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Garrett Smith Egg/choline twitter thread
Dr Smith going through his Twitter egg/choline thread on a Livestream. He thinks eggs stop the detox. Listen to his hilarious explanation based on acetylcholine. Acetylcholine helps trigger bile flow of course and phosphatidylcholine goes in the bile. Love Your Liver Livestream #98: The BAD Research on EGGS, Testimonial, Subscriber Q&A! - YouTube
He mentioned Grant just after 21 minutes here. I thought @ggenereux2014 didnt want us to follow his diet ? Love Your Liver Livestream #98: The BAD Research on EGGS, Testimonial, Subscriber Q&A! - YouTube
Look at William's comments: Grant's allowance of the eggcels in his forum really pisses me off. I don't see how he can let lies fester under his watch. The way I see it, he's liable for their malicious stupidity. His forum has pretty much become a place for all those toxic morons to accumulate. A lot of them hate you for banning them from your platform for being toxic/parasitic people. Grant needs to step up and take out the trash. I've said so on his forum recently. I got attacked by those spiteful mutants.
RE: I thought @ggenereux2014 didnt want us to follow his diet
No, I’ve never said that. What I’ve said is that I didn’t want people to mimic my exact diet.
Although my diet is definitely not ideal, or even that good, I don’t think it's a “bad” diet either. I’ve had a number of people contact me saying that they’ve used my exact diet and have done really well on it.
But, that’s the problem, I want people to determine the diet that works best for them.
I want to be super clear, the primary reason that I follow my ultra-low, near zero vA as humanly possible, is to prove a scientific point. It’s not because I think it’s absolutely needed and safe.
So, unless someone also wants to prove the scientific point that humans can do just fine on a zero vitamin A diet, there’s no reason for them to be ultra-restrictive like what I’m doing.
Conversely, I don’t think eating 3-4 eggs per day is a good diet either. My opinion is that doing so is no longer following a low vA diet. I know your opinion on it is that the benefit of the additional choline outweighs the negative of the additional vA and beta carotene intake. However, that’s yet to be determined in the long term, as with many other variables here. So, at this time, I sure can’t agree to regularly eating whole eggs. As I’ve said before, I think it would be safer to get the additional choline from a supplement.
But, we don’t know right now. So, until that’s really proven out one way or the other, people need to be very careful and determine what’s best for them.
Thanks for clarifying @ggenereux2014. If you cant agree to regularly eating even one whole egg a day then what do you suggest we eat to get more nutrients if for some they cant eat much more than 200 grams of meat a day ? Dairy actually seems to have much less nutrients than eggs for about the same vitamin A. So logically that shouldnt be allowed either. Small fish perhaps similar argument ? I did eat moderately high meat and beans and that didnt suit me. Some might disagree with then shifting to more fruit and vegetables for various reasons including plant toxins like oxalates. Some might not want the carotenoids even in small amounts. What are you suggesting then that's low vit A ?
You have made the scientific point re vitamin A. Many of us have spent thousands of hours figuring out how to do this better from a liver detox point of view. Many people have tried numerous solutions already. We dont have many answers left. You and others may be okay with an immediate low vit A but we estimate the strong initial detox has backfired for 50% of people doing this. Not me cause I was eating eggs which reduces the primary problems leakiness and bile toxicity. There's all sorts of pathways that may be struggling or blocked for other people that would benefit from a balanced diet and not immediately a low vit a diet. I personally needed more choline but most are doing perfectly well with excellent life changing improvements from 1-2 eggs a day. It's not slowing the detox (unless there's intolerance issues). I think you risk losing the wider appeal of this Vitamin A reduction approach. It's got very interesting with people knowing their subject finally finding us. Strange, they all agree with choline initially. It's well proven. There's a tonne of research. Did you know ? Choline helps peristalsis through acetylcholine ! How many long term LYL members have constipation ? Sorry, had constipation, as they are now eating eggs.
My reduced symptoms indicate my solutions are proving very successful. A better solution for testing than liver biopsies and I'm quite prepared to pay my money to prove the point about choline. We the 80% tolerating eggs know.
Hi @andrew-b
I think the things we can agree on are:
- We don’t want people sliding backwards into the “detox setback”. (BTW, I’ve never liked that term, does anyone have a better one?)
- Commercially produced dairy is definitely off the menu.
- If someone does find that they are sliding into the “detox setback”, then doing whatever they can to get out of it as quickly as possible is critically important.
Sorry for the repeat question, I know that I’ve asked it before. Since you’re advocating for eggs mostly because of their choline content, then why not just take a choline supplement? Why take on the extra risk of the additional vA and BC? That make no sense to me. Sure, eggs are cheap and readily available, but continued poor health is really expensive.
My point is that if eggs are beneficial mostly because of their choline content, then using a choline supplement should be extra beneficial since there is no additional risk (that’s assuming choline itself is safe).
What I’ll do over the next 4-5 days is read through the studies you and GS are debating over. That’ll give me a better understanding of it. We can pick up the discussion then.
Thanks
@ggenereux2014 I did eggs throughout the detox. They are high in phosphatidylcholine also, good for selenium especially when other sources pose risks, biotin and iodine. Good for protein which helps detox. And B vitamins. And they have choline. It would mean taking various supplements. As people have more success over time with the supplements then it might become more clear it's the choline providing the bile help. I like a variety of foods in my diet. Most of my eggs are in a variety of foods. Sometimes in fryups. I'm not interested in eating loads of meat for the rest of my life.
Eggs are better absorbed than a single supplement. In my opinion the choline far outweighs the small risk from the retinol and lutein content. Phosphatidylcholine in the bile and bile flow being the key factor in good health.
We have done a lot of research on choline and betaine. Far better than the studies GS came up with. He has never challenged or debated any of the evidence I presented and he deleted. His twitter thread is really poor quality in the scheme of things. He avoids all debate of it. He made so many mistakes even picking his studies (that didnt support his hypothesis). He never defines what he thinks is too high choline. If you pick studies of eggs and choline below the adequate intake of 425/550 mgs which is defined as avoiding fatty liver disease then you are picking studies that are set up to fail. If you want to waste your time then it's up to you. Perhaps read this thread to get an idea what we think of it. @jessica2 deserves a lot of credit for identifying the problems with at least 14 of his studies. Some of the versions of choline supplements used in the studies arent the ones we would necessarily recommend. I see no point discussing the importance of choline or eggs on the basis of the poor research of GS. He's avoiding the crux of the matter that choline deficiency leads to fatty liver disease and it's reversed when supplied. His studies dont have much to do with the case for or against choline and eggs. For example, the importance of choline in pregnancy is fundamental to everything that follows. Choline supplies phosphatidylcholine for the bile. Something GS seems to confuse with acetylcholine. Choline has many roles in the body. We all have differing abilities to make it perhaps hampered by fatty liver disease. Younger women with no genetic issues will need less. Older women are more likely to run into problems.
Vitamin A reduction is the healthiest thing you could do when done right and therefore the people doing eggs or choline in combination are in a different league health wise compared to the general population. I'm much more interested in how the Vit A experimenters are doing than epidemiological studies with unhealthy populations.
Feels like this thread is mostly aimed at poking at Garrett and a little bit less so at Grant. Grant has made it clear that he is not recommending diet nor treating anyone. He is experimenting and sharing data. So far he presents a good case for most of what we believe we know being wrong. Hard to understand folk on this thread who understate the significance of maximal reduction of retinol instake going on 8 years.
Garrett on the other hand is treating seriously sick folk from many different backgrounds. He is careful to demand nothing of his clients - except that they listen, learn and decide for themselves what to do. Contrary to statements here, he does not recommend eating egg whites. He prefers eating no eggs but if he does, he eats whites. For a number of different reasons along with reducing retinol intake.
As stated all of us on LYL come from different backgrounds with different obstacles. One of us was down to eating mangoes only. All else caused problems. Garrett's advice was to continue eating mangoes while working on ways to safely add in other food sources and other means of removing retinols. That is very different than recommending mangoes.
The problems he sees and I have experienced come in two flavors - going too fast or going too slow with detox and removal. Causes of these two flavors come in many different ways. Too much too little fiber, charcoal, specific nutrients, heat, cold, activity, non-activity, retoxing, intoxing,...... What works for me is not going to work for just about anyone. Even someone very similar to me.
So my bafflement here is that anyone is arguing that retinols are a vital nutrient and that anyone is arguing what is ideal and or tolerable for a healthy person to eat. I eat as close to Grant's diet as any I know and it hurts when I do not. I probably eat more fruit but Grant, Garrett and I are not aiming for the ideal - I think. My guess is we are navigating and experimenting to see what helps us improve and what hurts us - specifically us.
FWIW, we raised 14 chickens these last 7 years. We were careful and lucky to have no predatory losses. One bird was lost to infighting. The other four were lost to what we were told is Marek's disease. A virus that causes terminal sciatica. We were also told once the bird avoids walking, she is done. A few farm friends recommended we watch for limps in their walk and give them thiamine in yogurt when we see it. We have reversed the obvious sciatica on our other birds.
Our experience this last year opened my eyes to my last 40 years of back, hip and leg problems. Sciatica, sacroiliitis, kidney stones, piriformis, cachexia,....... 2023 was my worst year for pain. With Garrett's advice and Grant's written history, I am improving steadily and quickly. And making connections with what I see in all our animals. Gout. Arthritis. Hearing loss. Sight loss. On our fifth generation of dogs and third generation of chickens. Cats do not count. What I think I grocked this month is that age has less to do with it than built up toxins.
The birds who died first in every flock were the dominant hens who took food first and most. When I set up a Japanese beetle trap / feeder, the hen who ate the most pulled up with Marek's first and worst. Process repeated as that dominant hen was replaced. As we ate keto / paleo nose to tail, our hens got more treats in kind. And their eggs tasted it. Their regular feed included cracked grain and all the bugs and worms they could free range all day under watchful guard dogs' eyes. So they ranged all day and ate all day off our compost piles and gardens full of bugs and worms. The got treats with butter, whipped cream, salads, fruit, liver, beef, yogurt, cabbage cole slaw with tallow, fish oil, fish eggs, fish, .....
What we recognize now is the socalled Marek's pops up first and worst and most often when their retinol intake increases. And yes, those yolks were dark orange and tasty. 2023 is the first year they got a reduced retinol diet. And the sciatica disappeared. Right now our oldest girl is 7. Last week she started limping in spite of dosing her with B1, fresh yogurt, selenium, magnesium, zinc,.... What made biggest difference so far is giving her raw ground beef treats in private sessions away from her flock.
So yeh I have tried a few diets. No eggs to 3 dozen per week. I remember loving to dip my ribeye's in yolk. Given my experience with pain level changes, I will not eat much eggs. I think Grant's 8 years and my off and on experience last 40 years, proves the point that retinols are not essential in the diet and that when our liver works we make the choline we need. If we do not make it ourselves, it is probably not for lack of eating eggs. It is more likely for lack of other minerals and nutrients. Probably minerals and nutrients being used up in process of ramping up RBP production. And nutrients lacking in our typically depleted soils. Not all of us can farm like or buy food from Joel Salatin.
Have a good week and thank you again Grant for this blog. Appreciate the lack of censorship. The ad hominems not withstanding, it is nice to see people arguing with all their might.
I've been experimenting with eggs, and I'll be honest I'm not entirely sure they're fully right for me. BUT, I've been testing out betaine (trimethylglycine) because I've suspected I have methylation issues, and betaine is a good methyl donor apparently. Elliot Overton talks a lot about thiamine, and I've been suspecting that I have also had thiamine issues. So I've been slowly testing that out. He says that if you're methylation isn't great, taking thiamine, especially the TTFD form, can stress this system and supporting it is one way to offset that. SO, I got some TMG and, starting off slowly, find that it seems to be useful for me.
If I remember somewhere Dr. Smith said that VitA poisoning causes depletion in thiamine.
I find Elliot's videos to be super useful. In this video he discusses nutrients that support methylation (20 minute mark). Choline and betaine are on the list.
So to Grant's point, perhaps a supplement *may* be the way to go for some people, whereas the whole food may work better for others. I suspect this is simply not a black and white, all or nothing thing, that some people will do good with the eggs and others have to find another pathway.
I understand that those who aren't trying to prove a point (most of us, I guess) shouldn't see problematic doing a less low vA diet as long as it improves well being and saves money on supplements. Why not giving it a try? Science is not consensus so lets go forward and see what happens. It's up to each one. Sorry for this obvious post.
I don't believe in censorship. Good point, Andrew. Now the giant is on the move again (I mean Grant, lol).
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CDCA more efficiently forms mixed micelles with cholesterol and phosphatidylcholine and, therefore, the CA/CDCA ratio may affect the risk of gallstone formation.
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Conjugated primary bile acids do not exhibit cytotoxic effects at concentrations close to physiological conditions. In the presence of phosphatidylcholine, cholesterol, the concentration of primary bile acids, which are freely present in the aqueous phase, sharply decrease, as they form single-layer bubbles and mixed micelles, in which the hydrophobic regions of the molecules are enclosed. This explains why the primary bile acids in the biliary tract and small intestine do not display cytotoxic effects.
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At a concentration close to the amount required for the formation of micelles, membrane damage is possible. A deficiency of phosphatidylcholine in bile can increase the content of primary bile acids, which are freely present in the aqueous phase (monomers) leading to the damage of cholangiocytes. [121]. The secretion of HCO3− by the biliary epithelium creates a protective bicarbonate umbrella on its surface, which neutralizes bile acids and reduces their ability to penetrate the cell surface [96]