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Eggs as part of Vitamin A reduction
I tried eating 1 hard boiled egg per day for several months and didn't notice any improvements in digestion or motility. Now I eat the egg white a few times a week and will avoid whole eggs for now. I actually feel more relaxed now after a couple of weeks without the yolks.
Quote from Eio on January 15, 2024, 9:27 amI tried eating 1 hard boiled egg per day for several months and didn't notice any improvements in digestion or motility. Now I eat the egg white a few times a week and will avoid whole eggs for now. I actually feel more relaxed now after a couple of weeks without the yolks.
(Sorry I did not mean to thumbs down your comment originally)
Anyway, I cannot tolerate the yolks; I react too poorly. But I enjoy the egg whites too! I made a tuna salad with a very small amount of mayo and egg whites. Gonna put them in potato salad next. I know all the "good stuff" is in the yolks, but so is all that vA!
Quote from Jessica2 on January 15, 2024, 10:36 amI eat eggs and dairy every day, have for years and feel fine. It's ironically when I cut them out for 6 months on the "detox diet" when I had the worst health of my life. Carbs and grains and fruit made me bloated and gain weight. I feel better than I EVER did on a "detox" plan and have energy to get up at 4 am and lift weights and exercise again. Mental clarity is the best its been in a long time as well.
Edit: this is not to say that I believe everyone does great on eggs, just that everyone also doesn't suffer when they eat them and perhaps the blanket statetment of "eggs are poison" isn't true for everyone. I still believe, while acknowledging that there isn't much evidence except anecdotal, that supplemental forms including accutane are the worst offenders as far as VA goes.
I hope this works out well for you. I did as well. Had some occasional issues that I never connected with vitamin A for decades - until chronic turned acute. When my liver finally overflowed there was not stopping the detox and bile dumps aka detox setbacks. Worse yet the bile recipe was far more toxic than usual detoxed bile because of having depleted nutrients needed for detox. Please take a look.
Lutein - Discussion | Ideas, Concepts, and Observations (ggenereux.blog)
Quote from Janelle525 on January 15, 2024, 8:35 amWas watching an episode from nutritionwithjudy on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6qTDLgH5FI&t=52s
Found lots of comments about people crashing on the carnivore diet with added liver, but also eggs!! I guess it isn't protecting them:
That was my experience as well.
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/lutein/
Quote from Hermes on September 7, 2023, 6:36 amAnd as others have pointed out (I think it was David?), lutein and zeaxanthin are also a problem, both take years (up to ten years?) to detoxify. Here's what one paper had to say about it (obviously spinning it so that both "nutrients" are necessary):
Lutein and zeaxanthin accumulate in the macular pigment of the retina, and are reported to be associated with a reduced incidence of age-related macular degeneration. A rich source of lutein and zeaxanthin in the American diet is the yolk of chicken eggs. [Consumption of one egg per day increases serum lutein and zeaxanthin concentrations in older adults without altering serum lipid and lipoprotein cholesterol concentrations]
Glaucoma runs in my family. I wouldn't be surprised if both lutein and zeaxanthin were involved in its progression. It'd be nice to have good eyesight into old age.
Hi Hermes,
Please weigh in.
@joe
When @jessica2 wrote, "I eat eggs and dairy every day, have for years and feel fine. It's ironically when I cut them out for 6 months on the "detox diet" when I had the worst health of my life." you completely ignored her experience. Dr. Smith wants everyone to believe that he has the last say in what works or doesn't work for someone, but not everyone does well with his approach.
His famous twitter eggs thread has been pretty well debunked. If someone does well on eggs, especially considering the many essential nutrients they contain, why try to convince them otherwise?
Quote from Henrik on August 23, 2023, 2:48 pmQuote from wavygravygadzooks on August 23, 2023, 1:54 pmList the arguments you're referring to.
Off the top of my head, I know I've thoroughly responded to the idea that Vitamin A is a toxin, and I've pointed out the flaws in the claim that Wolbach and Howe's study was completely worthless because of the potential for Vitamin A to exist in the casein (1. I don't see a measure of Vitamin A in the casein used in that particular study, so we don't actually know how much was in it; 2. There are papers I referenced that show it is possible to extract casein in a way that minimizes the presence of Vitamin A, to such an extent that rodents fed that casein on a diet otherwise considered deficient in Vitamin A exhibited poor growth and premature death, thereby apparently confirming the findings of Wolbach and Howe using casein with identified amounts of Vitamin A; 3. there are other studies I've seen that show that symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency are resolved by ingestion of retinoic acid as opposed to retinol, so if the claim is that the Vitamin A in the casein is poisonous because it is converted to retinoic acid by heat treatment, that claim also appears to be false).
I appreciate the more specific answer. I dont think it has been refuted in any meaningfulway though. I will get into the examples you mention but first want to specify that I havent seen any refutiaon of the arguments, only of some of the particular points of Grants criticism. To make it more discussable (hopefully) I will try to limit it to addressing the specific points you mention here.
Firstly I think you are right in saying that we have now way of knowing exactly how much vitamin A if any was in the feed that the rats were given. I am not even sure they would be able to if they tried at the time so I dont personally blame them for that.
I am on the fence as to wether the extraction of casein in a way that minimizes vitamin A, as I havent seen any study checking for all the forms, but if they have then that's clear enough. It doesent apply to the original study though (I dont think that is what you were saying either though).
But I also dont see any refutal in this. It just says that we cannot know whether there was vitamin A in the feed, and I agree. That in itself does not show that it wasnt.
Also there are the problem of confounding factors. If there wasnt any vitamin A in the rats feed in the W & H study, do we know that was what killed the rats. No, I am sure you agree on this too. We cant know this with any more certainty then we can know wether vitamin A was present or not.
My point here is that what you provide are not arguments proving Grants argument false, but rather proving what to me at least is obvious, that the W & H study doesnt prove that vitamin A killed the rats. I have no idea if Grant thinks that is proven, but thats not my impression. I do think it's relevant though that the experiment have two major weaknesses in that we do not know the vitamin A status of the feed, and we do not know what killed them.
In context I find it hard to belive that it was vitamin A deficiency who killed them. I think also the argument about how then if that be true did not Grants rodents die sooner as in the W & H study it took only 8 to 10 weeks. And as Grant mentions, what about all the rodents in the wild who do fine for much longer without these debilitating results.
I will not specualte too much on the exact cause of death of the rats in the study but I am open both for it being vitamin A and something completly different. Including vitamin A deficiency, but I find vitamin A deficiency more unlikely given amongst other things the factors mentioned above.
About the growth retarded rats there is something that doesnt sit well as I've also seen other sources claim exaggerated growth (including of cancers, but also in general), and retinol is recognized as growth retardent in higher dosis (though that of course does not mean that to low couldnt also be growth retardant).
The reason I claimed -and I say this to be clearer - a lack of understanding of logic is not that what you write necessarily are false, some of it are beyond doubt true, and the statisitcal points very much so. The problem is that a refutation should find a fault that makes the position untenable, not just point out that there is uncertainty. Indeed if all we had to go by was that vitamin A is bad due to the H & W study I'd laugh at it. Its rather the other way around that it seems the claims the general concensus makes are not at all as well-founded as they are presented as, and the fact of a bias reproduction is as you probaly are familiar with, very real.
So while I agree in most of your point I dont see this do much to prove vitamin A as vitamin (regardless of wether actually is or not).
Also I would want to know the vitamin A status of the rats in the different experiments before the deprivation started. That must have a huge impact on how long it would take to induce an actual deficiency.
As to the convertion the convertion itself is well documented - I have papers on that and it's also if I remember corrctly included in the longer thesis I posted. I , just like you, find it to be to many confounding factors there. F.ex we do not know how adding another form of vitamin A interacts with the ratio of different metabolites potentially already present in the rats. I'm not saying this proves anything, I rather say the same as I think is the outcome of your critisism of H & W: This does not provide proof, due to to much uncertainty and must be read in context.
Well said. Please weigh in on this:
Quote from lil chick on July 23, 2023, 8:19 amOn the subject of eggs, I've recently been forced to free-range my chickens for a while, and boy the yolks are much more orange. My birds are also all aging. On the other hand, I like that they are out living more like natural birds.
Our chickens free range full time with 2 border collies in attendance. AKA the chickens are too bold. For years, they eat WAPF along with us. They got fish eggs, beef liver, worms, cooked cabbage with tallow and on. I have never seen egg yolks so orange. Deep dark orange. Thought they were delicious.
In 7 years half our 14 birds died with what we were told Mareks' disease. On autopsy, they find fierce sciatica that cripples the bird into cachexia. Farmer friend in vet school taught us to high dose vitamin B1. Caught early enough it works every time. Odds are it is not a virus. It is a pharma marketing fraud.
Even more odd, my symptoms were the same. B1 also helped me during the most acute phases of my detox. While we do much better now doing detox similar to Grant's diet, our birds and dogs do as well. Much less lameness and all other symptoms in all three species. Please take a look at this and weigh in. thank you.
Quote from Chris on April 14, 2024, 7:57 pm@joe
When @jessica2 wrote, "I eat eggs and dairy every day, have for years and feel fine. It's ironically when I cut them out for 6 months on the "detox diet" when I had the worst health of my life." you completely ignored her experience. Dr. Smith wants everyone to believe that he has the last say in what works or doesn't work for someone, but not everyone does well with his approach.
His famous twitter eggs thread has been pretty well debunked. If someone does well on eggs, especially considering the many essential nutrients they contain, why try to convince them otherwise?
Please show me where it has been debunked. I have seen nothing but rebunking in studies and case studies - aka mounting anecdotal evidence.
If someone does well on beef liver, salmon roe, cod liver oil, pork fat, and high vitamin A diet, why try to convince them otherwise? Well if they are not on a blog about vitamin A toxicity, I do not try to convince them of anything. If they take the time to read a vitamin A toxicity blog, then I expect they are willing to consider the advantages of reducing and depleting our vitamin A levels.
If they are not willing to consider it and they are still on a vitamin A toxicity blog, then I might assess they are trolling that blog.
Meanwhile please take a look at another case study with an N=1.
And consider #toxicbiletheory. If no symptoms are showing up during intox of retinols, then perhaps the liver is busy sequestering and storing vitamin A and kicking none out that could cause symptoms. This can go on for years- decades. Unless one reaches the overflow level of liver's storage and detox commences regardless of how depleted the liver is for nutrients needed to protect the tissue with retinol binding protein. No RBP, no protection = free retinoic acid running through GI tract and other tissues and organs. Ulcers and damaged epithelial tissue everywhere. Pain. Beyond your wildest ideas.
This is called the acute phase. Please believe the chronic phase is over. Acute will end one of two ways: insurmountable painful damage or an immediate paradigm shift that allows liver to repackage toxins in bile and blood with RBP and other protective proteins and the colon to recover enough to excrete toxic bile fast enough for effective detox and excretion to remove the poisons before further damage occurs.
Please consider ideas from someone who survived the acute phase. Thank you.
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/lutein/