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Eggs as part of Vitamin A reduction
Until we see direct measurements of the amount of Vitamin A in Grant's food and stored in his liver, I personally find the wide variety of evidence (particularly the evolutionary logic) supporting the nutritive role of retinol and its derivatives more compelling than Grant's n=1.
What I do think is very valuable from Grant's self-experiment is knowing that certain people under certain living conditions can apparently be quite healthy with minimal intake of Vitamin A, as well as (and I actually find this more interesting myself) minimal amounts of Vitamin C on a carb-based diet. The abundance of people on carnivore diets without Vitamin C deficiency pretty well establishes the minimal need for that vitamin on such a diet, but one of the main hypotheses for that being the case is that the absence of carbohydrates in the diet enables the tiny amounts of Vitamin C in meat to be completely absorbed and utilized in the cells that need it. Based on Grant's experience, it may be far important that the uric acid from lean meat replaces the need for the antioxidant capacity of Vitamin C, and that the amino acids found in meat are essentially all that is needed for maintenance of collagen in the body.
RE: Until we see direct measurements of the amount of Vitamin A in Grant's food and stored in his liver.
So are you suggesting that the only valid evidence you’d accept is that:
- I have all my foods pureed into a mush and sent it through a mass spectrometer or HPLC before eating it?
- I have my liver removed, pureed into a mush and sent it through a mass spectrometer or HPLC to determine that no vA remains?
Wow!, that seems to be a wee tad unreasonable to me. But hey, I’ve learned a long time ago that a certain percentage of people will only believe what they want to believe.
For the more open minded folks I’ll add more evidence that so-called vitamin A is not a vitamin in my 9 year update.
In my incredibly wide ranging and varied attempts to heal my family with food over the past fourteen years, I have rarely found one magic bullet that helped a ton. A low vitamin A diet has been about as close as it comes, with most family members finding short term improvement (two of us dramatically so), three of us feeling significantly improved after months (along with other steps taken to improve health), and one of us feeling "possibly" better over time. However, especially with growing children, and possibly considering long-term damage to metabolism etc. after all these years of chronic illness, I haven't been able to discount the possibility of deficiencies. And an extremely limited meat/rice/beans or just meat diet runs that risk very, very easily.
Supplements to me are a stop gap (or therapy) at best, and at worst provide damaging, misshapen patches for the dike, to butcher an analogy... After six months of very low A, I realized that our years of B1 deficiency were really coming back to bite us. Andrew's and others posts concerning choline struck a chord after three and a half years of this diet, because I felt that it was best to honestly assess our progress, and the honest assessment was: More Progress Is Necessary than simply removing vitamin A. Why not give it a try? Jessica and Puddleduck have similarly provided ideas for puzzle pieces in terms of potential need for plant based EFAs. I am finding that in addition now, one family member (interestingly, the one person who limits intake (based on pickiness/taste) of eggs, beans, and most vegetables) needs something additional, possibly for mold/biotoxin/Lyme and diet alone is cutting it (we're trying binders first). I really really really feel like food is the best medicine, because there are so many nutrients that we don't understand or even know about. If we can somehow guide our intuition and try to combine intellect and gut instinct toward foods that will support healing, that just seems like the best plan, whether it's eating extremely nutrient-dense eggs, or trying anything else that others in similar boats have found useful.
Anyway, all this is to say that I think the Vitamin A Toxicity hypothesis is potentially lifesaving, but for those of us who've been on this healing journey for over a decade, there are other problems and deficiencies that can complicate the journey, and there are differences between people who Just Got Toxic Quickly, and those for whom the process took many years, and still others who are dealing with multigenerational toxicity. And, based on my own and my family's gut instincts, there is no simple diet that is absolutely failsafe. Reintroducing eggs has felt really good for most of us in my family, except the one who claims they don't taste good at all, and I felt improvements digestively, mentally and hormonally with them. I have gone several days and possibly a week without them at various points since January, which wasn't a problem, and didn't cause symptoms to flare (except concerning regularity). On the other hand, other family members have been eating them and noticed no changes either pro or con.
In some ways, I wonder how much more benefit my kids can get with a continued focus on Low A. I mean, I'm not planning to dose them with liver or squash or kale or carrots anytime soon, but I'm also totally trying to follow their lead after four years. If they are craving cheese, we have more of it. If they feel like oatmeal is getting so super boring that they hate it, I'm assuming maybe there is some reason to have something else for breakfast today... None of them are asking for sugary processed foods, but when my daughter recently wanted some stuffed grape leaves, we had some, with no big or little problems noted.
One of the signs of healing that I notice most is our ability to eat WAY more foods now, like a recent poster noted. I also feel like a kid in a candy store!! Or rather, like a chef at a farmers market. I can make so many more delicious meals...and people don't throw tantrums afterward!! Or complain of diarrhea! I think that, especially now, there are way more ways than one to get where we're going, so I even pay attention to the friend who currently feels great after two years of veganism. Turns out she might have been getting the EFA thing right all this time, and obviously her liver wasn't totally destroyed by vitamin A, so obviously there are different approaches for different people. I so appreciate all those who post their personal n=1 here, which is truly all we've got that's valuable. We can argue about theories till we're blue, but feeling better seems like the absolutely holy grail of it all...
Quote from ggenereux on July 20, 2023, 2:27 pmFor the more open minded folks I’ll add more evidence that so-called vitamin A is not a vitamin in my 9 year update.
I am so curious about this update! 🙂 🙂
@sarabeth-matilsky I love it when you speak up, well written, clear to understand, heartfelt posts. I don't know who you are, but I get the impression that you are an amazing mom. Well done on your children's health improvements and non-dogmatic approach to healthy family eating.
Hi Grant, I'll elaborate on what I said in my previous post:
(1) We do not know with great precision how much Vitamin A you (or I, or anyone else) is consuming. There is a great deal of variation in the amount of nutrients found in foods, and I've never personally seen sample sizes and measures of variation stated for nutrient contents listed in databases we often reference, such as that of the USDA. At least a couple users of this forum posted publications that indicated rather larger quantities of Vitamin A in lean cuts of beef. Personally, I find those measurements dubious, but it's published data that needs to be considered along with all the other literature out there. More importantly, there is a possibility that Vitamin A is in fact a vital nutrient but is simply needed in much smaller quantities than currently believed, at least under certain conditions. If that is the case, then it becomes extremely important to know whether you are meeting those minuscule but important requirements with your diet (presumably via the meat). An analogous situation would be the claim that people on a carnivore diet do not need Vitamin C because nutritional databases state there is zero Vitamin C in skeletal muscle, yet people have lived for decades solely on skeletal muscle and fat without signs of Vitamin C deficiency. It turns out that a very small amount of Vitamin C has been detected in muscle meat but is not reflected in most nutritional databases and, therefore, we do not have sufficient evidence to say that there is zero need for Vitamin C on a carnivore diet, only that taking in very very small amounts under the conditions of carnivory is not associated with signs of deficiency.
(2) We do not know how much Vitamin A is stored in your liver (or anywhere else in your body for that matter). There are published case studies that have been posted on this site showing massive quantities of Vitamin A stored in the liver of people who also have "normal" or "sub-normal" values of Vitamin A in the blood. You are well aware that blood values are not always predictive of stored values. Personally, I do not believe that you currently have a large amount of Vitamin A stored in your liver, but there is a good possibility that your body has held on to a small but critical amount after all these years of avoiding it in food, especially if you continue to take in small amounts from the meat you are consuming.
(3) You are conducting self-experimentation without direct oversight by a trained research scientist. Anecdotes can be very valuable generators of hypotheses, but they lack the validation necessary for a trained scientist to use as verifiable data in a rigorous study. You have criticized a good number of scientific publications with the belief that they have flawed study designs. You should be well aware of the severe limitations of what you are able to "prove" with your independent self-experimentation. "Proof" in science is completely dependent on repeatability with appropriately large sample sizes and under reasonably controlled conditions, neither of which you have.
I think you could make a much stronger case if you were to have even just one or two of your meals properly tested for Vitamin A content, and if you were to get a liver biopsy showing zero Vitamin A. After all, if your claim is that Vitamin A is not required at all, you are going to have to show that you have zero of it (0.00000...) in your body, otherwise the possibility still exists that in your current living conditions your body simply doesn't need much, just like some people in deep ketosis apparently need virtually zero "necessary" glucose to function under certain conditions. I am pretty well convinced that a caucasian man of your age living at your latitude in Canada doesn't need much Vitamin A on the diet you're eating...I am convinced of nothing further.
With regard to someone believing what they want to believe and not being open-minded, I personally see that reflected in your own convictions. It's not easy to remain neutral, that's not how humans are wired. We fight for our convictions, without which we would be aimless in our decision making. I've had my own strong biases based on what I thought was credible science, but my confidence in the validity of published research has been thoroughly eroded with the combination of a long-term illness that began only after I started eating "healthy" and the epiphanies that came from all the bullshit surrounding Covid. I am more open-minded now than ever before, but I am also a better scientist now than ever before, with a better understanding of how to judge objective truth, and I still don't think the evidence is in your favor, but more data could change my opinion.
Lastly, I'll give my thanks, as I have before, that you allow those of us with opposing views to remain on this forum and speak our minds (although it looks like you gave me a thumbs down so maybe I'm pushing the limits). It's pretty clear that free exchange of ideas is imperative for making real progress in the world.
I have been developing a hypothesis thinking about Andrew's, Jenny's, and Meri's (on the Facebook group) work. Technically it's not my hypothesis as others have expressed these ideas already but I just want to state it as explicitly as possible for the sake of the discussion in some of the latest comments.
I suspect that the bigger culprit in chronic hypervitaminosis A isn't the vA itself but an impaired vA metabolism (which probably can be induced by chronic overconsumption of vA, but I want to describe the main thought succinctly). The distinction matters because once the metabolism is impaired, tolerance for vA intake goes down to much lower than what is normal for a healthy person, and the danger there is if you merely go on an extremely low vA diet, you run the risk of developing various nutrient deficiencies. This would be in line with some things that even those who believe vA is a poison bar none talk about, such as what Dr. Smith says about impaired ADH and ALDH enzymes. The other danger of ignoring the underlying impairment of vA metabolism is that there are other toxins besides excess vA that also need these pathways to function well in order to detox them. Some of these toxins may be more difficult to avoid than vA.
The practical implication is that if you can find the cause(s) of the vA metabolism impairment and address it, you could eventually eat a more varied diet without negative effects. And I don't mean that you would want to take license to overindulge in high vA foods, but if you are traveling or you are invited to a friend's home, would you not rather have the capacity to eat what is available? It is evolutionarily advantageous to have such a capacity. Grant is taking one for the team with his prison diet, but I seriously doubt it's desirable, or even healthy, for everyone.
This forum software is a little iffy and it always forces me to log in again so I haven't been as active, but some of the recent comments have prompted me to finally go through the sign in song and dance to get these thoughts out.
Beautifully and precisely written @wavygravygadzooks, as always! I too am grateful for Grant allowing all voices to be heard, and thanks to you for having the courage to speak up as well, even though you know it will not be popular!
@wavygravygadzooks I’m wondering if you’d allow me to post an attempt at some logical reasoning of what is a vitamin, and strike it down with force if I’m wrong?
If we were to start from scratch, where no vitamins were defined yet, way back, that is; it would be reasonable to expect that there were a bunch of substances that were vital to the human body in different degrees. Some of these substances could be needed in large amounts, and some in very miniscule amounts. We would name all of these substances «critical substances» (or whatever»). Now, we want to find as many of these critical substances as possible. The ones we are able to find, we’ll call vitamins. Because of limitations in measurement and how we can design experiments on humans, when we are searching for vitamins, we must define some threshold related to amount of some critical substance needed. So the term vitamin is not separable from this threshold. We admit that the vitamins we find is only a subset of the critical substances.
So, let’s say that we see that the experiment design of some vitamin we found (way back) were very flawed, we can decategorize it as a vitamin, but we can never claim it is not a critical substance. My point is, that we need to acknowledge that linked to e.g. VA, we have these limitations on measurement and experiment design, and that you and @ggenereux2014‘s views are unifiable, if we separate between these two concepts of vitamins and critical substances!
RE: We do not know with great precision how much Vitamin A you (or I, or anyone else) is consuming.
We don’t need to know that with great precision. This is not nuclear physics. Close approximations are good enough here. The current claim is that vitamin A is “vital”, essential for vision and for life, and the RDA is 3000-4000 IU.
Well, if it’s so vital, then by now I and others should have experienced at least some detrimental effects after being at near zero amounts of it. In my case for 9 years, and others meat only carnivores for 10-20 years with zero signs of vA deficiency.
Sure, there’s small amounts of vitamin A in muscle meats. In my diet I think it’s about 3-4 IU /day. But, that’s 1,000 times lower than the RDA of the “essential” vitamin. In my books, when the “science” is off by a 1,000 fold, that is as good as a complete miss. In other words, they’ve obviously got it completely wrong.
Additionally, I make regular plasma donations (now on donation # 37) and that almost surely offsets the 3-4 IU I get from eating meat.
Of course, I also have been taking in some small amounts of lead arsenic due to my rice consumption. Since I haven’t died, should we then accept someone’s claim that it is somehow needed and essential too?
RE: We do not know how much Vitamin A is stored in your liver
Actually, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if there’s still some of this vile yellow toxin “stored” in my liver. As there is no doubt other POPs such as dioxin, PCPs, benzenes etc. Is that evidence that they are somehow vitamins too? No, of course not, they are all toxins.
RE: You are conducting self-experimentation without direct oversight by a trained research scientist.
Well, you are underestimating me. I am a trained scientist. I have a degree in applied science (engineering). I’ve taken advanced courses in physics, chemistry and many in advanced mathematics. I’ve worked in a lab doing material science research. I know the rules of science.
RE: "Proof" in science is completely dependent on repeatability with appropriately large sample sizes and under reasonably controlled conditions, neither of which you have.
You don’t say?
I completely agree, and if you are going to be honest and objective then you must apply that same standard to the 1925 Wolbach and Howe study that established this bizarre “it’s a vitamin” science.
There were at least 5 other contemporary studies of W&H that showed the completely opposite results of thiers, and that there were no detrimental effects of vitamin A free diets. Therefore, there was NO repeatability and obviously no consensus. How can anyone call that legit science?
https://ggenereux.blog/2020/06/15/the-early-rat-studies-and-casein/
Of course, it is not. That totally violates the fundamental rule of science that you’ve stated. Yet their one (1) study, and with a small sample size, is used to establish “science” of it. Clearly, it’s garbage science. There is only one way for this to have gone down like this. It was due to their academic / financial influence etc, in other words it was due to scientific corruption, not real science.
More importantly, and as you know, in addition to repeatability with appropriately large sample sizes, etc. rule needed to first establish a scientific “fact” it only takes one legitimate counter experiment to tear it down and disprove it.
RE: I'll give my thanks, as I have before, that you allow those of us with opposing views to remain on this forum and speak our minds
Thanks for that. And, no problem at all. All views are welcome and I feel discussions like this are helpful in moving forward.
There are several important arguments made and questions asked by both “Camp Wavy” and “Camp Meredith Arthur,” and I am appreciative people smarter than me are having these rational discussions. Thank you guys. 🙏
Before my three-months on eggs, I was open to considering Grant’s “Vitamin-A-is-a-Toxin” hypothesis, but I remained skeptical. “Excess-of-a-Nutrient” was explanation enough for me. Now? I believe Grant’s hypothesis on an emotional level, and I get why he’s so passionate about it.
Eggs made pretty much all my symptoms get worse, including chronic fatigue dysautonomia, and brought on mood issues (irritability, hypomania, anxiety, frequent crying meltdowns) I don’t normally have to deal with anymore. Atlantic herring and mussels do, too. Butter and cheese do, too. Same reaction, different foods with different choline levels. It’s dose-dependent, duration-dependent, and I believe it’s the vitamin A.
When other people see health improvements eating eggs, I celebrate with them because I trust them to know what is best for their own bodies, and besides, their genetic nutritional requirements may be different from my own.
But for me? I think “prison food” is a misnomer, because basing my diet on a foundation of beans and whole grains (like Daniel and his friends in the earliest clinical trial conducted in recorded human history) has given me the freedom to go on hikes and work out (I am strong enough to lift my husband’s weights...at least a couple times heh 😂) and dance again. Thanks to Grant’s hypothesis, I’m no longer in a prison anymore.
As I write this, I’m eating a huge, high-fiber meal of nothing but whole grains and legumes and flaxseed and cabbage, and then I’m going on a full-day hike. 😁 Have a great weekend, everyone! 💛🙂