992). In addition to its role in the extraction of glucose, insulin stimulates the release of vitamin A from the liver into the circulation, thereby reducing hepatic stores of the vitamin (Bowles, 1967). Thus, in the absence of insulin, the liver is impaired not only in its ability to take up and store glucose after meals (it also releases glucose more readily between meals), but also in its ability to secrete vitamin A as retinol-binding protein (Krempf et al., 1991).
Therefore, abruptly increasing one’s rice consumption, and more so when a person has some degree of insulin resistance, could cause the liver to release more RBPs and retinyl esters back into circulation. So, depending on the person’s prior dietary history and prediabetic health status, increasing both protein and rice (glucose) consumption at the same time could be a double whammy.
But, fructose does not stimulate an insulin response at all like what glucose does.
Fructose will generally produce smaller insulin excursions upon consumption because it does not stimulate the secretion of insulin from pancreatic beta cells, whereas glucose does.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC552336/
Therefore, adopting a fruit based diet and dropping protein and glucose consumption at the same time will effectively shut down much of the liver’s release of stored vA back into circulation.
I think this theory fits with what we are seeing from the carnivore diet community, where it appears that they are mostly not encountering the detox setback.
It also fits with my own personal experience, and that of the other two guys I know who are my age. We were all regular meat eaters before taking on the low vA diet, and none of us encountered the detox setback.
Thoughts?
@ggenereux2014 Very interesting tidbit about insulin causing the release of Vitamin A into the blood, I hadn't seen that yet. That would seem to offer support for my thoughts about including more fat in the diet and benefitting from ketosis.
Can you link to anything on your site that describes what you're calling the detox setback? Or could you summarize it here? I think I get the general picture, but I would like to see it clearly described before I assume I know exactly what you're referring to.
To me, it does make sense that having sufficient meat/protein in your diet would help prevent vA toxicity in the first place, and would help prevent a detoxification setback once toxicity was present, especially in light of many hunter-gatherers who regularly consume organs high in vA without becoming toxic. Eating foods in no higher proportion to their natural availability to humans prior to agriculture seems like a good rule of thumb (i.e. if you're eating a ratio of liver to muscle meat that is higher than what you find on animal, you are probably asking for trouble), although I'm sure that in itself doesn't always guarantee the avoidance of toxicity.
I've discussed this "detox setback" phenomena is several blog posts.
https://ggenereux.blog/2020/01/19/understanding-the-detox-setback-condition/
I don't particularly like the term "detox setback", but it's been used for a while now, and it's stuck.
Anyways, the general progression of this diet for many is:
- Feel great for the first few months; often really great.
- Start regressing, going back to where they started, and often times even worse
- Some people get through this phase in a few months, others don't
Whereas, for other people they don't experience this detox setback cycle at all.
Not knowing why this "detox setback" happens is a very big risk, both for people's health, and for the overall success of this project.
Thanks
Quote from ggenereux on May 3, 2021, 1:40 pmHi @wavygravygadzooks, @michele
Yes, that’s the study I was referring too. I seem to remember another similar one; (a case study from India??) but can't find it at the moment.
Here’s how I think the change to a fruit based diet could have stopped the detox setback.
For some people who have traditionally been following a low protein diet their liver will have unknowingly been accumulating more vA than compared to a person who has been regularly including protein in their diet. So, a person's past protein consumption may be an important factor in whether or not they end up encountering the detox setback.
Then, when a person who has historically been on the low protein diet makes an abrupt dietary change to include a lot more protein they’ll potentially surge their production and release of RBPs from the liver.
There are some other factors that can make the scenario worse. One is that including any lecithin (sunflower seeds, soy lecithin, chocolate, etc) in the diet at the same time will effectively wash/pull the captured retinol out from the newly released RBPs. Other emulsifiers such as polysorbate 80 may act similarly.
Then, there’s rice. Here’s a snippet from a non-published paper I’ve come across.
The liver thus plays a major role in the regulation of blood glucose concentration, extracting glucose from the portal vein after meals and storing it as glycogen. Hepatic glucose uptake is stimulated by hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia. Insulin suppresses hepatic glucose production and augments glucose uptake by the liver and gastro-intestinal tract (DeFronzo et al., 1992). In addition to its role in the extraction of glucose, insulin stimulates the release of vitamin A from the liver into the circulation, thereby reducing hepatic stores of the vitamin (Bowles, 1967). Thus, in the absence of insulin, the liver is impaired not only in its ability to take up and store glucose after meals (it also releases glucose more readily between meals), but also in its ability to secrete vitamin A as retinol-binding protein (Krempf et al., 1991).
Therefore, abruptly increasing one’s rice consumption, and more so when a person has some degree of insulin resistance, could cause the liver to release more RBPs and retinyl esters back into circulation. So, depending on the person’s prior dietary history and prediabetic health status, increasing both protein and rice (glucose) consumption at the same time could be a double whammy.
But, fructose does not stimulate an insulin response at all like what glucose does.
Fructose will generally produce smaller insulin excursions upon consumption because it does not stimulate the secretion of insulin from pancreatic beta cells, whereas glucose does.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC552336/
Therefore, adopting a fruit based diet and dropping protein and glucose consumption at the same time will effectively shut down much of the liver’s release of stored vA back into circulation.
I think this theory fits with what we are seeing from the carnivore diet community, where it appears that they are mostly not encountering the detox setback.
It also fits with my own personal experience, and that of the other two guys I know who are my age. We were all regular meat eaters before taking on the low vA diet, and none of us encountered the detox setback.
Thoughts?
Why would a fruitarian detox VA? Unless all you were eating were things like sun-dried raisins and lychees and similar fruits? Fruits in general have TONS of carotenoids, especially when you count by calorie and consider the amount of fruit you need to consume. There is absolutely no way the average fruitarian is detoxing VA at all, in fact, most fruitarians end up getting carotenemia. You can go on youtube and look at the fruitarians, almost all of them have glowing carotene skin, of course they regard this as a sign of good health lol. There is no way anyone who make oranges, pineapples, and other tropical fruits, caloric staples, is detoxing VA.
I would say the same about many carnivores. Not all, but many of them. They cook their meat in copious amounts of butter, they eat egg yolks, organ meats, fatty fish, shellfish, etc.
Quote from ggenereux on May 3, 2021, 3:49 pmI've discussed this "detox setback" phenomena is several blog posts.
https://ggenereux.blog/2020/01/19/understanding-the-detox-setback-condition/
I don't particularly like the term "detox setback", but it's been used for a while now, and it's stuck.
Anyways, the general progression of this diet for many is:
- Feel great for the first few months; often really great.
- Start regressing, going back to where they started, and often times even worse
- Some people get through this phase in a few months, others don't
Whereas, for other people they don't experience this detox setback cycle at all.
Not knowing why this "detox setback" happens is a very big risk, both for people's health, and for the overall success of this project.
Thanks
This description of detox mostly just sounds like malnutrition to me. From my perspective, a proper detox detox cycle is a cyclical temporary worsening, with symptoms mostly being flu-like in nature. Achy body, feverish feeling, sneezing, possibly headache and diarrhea. After which, and it shouldn't take more than 2-14 days per detox cycle, there is noticable improvement of disease symptoms. Less brainfog, better eyesight, deeper sleep, whatever it may be. Telling people that they can eat butter and chickpeas, and advising them to eat 3 cans of beans per day (turning them hypothyroid making them feel like shit all the time), and then blaming negative symptoms on detoxfying VA, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
By the way, people on raw carnivore are having such detox cycles, even when eating larger amounts of VA.
There are many things that could cause problems and it can be highly individual. It took me a long time to realize that rice makes me feel depressed. That has nothing to do with VA. I'm trying to say that a lot of the problems people describe don't sound like detox at all to me, there are a million things that can go wrong with any way of eating, and lumping all negative symptoms together as detox is not fruitful. Especially if there was an initial improvement for 3 months and then persistent negative symptoms, it doesn't sound like detoxification at all.
edited
Interesting. I need to dust off my "VA is a poison" hat and look at this through your perspective (I'm not going to pretend I believe this), but I do want to make sure I'm following your logic so I can respond appropriately. If you can kindly let me know if I have anything wrong here, that would be helpful. Disclaimer - I am no expert in the human body, so to be honest, a lot of what you wrote is completely over my head. Just trying to keep it simple here.
- The "detox setback" refers to a period of time after the adoption of a low VA (and higher protein) diet in which a person experiences negative side effects ("detox" symptoms)
- Historically low-protein consumers are more likely to store VA in their liver, as the lack of protein leads to a lack of RBP release
- RBP release is the process in which the body safely releases the VA from the liver, into the bloodstream, and ultimately out of the body (via urine and/or bowels)
- When low-protein consumers switch to a high-protein diet, RBPs are released from the liver as the body now has the raw material (protein) to create these RBPs and therefore release VA (detoxify). The body did not have these proteins before and therefore could not release any storage from the liver.
- This increase in RBPs ultimately winds up causing the "detox setbacks" as there is more VA floating around the body than the body is able to eliminate via urine/bowels and therefore this causes temporary inflammation/agitation of other tissues ("detox" symptoms)
- Rice (glucose) is exacerbating this issue, as it is pulling even more VA/RBPs out of the liver
Let me know if this is more or less correct. I definitely have questions.
I do have one issue with this line of thinking right off the bat, but perhaps I'm missing something. My understanding from your work is that VA toxicity becomes an issue when the liver reaches storage capacity of VA and spills over into tissue throughout the body, causing inflammation, disease, etc. Therefore, anyone with an issue caused by VA has a liver which is totally full, correct? Therefore, the history of protein consumption would be irrelevant and have no effect on the detox process. Both meat-eaters and vegans alike would be at the same starting point - a liver which cannot store any additional VA. I do agree that a low-protein diet would have had an effect on the rate in which this disease threshold was reached (i.e. low-protein eaters would have hit their liver storage limit more quickly due to lack of protein and therefore slower/nonexistent RBP release), but it should not effect the detox process once more protein is introduced. In addition, your diet included rice, which should have increased the release of VA and increased the likelihood of detox symptoms (unlike carnivore dieters, as you propose).
I might even argue that those with a historically low-protein diet should see less detox symptoms - they reached the disease threshold without the protein helping them, but meat eaters reached the disease threshold WITH the protein helping them. So clearly the meat-eaters were less efficient in ultimately eliminating the VA.
Also, I'd just like to say that I appreciate you being open to discussing with someone with a very opposing viewpoint. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am not posting here to be a troublemaker or to piss anyone off. If my experience happens to be helpful, even if negative to me (i.e. I am wrong), I still consider it a win. Not only did I lose my health due to the trust I put in the very miseducated, narcissitic allopathic community, but I also lost my father very tragically due to improper prescribing of medication by a doctor. You could say that I just have a real passion for finding out what is actually true when it comes to health. I am by no means a scientist, but I can share what my experience has been in hopes of putting some more puzzle pieces together.