I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Hello, background and some progress
So first a little about me, I purposely chose an obfuscated name (side note: it was supposed to show up as "ConcernedRetinoid" to be humorous but I think it truncated to "Concerned" and I can't seem to edit my profile here) for now because I am also a member of a certain investigators program which has to do with being enamored by ones own hepatic organ. As those of you who've been there know, any dissenting opinion or questioning of said investigators absolute authority is not tolerated, but will result in account deletion (red flag). He may figure out who I am here anyway and delete my account there, but I am not sure there's a whole lot more I can learn there anyway as I've already gone through most of the material that might have been useful.
I decided to become a paid member there after spending some time on the fence, having some concerns over certain things but finding other things quite agreeable based on the evidence presented. In the paid program I found more red flags. While I had seen Mr. Genereaux's work I hadn't spent enough time on this discussion forum here to learn more about bad experiences on said other site.
Some of the red flags I've seen so far:
-The 4 things you must do first or don't proceed - this is just a liability clause, since its quite hard to fully do all 4 suggestions (though I don't disagree that they are good things to do), if you come up short on any of them he can simply say that's why his program didn't work for you.
-Chlorine Dioxide usage, yea no.
-Vitamin D supplements are rat poisons, I really don't know what to make of this one, yes I know the chemical is the same but does that disqualify D3 supplements as useful? I need more info.
-Vitamin E is also not a vitamin, maybe it isn't but severely lacks the level of proof for its alleged cousin, Vitamin A
-Avoiding fats unless you are underweight. This contradicts a lot of great information provided by keto and carnivore experts I've been following for a long while. I don't think those camps are right about everything, but on this subject they've provided ample proof.
-Constantly taking an adversarial position against other camps such as keto or carnivore. To me it just sounds like a poor attempt to drive business toward his site, especially in how he engages on social media against these camps.
-The only problem everyone suffers from is cholestasis, while I can agree its probably common its not the only cause of all health problems
-He's more than once suggested in passing that viruses are just your body bile dumping causing symptoms that make you sick
-His writing style is quite odd - I don't want this to seem like I am just being mean, what I mean is that for someone who spends so much time engaged in medical literature, you would think he could form more complete sentences and paragraphs
-He constantly talks down in his videos/writing. As if no matter what someone will screw up his advice, to me this is just another liability tactic, if his plan didn't work for you its your fault not his
-Everyone that disagrees with him or pushes D3 supps/ivermectin and a few other things is a pharma shill, "controlled opposition". I have no doubt that controlled opposition exists out there, but without direct evidence of a particular person covertly working for pharm this is a baseless claim. I am not even saying that I support ivermectin use, it just does not automatically disqualify one as a pharma shill.
Anyhow, I can keep going but I don't want this post to be a bash festival, I am really just trying to point out legitimate concerns I have there. He does say good things, I am glad he figured out the Vit A tox thing and I am glad I found out about that. He makes a number of other recommendations that I feel are safe based on available evidence I've been able to look at. I like to think he has good intention but has made the mistake of prioritizing his business success over doing the best things for his clients. I feel strongly that if his sole focus was the latter he would have no shortage of business, but its really on him to figure that out for himself. So that leads me to my background.
I have my own autoimmune disease that I've had for years, namely psoriasis it probably falls into the moderate-severe category with about 10-15% coverage, both of my arms and legs have patches in addition to my abdomen and scalp. Nothing has worked on it that is available to me, I am a bit concerned about trying injectables but those might be most likely to work. Before trying the injectables I'd still like to find other options as I don't want to be a lifelong medication dependent. I had seen great results with those on carnivore diet which is what led me down that path. I didn't have a problem with tolerating an all-meat diet even for months other than the fact I burned out a bit on such limiting food choices. I love food and I love variety, before carnivore I loved to cook and over time food became less exciting.
Since learning of the Low VA diet I have made adjustments, reincorporating beans, rice and a number of fruits and vegetables that fall on the low VA list, so that has been nice.
The hardest thing about doing keto (which I'd also done for a while) or carnivore was that I have a kid who does not want to eat these things. Trying to get my kid to eat anything healthy is extremely difficult, its my fault for letting them eat so much junk and then trying to pull the rug on that one. So basically when I cook, I make dinner for myself, dinner for my kid and sometimes also a 3rd dinner for my wife.
Now this is where it gets interesting for me, my wife has numerous chronic health conditions. As I was listening to the Poisoning for Profit audiobook, I noticed over 20 symptoms of vA toxicity were things my wife has suffered from for years recurrently. No matter how many doctors, specialists, surgeries, medications they've tried her health has just gone further into decline. In my opinion, she does not get to live any more she is just alive. Instead of helping her, many dr's just want to get rid of her, she's been dismissed from multiple practices without any cause or reason provided (they don't have to), the ombudsman at all the local hospitals simply do not care, they protect the interests of the hospital not you. If you are not familiar with dismissal, it means you can never see any doctor that is a member of that practice again, you have to go somewhere else. There is no way to reverse this process as far as I know except possibly hiring a lawyer which probably wouldn't motivate any other doctor in that practice to want to work with you even if you won in court.
When she tries to get in to see a specialist they often refer her to an emergency room, the emergency room does the minimal tests to confirm she's not dying at the moment and send her home, ignoring the debilitating pain she still has and they fail to address. They often prefer to flag her as a drug user rather than acknowledge something could actually be wrong. Don't get me wrong, there have been some very good dr's along the way who really tried to help my wife, but given the number of specialties she needs their options have always been quite limited.
One of her conditions is that she has protein-S deficiency causing a clot which killed her liver, she now has a living donor liver transplant from her sister. They had to reconstruct her bile ducts and remove her gall bladder so this puts some limits on her dietary options as she has to be extremely careful with fats as they do seem to make her feel bad quickly. She also has Pseudo tumor cerebri and let me tell you, getting a good neurosurgeon that our insurance will cover has gotten increasingly difficult. She constantly lives with a headache she would rate as a 7-9 on the medical pain scale. Those are just her two biggest ones, the last time I looked at the list of diagnosis codes on her chart its about 2 pages long.
She is also in a place where she's more or less given up, I keep trying to convince her just to try a low VA diet as I feel there is very little to no risk for her to focus on the accepted low VA foods as long as she minimizes fats to what she can handle. Generally you can't go wrong with eating basic whole foods, avoiding processed, organic as much as you can and just adding the low VA component there's plenty of great options to eat in my opinion. Unfortunately I still haven't really convinced her, though I've repeatedly asked her to read Mr. Genereux's books at least as I think they are really good and present a very strong case for vA not being a vitamin at all. I am also hoping that as I do this diet longer, my own psoriasis will improve and she might be further convinced to try this.
One more thing I'll mention is that my kid also has ADHD/hyperactivity. Numerous medications have been tried, yet it remains uncontrolled while also modifying her personality in a way that I feel makes her not herself. Again I am convinced that medicating is the wrong approach and there has to be a better answer.
This is also why I've been researching health and nutrition myself and trying to find correct answers, I am increasingly convinced healthcare is not designed to help people and my wife's problems snowballed quite badly to where she is now. I am also a problem solver and when I encounter a problem I don't have a solution for I do my own research. So that is more or less how I arrived here, I am hopeful low VA can help not only myself but also my family.
Looking forward to learning more here.
-ConcernedRetinoid
Hi Concerned. Guessing the LiverTeacher you described is getting on your nerves because he's been beaten up so much for problems outside his realm. My take on his restrictive ideas esp re fat intake is that he's thinking strictly in recovery mode. He's gone through it too. I'm 4 months into this and feeling like I'm finally starting to be able to apply some knowledge. Until now, it was too hard to learn what foods caused pain and when. There were too many unfamiliar variables coming at me all at once. That's LiverTeacher's whole emphasis is helping to work through the logistical maze of a messed up liver without making it worse.
I'm an under and came off 12 years paleo with last 10 years keto. Was looking at carnivore and mistakenly jumped on beef liver. Painful less that drove me to find first Garrett Smith and then Grant Genereux. Hope I improve enough to feel the mistake was worth the trouble. As far as the LiverTeacher's issues, my private conversations with him got me thinking, he is finding his way through this maze along with us and is cool with everyone's choices ONCE he is convinced they take responsibility for their choices. It's easy for him to see that in me since I ate more beef liver in a month than any surviving person I know of and I own that fact so often there's no avoiding it. After all, I thought I was eating smarter when I ate all that liver. Imagine what mistakes I'm making now.
So I'm learning to go easier on myself and those around me. Like Grant wrote, the people who grock these ideas first and most are the ones with skin in the game. Anything I can learn that makes me pain drop gets my attention and gratitude. Keep the faith and keep working at improving .
BTW, as for keto and carnivore being good bad or indifferent long term? Hard to say. I might try keto again. If I do carnivore, it will be zero organ meats. After hearing about Shawn Baker suffering 3 days from eating one apple I think keto or carnivore, I will find a way to get steady fiber intake. Baker is only good as long as he doesn't need to excrete any of his bile and as long as he has access to 3# of meat per day. Alot of keto / paleo people started advocating years ago to work at being metabolically adaptive. AKA, don't stay strictly ketotic for 10 straight years like I did. When I had to bring in pectin (apples) into my diet I wiped out. My ketosis shut off the minute I ate that first apple. And my liver and muscles had zero glycogen stores. And my liver was already hurting. Made for some rough times.
Have fun and thank you for writing all this.
Hello! Grant's diet has made my life livable headache-wise, I hope your wife gives it a try sometime! I literally went from a couple of migraines with everything-must go nights a few times a month to one or none per year. As you say, life had become hard. I still have some of my other problems, but thank god the headaches and nausea stopped. It took about one year on the "slow boat" as I call it.
Hi @concerned I was involved with the vA detox programme you refer to, but now have absolutely nothing to do with it. You have described many of the red flags very well. I have a lot more to add to your list…not understanding what B vitamins do in the body, not understanding sulphur metabolism and not understanding how choline is vital for bile flow (and many other functions) etc. I could go on. But I won’t, as I no longer even want to think about said person. Really sorry to hear about your family’s health worries. I think that high vA is a huge problem. However, nowadays I think that going very low vA can induce too strong a detox for some people, particularly if detoxification exit routes are sluggish. Results in vA auto-poisoning as it comes out of the liver but can’t get out of body. Some people get away with it but many don’t (I didn’t). I favour a slow detox with a high choline intake, nutrient rich diet and enough vA included to prevent too large a detox dump. That’s my current take. Always learning. Open discussion, which Grant encourages, is the lifeblood of science and learning. How to reduce vA stores in the safest and most efficient way is not fully understood yet. Sharing experiences and theories is how we learn.
I'm sorry, I said in my post above that I was "on Grant's diet" but really I've never gone low like Grant. I'm just using his idea, which is to cut back on vitamin A. And like Jenny, I'm not doing it quick, I'm going very slowly.
Hi @lil-chick am I right in thinking you have made steady progress with no large setbacks? Setbacks can be a return of old symptoms or (in my case) development of completely new symptoms.
Have you always included some eggs? Have you ever worked out how many IUs a day of vA you are incorporating into your diet? Sorry for all the questions!
I too never went full on Grant diet. I did remove eggs for the first 2 years but kept in butter, some cheese and more vegetables than some others. However, I still seem to have induced a strong detox that was more than my body could handle. I need to bear in mind that I have had covid three times which, if Anthony Mawson is correct, causes a rise in circulating retinoic acid.
I’m now seeing a detox that is too strong for the detoxification ability of our particular body as just as bad as vA toxicity and/or Accutane poisoning. They all amount to the same thing - high levels of vA circulating and damaging the body. We are much better finding a level that our bodies can cope with. This will vary from person to person.
The exit of vA can be slowed at many places. From storage to bile there are five enzyme steps (as far as I know) and any one or more can be on a ‘go slow’. Then the bile needs to get out the hepatocytes (liver cells) and into the bile canaliculi. This is liver detoxification phase 2.5 and requires enough phosphatidylcholine. Lack of PC causes cholestasis. The toxins then need to exit the body and not be reabsorbed via bile reflux, leaky gut or enterohepatic circulation. Many places to go wrong. If more vA coming out of storage than we can personally process then we have auto-poisoning imo.
I can only conclude that the safest way has to be the slow way. I’ve heard too many stories of induced poor health over the last four or so years that I’ve been involved with this project. Not to say that some people aren’t fine doing a faster detox but I’d say it depends. Certainly ingesting adequate choline while detoxing is key, but lack of choline is not the only block to the exit of vA, although it’s a highly significant one imo.
Hi @jaj! I remember writing in my log that going "lowered VA" was one of the hardest things I ever did. However, haha, I'm not really sure I remember now all the reasons WHY I said that. Perhaps because the body is working hard just standing still? I've tried many special diets, so I'm used to the work of changing habits. With VA-reduction there is the "hump" of getting over the silly-sounding idea, and deciding that you don't care what other people think, hahaha. Of course there were the "detox days" that felt slightly hangover-ish (which makes so much sense if you think about it). And occasional strange symptoms (even to this day, such as foot cramps or ear sounds). The ever-present flaky skin, sigh!
I'm sorry, I've never figured out how much VA I'm taking in, I bet a pretty big dose of pre-formed A, not veg carotenes. There were a couple of months at the beginning where I ate egg whites instead of eggs, but I got "the ick" on that quickly, especially knowing that it can affect b-vitie status. I then went back to 1.5 eggs a day for me 2.5 for husband. I've been keeping chickens for probably 25 years now, so eggs have always been a thing for me. Even so, I suspect that there is an upper limit on the amount of eggs that a person should eat because I knew a weight lifter back in the day who had bad results. I think an egg meal per day and a baked good with eggs per day: all good. A blender of eggs: not good.
I'm so excited that we are figuring out ways to make all of this easier and more successful. That is getting to the root of things, isn't it? Between a moderate-VA diet and smart additions of useful foods... we should be all good.
I think it is very interesting that you have had brain symptoms. I think in some the brain area is more affected. Migraines and head pressure and mood etc do seem to be on the list of VA-toxic complaints including my particular story. So retinoids are up there doing their mischief. Hopefully you are on the other side. Maybe your symptoms (which I'm so sorry you went through) weren't avoidable?
I totally think (and I know this isn't a view held by everyone) that VA is used as a weapon by the body against things like flus and I think that is at least part of the malaise. I also think this usage is one of the ways VA is "used up"--so you might be stronger afterward (at least in that respect). My rosacea never looks as good as when I have a fever! In my musings the VA is taken from the fat under the skin and shot at the entering virus particles "pew-pew-pew". ha!
I wonder how long Grant was toxic? Perhaps duration of VA poisoning might affect how long-lasting the damage is. I think I may have been VA toxic since about 12, so almost 50 years LOL. I remember my rosacea starting on my forehead and had my first migraine then. Maybe I will take some of my problems to the grave. Some things may be so broken that I might not have time to fix them. But there is always hope as long as we are alive.
I also have come to believe in two things: One: There is wisdom in our ancestor's food ways and it might be best to take an entire foodway as a whole and not nit-pick it too much because there might be mysterious reasons things are included. Two: even more important (I know Jiri hates it when I say it, sorry Jiri, LOL) eating what you want, when you want it, and not nitpicking that either.
Welcome to Grant’s forum, @concerned Retinoid! 🙂
Wanting to help my family was part of my motivation for joining this experiment, too.
My husband was initially skeptical, but he wanted to support me regardless, which meant keeping our shared meals low in vitamin A. As a result of so doing, he has been able to better observe his body’s reaction to nightshades, high-oxalate foods, dairy, and high-carotenoid vegetables. This has made it clear to him that certain foods do indeed trigger inflammation in his joints, among other symptoms, and that his health has improved along with mine.
So I do think there’s reason to trust your own health journey will have a ripple effect in time! But due to your wife’s condition, perhaps she is wise to hesitate before joining the experiment with you. There are definitely pitfalls of such a restricted diet, which may be more dangerous the sicker someone is...
Two mistakes I made were: not learning enough about oxalate toxicity (I inadvertently triggered oxalate dumps without really understanding what was happening or how to manage them) and failing to diligently meet our our phospholipid needs (the ultra low-fat approach didn’t work for me or my husband).
Phospholipids are needed for a growing child’s brain (both my husband and I were malnourished in this regard as children):
https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Phospholipid_exchange (I do not recommend the juicing or chocolate recipes, as they are high in oxalate—but the information on the oil blend is super helpful!)
What I do is have hemp hearts, sunflower seeds, and coconut oil on my muesli every morning, along with two soft-boiled eggs. But for my husband who isn’t a breakfast-eater, I blend egg yolks, hemp hearts (or oil), and coconut oil into a banana strawberry smoothie, which is perhaps something your child might enjoy? With the leftover egg whites, my husband bakes coconut macaroons (a surprisingly easy low-oxalate, low-vitamin A treat).
Sometimes focusing on “adding the good” is a less overwhelming place to start than “removing the bad,” since the more “good” you add over time the less room or interest there is for “bad” leftover anyway. 🤞
My heart goes out to you and your family (especially hearing how much your wife has struggled to find compassionate and capable practitioners of late—no wonder she is discouraged 😔), and I wish you the very best as you continue to seek answers and pursue healing as you care for your family!
Medical care is so broken.
Thanks for all the great replies!
Regarding my comments on Dr Smith, I think the number 1 thing he needs to do is be more open minded and stop being adversarial with the other diet camps. There might be some that are truly devious out there, but I am convinced that carnivore and keto are "on to something" they just don't have all the answers yet, I think the vA toxicity is a big piece that we really need more people thinking about. So far as I've seen, most keto/carnivore types have rejected low vA tox without even looking at the evidence. This is understandable given how foundational vitamin "science" is to nutrition, its a hard sell for sure. Also just because something becomes a fad doesn't mean it is only a fad, so Dr Smith would do well to stop harping on that. There are many carnivores who've been going for 10+ years already. I haven't looked much into other diets so I can't comment on them.
Secondly, Dr Smith should realize there are 10's of thousands of compounds in natural foods, we can't possibly understand the role of each yet, so taking the stance that only the like 5 minerals and a few other things are all we need isn't that much different from the mistakes made with mainstream vitamin science.
Thirdly, he needs to be open to criticism. I am sure he got frustrated with trolls, but the way he comments publicly such as on Twitter is the way to attract trolls. He should focus on the well established facts like the evidence for low vA tox, and when people don't like it simply encourage them to take an open minded look. He seems to try and cash-in controversy, and so far as I can tell its not really working. My concern is in the end he could end up being more detrimental than helpful to the low vA tox movement.
Now regarding one thing I think keto/carnivore types are wrong about that I only recently realized for myself. They often claim that high fats are more satiating than carbs, and that carbs never "trigger" the full response (Dr Sten Ekberg has a few vids where he mentions this) which is why you can't stop eating potato chips for example. While its true, I couldn't stop eating a full size bag of potato chips until it was empty before I started trying those diets, I realized when I switched to low vA from carnivore that I still could easily stop eating even though I was intaking a lot of carbs. I think, and this is just an idea, that the body is craving certain nutrients its not getting from the chips that could be why you just want to keep eating. So far it seems that my full response has little to do with ratio of carbs/proteins/fats, I have reduced fats as I've added carbs though I am not targeting any precise ratio at all. I am only focused on really on 3 things at the moment 1. Low vA foods, 2. Eating enough to be full, 3. Eating a decent variety - mostly beef or chicken for meat, beans and/or rice for side, eggs once a day, and a low vA veg.
I noticed what I suspect is similar in my cats, 2 of the 3 never want to stop eating. I can only guess it's because every single cat food I can find is either deplete of needed nutritional value or is enriched with a standardized ratio of vitamins. I tried searching a few times, every single cat food on the market is made with the same exact approved vitamin enrichment from some national veterinary association. I wonder how animals in the wild survive without getting all their vitamins 🙁 I've been unsuccessful so far in getting them to switch to a raw meat or even gently cooked meat diet. The 2 that can't stop eating are also very overweight, I really have two choices, let them get hangry to the point of getting aggressive or just feed them enough that they calm down. It's very frustrating, but I am only mentioning here because the low vA tox could very well be a problem for my animals as well, as all cat foods have a vA supplement among other things.
Regarding my wife and kid, yes I am concerned about detox symptoms and so I don't know what the best approach will be. What I am thinking though is just start by getting everything organic....mostly successful there with my kid although the organics are still crap like organic jelly (the ingredient list seems ok, but its high sugar so still bad for that). Then working on mostly whole foods without too much concern for vA content at first while keeping a good ratio of meats, veg, grains and beans, then lastly phase out vA as much as we can.
My wife still drinks Coke zero by the gallon and uses Splenda in everything. I've sent her studies on the contents of those things, but she'll have to convince herself. That's the other thing is I am not going to force anything here, I want her to convince herself. She was pre-Med before she got sick and needed a transplant years ago, she wanted to specialize in neurosurgery. She could have done it had all the health problems not happened but the important point here is I just want her to question mainstream medical advice and research this stuff herself rather than take my word for it.
I have been perusing posts here for the last few days as I've had time, lots of great content here.