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Hi everybody. About 9 months into vA detox.
I don't see any intro section on this forum but this is probably the closest. I've read all 3 of Grant's books and I went with Dr. Smith's program starting around 9 months ago, though it's hard to say exactly when because my start was kind of gradual and chaotic. It took me a while to establish a plan and a pattern. I originally came across the idea on the Ray Peat forum and it caught my eye because of how ridiculous it seemed at the time. I'm here now because a certain doctor kept knocking eggs and choline and Grant mentioned it in his last video. So now I'm here looking to improve on the current Frankenstein program I'm following. Basically, I also looked into Karen Hurd's bean protocol and took some ideas from there, along with just testing various things on my own. So far my anxiety and brain fog has significantly reduced, along with a good number of my systems working a bit better. I still do have a lot of joint and bone issues (that I'm too young for: m, 33), often lack the energy to exercise, and often have trouble with sleep. If you guys have any suggestions on the most important things to look into coming from Dr. Smith's program, I'd be very happy to hear them. 🙂
I also joined the program of a certain doctor around 9 months ago. None of the solutions there really helped at all. I frequent this forum much more than the other one due to this one not being censored. I check up on the other forum from time to time but there isn't really anything new or interesting being discussed. Just parroting the same stuff with no one really getting any better.
Since questioning the logic of a certain doctor, I have been looking into choline, and more recently, Vitamin C. I believe I have been very low on Vitamin C for quite a while and certainly over the past 10 years. Keratosis pilaris, fatigue, joint pain, layers of dead skin on scalp (not seb) among others that would line up with low Vitamin C levels.
Going keto and then carnivore, thus intaking insufficient Vitamin C probably caught up to me. Carnivore teaches that we probably don't need plants for Vitamin C due to not eating carbs, etc and that may be true in the rare situations where people aren't too sick to recover but foolish to make the outliers the rule. A certain doctor then suggested that Vitamin C was to be avoided due to it "slowing down the liver". Recipe for disaster.
Choline and Vitamin C both help with liver health, both detox and produce bile, both change the microbiome for the better. I don't buy the idea that these 2 compounds shut down the liver. I see just the opposite. I think if you lack these compounds, among others, you are more likely to suffer from a "backfiring liver".
Fiber causing a "bile dump" is something I question now too as it doesn't make much sense to me. Soluble fiber not agreeing with ones is a far cry from conclusive evidence that it is dumping bile. What exactly is the supposed mechanism? I've heard the idea that excreted bile makes the body make more bile. But from my experience of using binders like activated charcoal, I don't get the same negative reaction at all. The type of fiber seems to matter to ones as well as the quantity. I would guess that introducing new fermentable fibers impacts the microbiome and sometimes too much can cause problems, ala SIBO/SIFO/etc.
A certain doctor heralded a paper about how apples produce more bile. Interesting. What compounds in apples could be responsible?
Fructose?
Quercetin?
Fiber?
Vitamin C?
Quercetin and Vitamin C are the 2 that I would pin my hat on as there is evidence that they produce bile.
Just a few thoughts I've had recently.
@armin 110% agree. Well said 😀
I think high dose vC is not a good idea but getting the RDA (and up to 200mg a day) I’d say is a very good idea. I’ve introduced more fruit and some supplements to ensure I’m getting enough. I don’t think I was.
As for choline. Well…I think choline deficiency (from following a certain ‘Dr’ suggestions) nearly killed me. I’m a big fan of getting enough choline. Without enough the liver develops NAFLD and bile flow comes to a stand still. Is that loving your liver? I think not.
Producing healthy quantities of bile is good and the aim for any detox. However, issues occur if there is leaks in the system (bile reflux, leaky gut). Bile toxins then get into the blood and cause symptoms. Going low and slow seems to be the best way. I overdid the phosaphtidylcholine and got bile in the blood symptoms. It worked a little bit too well! I did get a similar result from Karen Hurd bean protocol so I think that improves bile flow too. Can call it a ‘bile dump’ (hate the term) or can call it a healthy bile flow (with negative consequences if leaks present). It’s the leaks that are the issue not the healthy bile flow imo.
@aleksey I'd emphasise a varied diet which helps the gut microbiome. Dr S tends to restrict foods for only one small reason and omits the positive reasons we eat them like mushrooms for B vitamins and beta glucan fibre. Fruits with polyphenols are frowned upon and they also can help the gut microbiome. I was the one who started an eggs experiment back in April last year and Dr S asked me to stop posting about them when my experiment was very successful for me. So we now have a lot of people now testing eggs and most doing well apart from some who overreact to the choline stimulus. Many getting improvements with long term problems. I eat foods for Vitamin C and Vitamin E as well. I overdid the beans so I'd say eat some eggs first if tolerated and help cell membranes whilst looking at a variety of foods. Dr S isnt keen on cruciferous vegetables or sulfur foods either yet I find these very helpful for bile flow.
@armin Apples also have glucaric acid which helps detox and the biliary system. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00365529009095540
Quote from Andrew B on February 19, 2023, 2:47 am@aleksey I'd emphasise a varied diet which helps the gut microbiome. Dr S tends to restrict foods for only one small reason and omits the positive reasons we eat them like mushrooms for B vitamins and beta glucan fibre. Fruits with polyphenols are frowned upon and they also can help the gut microbiome. I was the one who started an eggs experiment back in April last year and Dr S asked me to stop posting about them when my experiment was very successful for me. So we now have a lot of people now testing eggs and most doing well apart from some who overreact to the choline stimulus. Many getting improvements with long term problems. I eat foods for Vitamin C and Vitamin E as well. I overdid the beans so I'd say eat some eggs first if tolerated and help cell membranes whilst looking at a variety of foods. Dr S isnt keen on cruciferous vegetables or sulfur foods either yet I find these very helpful for bile flow.
@armin Apples also have glucaric acid which helps detox and the biliary system. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00365529009095540
While I do believe long term mega doses of Vitamin C to be a possible problem, I saw a study that showed than even after taking the RDA for 6 months, ones' Vitamin C levels were still not replenished for proper wound healing.
"The researchers concluded that even taking 90-mg doses daily for 6 months is insufficient to reestablish normal wound healing, and that it is still unclear how long vitamin C supplementation is needed for improvement in the majority of people."
I think your Vitamin C requirements depend heavily on your glutathione status. Because a reliance on meat supplies the elements needed to make glutathione, supplies amino acids like hydroxyproline that essentially replace the need for Vitamin C in processes like collagen production, and minimizes competition for uptake with glucose, carnivore diets tend to conserve Vitamin C for use in the small number of reactions in which it is truly required.
I'm not saying you can't wind up with insufficient Vitamin C levels on a carnivore diet though...it's certainly possible under the right circumstances.
On the flipside though, you can see that even "high" intake of Vitamin C does not guarantee sufficiency, and I suspect that has a lot to do with insufficient glutathione to recycle the Vitamin C and/or perform some of the functions that Vitamin C might perform in the absence of glutathione. I was listening to one of the advocates of IV Vitamin C therapy say that the body flushes out almost all of it as quickly as it can, probably because having anything more than minimal levels is actually creating a net toxic environment in the body. Based on that and some other lines of evidence, it seems to me that the human body is clearly not meant to have much Vitamin C in circulation, and that high doses of Vitamin C are either acting as a band-aid for low glutathione and other antioxidants produced by the body itself, or high doses of Vitamin C are acting like chemotherapy.
The author of the Perfect Health Diet, Paul Jaminet, thought he had scurvy despite a decent intake of Vitamin C from plant material. In his case, his body was probably using it up quickly because of systemic infections he was fighting, but I would also hazard a guess that he wasn't eating enough meat to balance out his plant intake, and was therefore low on glutathione. He's also a proponent of liver consumption and was likely consuming a decent amount of Vitamin A from it and other sources. He somehow arrived at the conclusion that you need to eat carbs to prevent scurvy and to maintain proper mucus levels in the body, which is completely backwards based on what I've learned in the years after I read his book...if anything, carb consumption appears to increase the risk of Vitamin C insufficiency/scurvy and destroy mucus membranes.
Regarding a connection between apples and the liver...it might be their malic acid that's playing a role. I've tried pretty much all the forms of magnesium, and Magnesium Malate seems to lead to symptoms that I don't get from other forms...symptoms that I associate with Vitamin A coming out of peripheral storage (I'm forever guessing about what my symptoms mean though...). Considering that malic acid is a recommended component of liver flushes (whether it's actually doing what people think it's doing or not), it seems likely to have some particular action in the liver.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on February 19, 2023, 1:07 pmI think your Vitamin C requirements depend heavily on your glutathione status. Because a reliance on meat supplies the elements needed to make glutathione, supplies amino acids like hydroxyproline that essentially replace the need for Vitamin C in processes like collagen production, and minimizes competition for uptake with glucose, carnivore diets tend to conserve Vitamin C for use in the small number of reactions in which it is truly required.
I'm not saying you can't wind up with insufficient Vitamin C levels on a carnivore diet though...it's certainly possible under the right circumstances.
On the flipside though, you can see that even "high" intake of Vitamin C does not guarantee sufficiency, and I suspect that has a lot to do with insufficient glutathione to recycle the Vitamin C and/or perform some of the functions that Vitamin C might perform in the absence of glutathione. I was listening to one of the advocates of IV Vitamin C therapy say that the body flushes out almost all of it as quickly as it can, probably because having anything more than minimal levels is actually creating a net toxic environment in the body. Based on that and some other lines of evidence, it seems to me that the human body is clearly not meant to have much Vitamin C in circulation, and that high doses of Vitamin C are either acting as a band-aid for low glutathione and other antioxidants produced by the body itself, or high doses of Vitamin C are acting like chemotherapy.
The author of the Perfect Health Diet, Paul Jaminet, thought he had scurvy despite a decent intake of Vitamin C from plant material. In his case, his body was probably using it up quickly because of systemic infections he was fighting, but I would also hazard a guess that he wasn't eating enough meat to balance out his plant intake, and was therefore low on glutathione. He's also a proponent of liver consumption and was likely consuming a decent amount of Vitamin A from it and other sources. He somehow arrived at the conclusion that you need to eat carbs to prevent scurvy and to maintain proper mucus levels in the body, which is completely backwards based on what I've learned in the years after I read his book...if anything, carb consumption appears to increase the risk of Vitamin C insufficiency/scurvy and destroy mucus membranes.
Regarding a connection between apples and the liver...it might be their malic acid that's playing a role. I've tried pretty much all the forms of magnesium, and Magnesium Malate seems to lead to symptoms that I don't get from other forms...symptoms that I associate with Vitamin A coming out of peripheral storage (I'm forever guessing about what my symptoms mean though...). Considering that malic acid is a recommended component of liver flushes (whether it's actually doing what people think it's doing or not), it seems likely to have some particular action in the liver.
I do agree with the majority/most/all of what you say.
I read the story above and Paul stated that "I was eating many vegetables plus taking a multivitamin containing 90 mg of vitamin C." It would be nice to know what vegetables he was eating as that would indeed shed light on what was going on. I assume he was consuming low calorie, fibrous vegetables like lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, chard, peppers, spinach, etc that is common on low carb/keto diets. These foods do indeed have Vitamin C but their antagonist Vitamin A can be much higher, thus failing to provide adequate protection. It seems foods high in C also often contain high levels of A. Add in the liver and the ratio is way towards A.
There are many things that can require higher Vitamin C levels including stress, mental or physical, smoking, drinking, drugs, infection, malabsorption, and Vitamin A toxicity. A certain doctor talks about vitamins acting as antidotes and in this regard I believe C protects as it is antagonistic to A and competes with receptors, which I believe is a good thing, thus lowering the bad effects of retinoic acid in circulation, while also helping with proper bile elimination.
I believe a healthy carnivore if not overwhelmed with many ills and is eating quality, preferable fresh meat, should do just fine. I just don't think many of us right now fit into that box. I really think the future of medicine should be doing genetic mapping for weaknesses. Do this upon birth before sending the baby home.
Yeah, when not eating berries I've been supplementing with minimal amounts of ascorbic acid (usually no higher than maybe 100 mg per day) on my carnivore-ish low Vitamin A diet. Seems like there are minimal detriments and some potential benefits from such small additions. However, it certainly hasn't prevented the damage I've incurred to my gums and some other soft tissues (although in my case I'll never really know if that damage came from oxalates or Vitamin A).
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on February 19, 2023, 2:15 pmYeah, when not eating berries I've been supplementing with minimal amounts of ascorbic acid (usually no higher than maybe 100 mg per day) on my carnivore-ish low Vitamin A diet. Seems like there are minimal detriments and some potential benefits from such small additions. However, it certainly hasn't prevented the damage I've incurred to my gums and some other soft tissues (although in my case I'll never really know if that damage came from oxalates or Vitamin A).
According to Paul, he took 4000 mg for 2 months before he felt he fully recovered from his symptoms. I wonder if it was overkill as higher doses aren't absorbed at the same rate when getting over 500mg/day. Either way, it is interesting that it took him 2 months.