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Highlights From My Journey So Far (Ultra-low VA)
Hello @puddleduck, fellow canuck! 😀
Thanks for asking how I'm doing. My skin is worse than ever! But it always gets worse every year since 2014. The cold does seem to exacerbate it!
My VA diet has changed since last year. In the spring, my household suffered a loss of food because of the ice storm, broken power lines, and power outages. We ended up getting "emergency" food that included chips and sadly, they've become a regular part of my diet ☹️ I just ate some now, actually! LOL.
I thought the chips were low VA, but later on I discovered they are a hidden source of some lutein and zeaxanthin.
I also added other things that don't spoil like dried fruit and the whitest looking raw organic honey I could find. And I stopped eating brown rice after reading Living With Phytic Acid by Ramiel Nagel. I'm not cutting out phytic acid altogether, but trying to reduce it.
Phytic acid is also supposed to interfere with mineral absorbtion like zinc, which is needed to produce dehydrogenase enzymes and RBPs. Low zinc also correlates with seb derm.
If you (or anyone) knows what is a good zinc supplement to take, please let me know. I've looked into zinc picolinate and found reason to be wary of it. I think I'll create a separate post on that and just copy/paste my notes to save time.
With all the changes I made to my diet and eating more calories, I gained back the weight I lost last year. I haven't found time to exercise.
The reaction you had to low VA is interesting. I too seemed to react to low VA, as I can't eat things like apples now before getting acne and this never happened before. Although there is a chance that I'm reacting to something else in the apples. Interesting that you found flaxseed beneficial. I've read conflicting info and haven't really followed up on that topic.
I recently tried activated charcoal for a month or so, but couldn't continue because I found it unpleasant to consume.
As for iodine, it's not just that it's time-consuming to write a detailed post - I feel like with that subject, I don't really have the time to properly analyse, process, and come to conclusions that I'm confortable sharing yet. But I will share some of my experience here, since you asked.
I only tried liquid Lugol's, never the enteric-coated tablets, so I ended up having a lot of problems just getting it down. That solution is highly alkaline and can burn the mucosa and irritate the stomach which needs to be acidic to break down food. I tried mixing it with water and ACV which is acidic. That's when I learned the hard way that ACV can slow down stomach emptying! That was most unpleasant to say the least 😳
I only took Lugol's for a few months. The highest dose I got up to was 31.25 mg. I also tried getting selenium from Brazil nuts, but then switched to a supplement. I think I took a food-based whole vitamin C sup as well. Also salt. But all this did for me was give me bad indigestion and a goiter! Dr. Brownstein claimed that goiters can happen if you take iodine with soy. I did find a hidden source of soy in bread I was eating at the time. I stopped eating the bread and discontinued the iodine. The goiter eventually went down a lot but it doesn't feel totally gone.
Potassium Iodide (which is in Lugol's) has 9 hazard warnings on Pub Chem including "harmful if swallowed". It is highly irritating, which shouldn't be an issue with enteric-coated tablets that are supposed to break down in the alkaline environment of the small intestine. I just didn't want to be consuming all those fillers. I've come across other people taking Lugol's long-term, IDK how they do it.
How are you doing, and how is your low VA journey going?
Thanks for the update, @boxie-moxie, though I am sorry to hear about your loss of food and also your ongoing symptoms.
Thanks for taking the time to share a bit more about your bad experience with potassium iodide. I know you’re not the biggest fan of Dr. Smith, but you might find his blog post about iodine interesting: https://nutritionrestored.com/blog-forum/topic/iodine-read-carefully-connection-to-hashimotos-graves-autoimmune-thyroid/ He agrees with you on the potential danger of this supplement, at least. 😅😐
I love zinc picolinate (Dr. Smith put me on it), but I respond well to all zinc supplements I’ve tried, which Dr. Smith has found to be rare. Zinc glycinate is the other form I take right now, but zinc picolinate is better IMO. Would be curious to see your notes on the picolinate form, though! I saw a Chris Masterjohn video where he suggests that since picolinate may increase zinc excretion, zinc bound to it is therefore less usable by the body, which is a bit of a leap. Since zinc picolinate resolves my symptoms as well as or better than other forms I’ve tried, I don’t buy Masterjohn’s idea. Zinc is one of the only supplements that noticeably makes a difference insofar as how I feel (most supplements do nothing).
You could be reacting to the pectin and soluble fiber in apples, especially if you don’t eat beans and oats (soluble fiber sources) every day). I reacted pretty strongly to apples when I first started consuming several per day after a year of low-A, but they were ultimately beneficial. From your initial post, it sounds like you suspect copper toxicity? Do you limit beans for that reason? Or do you consume beans daily?
I’m approaching year five, and became “deficient” in vitamin A a while ago, so this year I decided to reintroduce it. But found I don’t react well to retinol, and any amount of beta carotene over 250 mcg of Retinol Activity Equivalents isn’t great either, though increasing my fiber intake and eliminating oil intake has increased my tolerance to beta carotene (I presume by inhibiting absorption) from what it used to be (3% of the RDA lol). This past year I’ve been more interested in oxalate, too. But I am much, much healthier than I was when suffering severe chronic hypervitaminosis A.
Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to respond. 🙂 If you aren’t taking zinc, and haven’t done so yet while low-A but are planning to start, I’m curious how that would affect your skin... But, as you probably know, if you have copper toxicity taking zinc supplements can make ya feel horrible at first.
All the best!
Hi, @puddleduck!
Thanks for your interesting reply. I'd like to go more into the iodine topic, but the truth is that right now, I'm a bit "burnt-out", mentally exhausted. So I don't have the overhead, but hopefully soon...
Regarding the apples, I usually include a lot of beans and/or oats in my diet. Generally eat beans daily if I can get them (it's very difficult to find organic dried beans, have to order them from outside my province right now).
I didn't know that zinc can "make ya feel horrible at first". Can you please elaborate? Is there a way to mitigate this?
@boxie-moxie Totally get it!
It’s good you’re getting that soluble fiber, imo.
Well, the best way to mitigate any potential zinc reaction, is to start s-u-u-u-per sl-o-o-o-wly. Often, a liquid zinc supplement is used for this purpose. When I had copper overload (due to environmental exposure via copper pipes) I worked with an orthomolecular physician, who started me on only 5 mg daily of a liquid zinc supplement (unfortunately I do not remember the form or brand).
Zinc typically mobilizes excess copper from the liver, which can lead to possible symptoms: irritability, anxiety, mood swings, feeling overwhelmed and on edge... In my case (this was before I knew about chronic hypervitaminosis A), it worsened all of my symptoms, and took around 4 months to “clear.”
Here is an article on the subject by an MD trained by the Walsh Research Institute to diagnose and treat copper overload:
https://www.courtneysnydermd.com/blog/copper-overload-too-much-of-a-good-thing3
But even after the copper overload was addressed, my zinc deficiency continued to persist. In this state, supplementation with zinc improves my immune system and generally makes me feel good.
It is ideal to test zinc and copper levels before starting to supplement.
I hope that gives you some idea of what to watch out for.
Hello, @puddleduck! I apologize for my late reply. Thanks so much for your informative post!
I took a look at the article you posted, which states that "excess zinc can cause anemia".
Interestingly, a while back I found an article which stated the opposite: a symptom of zinc deficiency is anemia. SD is another, and I've had both.
Also, I've been eating organic for decades and much organic food is routinely sprayed with copper-based pesticides.
The study Long-term dietary exposure to copper in the population in Germany – Results from the BfR MEAL study found that copper intake "was about 10% higher in a scenario where consumers select the organically produced variants". So people choosing organic over conventional produce are intaking 10% more copper from food. And they found children's copper intake to be above the ADI (European-version of RDA).
A hair test I did a while back showed low zinc and copper literally off the charts.
So I think it's a safe bet that I need more zinc 🙂
Also, I've been eating organic for decades and much organic food is routinely sprayed with copper-based pesticides.
The study Long-term dietary exposure to copper in the population in Germany – Results from the BfR MEAL study found that copper intake "was about 10% higher in a scenario where consumers select the organically produced variants". So people choosing organic over conventional produce are intaking 10% more copper from food. And they found children's copper intake to be above the ADI (European-version of RDA).
I didnt know this. Thank you for sharing. I always buy organic too, seems like organic buyers run into different problems.... :/
Just a note: the following EU countries do NOT spray with copper: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and Estonia.
Quote from Angela on November 22, 2023, 9:08 pmHello, @puddleduck! I apologize for my late reply. Thanks so much for your informative post!
I took a look at the article you posted, which states that "excess zinc can cause anemia".
Interestingly, a while back I found an article which stated the opposite: a symptom of zinc deficiency is anemia. SD is another, and I've had both.
Also, I've been eating organic for decades and much organic food is routinely sprayed with copper-based pesticides.
The study Long-term dietary exposure to copper in the population in Germany – Results from the BfR MEAL study found that copper intake "was about 10% higher in a scenario where consumers select the organically produced variants". So people choosing organic over conventional produce are intaking 10% more copper from food. And they found children's copper intake to be above the ADI (European-version of RDA).
A hair test I did a while back showed low zinc and copper literally off the charts.
So I think it's a safe bet that I need more zinc
No need to apologize! Old-fashioned snail mail is the perfect correspondence speed, I feel at least... Haha! ✉️📬🙂
Have you ever been tested for Wilson’s Disease?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441990/
It’s usually diagnosed when patients are in their teens and twenties, but sometimes it can be missed longer. Some patients report neurological symptoms before their liver is affected, too.
Dr. Smith treated my iron deficiency by addressing the zinc deficiency first. I still needed an iron supplement, but I’m sure the zinc helped me to absorb and utilize it better! It makes sense that anemia is related...I now wonder if I should’ve been taking a B12 supplement all throughout the detox process, but live and learn.
It does sound like your body needs more zinc! 🙂
ETA: Apparently in Wilson’s Disease, serum copper isn’t usually high: https://wilsondisease.org/news-publications/faq/