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Griff - progress report
Hey everyone,
Just wanted to update on my progress as I am now 1.5 years into low vitamin A diet. Not sure how active the forum is now, but figured I would be consistent with my progress reports. My main health issues that brought me to trying this diet are cystic acne, HS, IBS, headaches, insomnia.
IBS - improved roughly 60-70%, but still slowly improving each month. Still occasionally get days where I don't digest food well, but overall this issue is much better than 2 years ago.
Headaches- improved 80-90%. I saw the quickest improvement with this health issue and only occasionally experience a low grade headache now. Certain supplements seem to trigger this issue as well.
Insomnia- improved 50%-60%. I am sleeping much better these days and rarely experience a completely sleepless night. However I still struggle to get more than 5-6 hours of sleep most nights. I also discovered that taking lactoferrin gives me brutal insomnia. After taking it for two weeks straight I experienced a three night stretch where I didn't sleep at all. Not sure what the mechanism for that severe of a reaction could be, but it clearly did not agree with me.
Cystic acne/HS- improved 20-30%. This has been my main health issue over the last 15 years and I expected to be difficult to heal. The first year my skin actually got worse, similar to when my acne got worse in the first few months of accutane. Interestingly my skin is now starting to produce more oil and I no longer deal with dry flaking skin on scalp and face. In the last 2 months I have started to see noticeable improvement in my acne/HS. Both the severity and frequency have been improving over last few months. Hopefully this continues to track in same direction.
Overall my health is in a much better place than where I was 2 years ago. I know there has been a lot of controversy around this diet, but I do believe it has been at the root of my health issues. Years of fortified milk/cereal, accutane and then every diet trend including liver, CLO, high beta carotene fruits/vegetables eventually caught up to me. I plan on updating again in 6 months so we'll see how things progress until then.
Thank you for telling us. Good on you.
What is HS?
Current diet? Supplements? What supplements besides lactoferrin tore you up?
Skin takes a long time compared to some other things. I think because it is an active method of elimination.
@griffin yeah it sounds like you are great case for low vit A diet. What is your diet and supplements? I think acne almost always means low zinc. So if you had zinc deficiency even before accutane. It is almost 100% that you ended up low after. Hopefully you take some extra zinc. 10-20mg of zinc glycinate with dinner. Also I would consider good vit E complex. Do you have any lipofuscin aka "age spots" ? that is good sight that you run low on vit E as well. Also vit A depletes K2..
I had crazy skin issues(and other more serious issues) as well before I started accutane and all that. Now I know that I was just deficient in key micronutrients especially zinc. Was eating hardly any meat let alone red meat during my teens. But I would have some milk and liver pate almost daily.. I wish someone told me when I was 13-18 dude your diet is trash you need to eat some meat and you should take some zinc as well as your skin is horrible and you seem to have delayed puberty etc..
I would be completely different person now.. :-/
@lil-chick Yeah it definitely seems like skin is very slow to heal. Hopefully it will get there eventually. It is nice not to have massive amounts of dandruff anymore. My barber trips were getting a bit awkward.
@joe2 HS stands for hiddredinitis supportiva. I think its latin for acne inversa, basically you get deep cysts where skin touches other skin. Common places are under arms, behind ears, legs. I mainly get it on my legs and behind ears. To me its the same type of cystic acne I get along jaw line, but based off where its located dermatologists diagnosis it differently. I have tried a few different variations of low vitamin A over the last 1.5 years, but have landed on a diet consisting of beef, lamb, turkey, white rice, parsnips, apples, bananas, pears, blueberries, cucumber. The fruit and vegetables are not as regular as the meat and rice. I do notice larger amounts of fruit seem to aggravate my skin and IBS. Possibly my liver struggling to break down the fructose compared to the simple glucose in rice. I tried most of the suggested supplements from the LYL program; lactoferrin, niacin, keystone minerals etc. All of them gave me negative reactions. Lactoferrin was mainly sleep issue where as the others would aggravate skin issues.
@jiri its interesting you mention zinc as I was definitely deficient going into accutane. The only meat I would eat as a kid was if it came on a sandwich or pizza. Would occasionally have steak or burgers, but was an only child with both parents working so I usually just made myself cereal or sandwiches. I have noticed in the last 1.5 years whenever I try and supplement with zinc my acne gets worse. My only deduction from this is the extra zinc helping to clear more vitamin A from skin tissue. I do eat a fair amount of red meat so I am getting a baseline of zinc most days, but hopefully I can tolerate 10-20mg from supplements in the future to help heal skin more. I hear you on looking back on my diet as kid. I ate so much junk food, cereal being the prime offender. Unfortunate the my country fortified both milk and cereal with vitamin A. The rough calculations Ive done I was getting close to 700-800 mcg everyday just from the 2-3 bowls of cereal I ate. Then add in all the other dairy, tomatoes, carrots etc and I was probably above the adult RDA most days starting as a kid.
One other thing I forgot to mention is I have been donating whole blood every 8 weeks. Having grown up eating a lot of processed food fortified with iron I wanted to cover my bases here as well.
@griffin acne from zinc can mean that your body is pushing out excess copper. Basically copper is in everything and it is well absorbed even from foods high in antinutrients like nuts, seeds, grains, legumes etc.. So if you are low in zinc it almost always also means excess of copper.. So when you start taking zinc you block decent amount of copper absorption in the intestine. So when there is low copper intake finally the body has opportunity to start detoxing it. Exactly the same as vit A. Once you lower your intake the body starts dumping it into the blood from the organs..
What is your zinc/copper status can be also observed from testosterone and estrogen levels. If you have estrogen dominance symptoms like some gynecomastia, more fat around hips, ass, thighs it meas that you are probably estrogen dominant and you should increase zinc intake..
For males it is easy to determine. For females it is obviously harder because they have naturally more estrogen..
Donating blood is a good idea for sure. But I would recommend to do some basic blood work so you know where is your feritin. Also serum vit A like once a year so you can see the pattern where it is going..
@jiri I hadn’t really considered the copper angle. I have heard people talk about copper in the LYL group, but hadn’t looked into too much. I’m currently avoiding most of the higher copper plant/animal foods (nuts, legumes, liver etc). I’m sure it’s possible I still have excess amounts from days when I was eating a pound of liver per week. May try and slowly add in more zinc and see if I can push past the detox symptoms.
I definitely need to get blood work done again. I had a panel done right before I started low A diet 1.5 years ago that was ordered by my doctor. Ferritin was within range on that panel but would be curious to see where it’s at now. My serum vitamin A was on the higher side, but technically in range. I know this marker isn’t a great picture at actual vitamin A stores in body and I’m assuming I still have a lot left to get rid of based off my insane intake over the years.
As far as testosterone goes I really have no idea where that’s at. I’m around 160 lbs at 5’10 and work construction so my body comp is fairly decent. I used to compete in amateur boxing, but havnt been able to train the last few years because of health issues. Don’t have any issues with man boobs or excess fat anywhere. Would like to get back to some type of training again in future though
I’ll have to look into cheapest way to order my own blood panel soon. I don’t go to the doctors anymore as they have been pretty useless in helping any of my health issues. I think there are some labs near me that let people self order different panels.
@griffin "in range" for ferritin can mean in some labs numbers around 300. Which is crazy high, but still "in range"
You want ferritin under 100 for sure ideally around 50.
Vit A in range but on a higher side is also a bad thing probably. Yes it is not the best indicator for vit A status, but if you teste every year and you see the pattern like I said if it goes down or up or what. It can show you what is going on.
With that copper stuff if you always had good pooping meaning easy to pass dark brown poop like sausage it means your bile flow is good and you probably eliminate any excess of copper that you ingest. So I wouldn't worry about it that much. You need copper so I wouldn't eliminate all copper foods. Around 2mg from grains, legumes is ok. Just avoiding beef liver is a good idea. It is really really high in copper. Just 10g of beef liver gives you 100% RDA for a day.. Not to mention the vit A. So obviously any liver is a bad idea for sure.. You can try black eyed peas. It has low copper in comparison with other legumes and it is the best source of molybdenum. Another very important micro mineral that most people need more..