I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
How does A leave the body?
Quote from tim on February 24, 2019, 4:07 pmQuote from Orion on February 24, 2019, 6:05 amQuote from tim on February 23, 2019, 11:38 pmQuote from Guest on February 23, 2019, 5:32 pmSince going low A, my scalp/hair has gotten extremely oily. I am 53 and I have a history of oily skin and scalp which subsided some what before going low A. Same story with acne. I had also wondered if oily skin and pimples where a way to get rid of A.
More oily? Oh no. How long have you been low A for?
Do you think it could still be release of VA from body stores that is causing that?
I think going low A is like being on accutane again for a short while, its like the initial purge that people get on RetinA and accutane. I am seeing my skin clear and sebum reduce, but still need more months to see if it will continue.
Pretty sure at this point that vitamin A overload causes acne, so when we deplete and release it, those that had acne issues as teens for example will get some of those symptoms back before healing.
That is great news.
It is claimed that sugar and high carb foods contribute to acne and excess sebum, perhaps VA toxicity interacts with carb metabolism in the body to create this effect.
Do you have any thoughts on why depleting VA creates a temporary overload in the body? It is because of more toxic forms being released like RA or because the body overcompensates in response to low intake?
When people enter ketosis for the first time in their lives through a ketogenic diet or starvation the body tends to produce more ketones than necessary for a period before production normalizes hence that line of thought.
This is probably a first for my body being deprived of dietary VA.
I think the high sugar and carbs = acne is false, I think it is vitamin A overload from diet, and stem cell death in skin, that causes the dis-regulation of sebum, the immune response impaired, p. acnes then runs free with lots of sebum for food. People with sebum that does not reach the surface get cysts, and those who have sebum reaching the surface, black and whiteheads.
Depleting VA does not cause the body overload, it releases the stored retinoic acid for transport, and having it out in the system = all the detox list of symptoms. Adequate zinc and protein/aminos to support retinol binding protein are important during detox.
This is all in laymen terms, but this is how I picture it 🙂
Quote from Orion on February 25, 2019, 7:02
I think the high sugar and carbs = acne is false, I think it is vitamin A overload from diet, and stem cell death in skin, that causes the dis-regulation of sebum, the immune response impaired, p. acnes then runs free with lots of sebum for food. People with sebum that does not reach the surface get cysts, and those who have sebum reaching the surface, black and whiteheads.
Depleting VA does not cause the body overload, it releases the stored retinoic acid for transport, and having it out in the system = all the detox list of symptoms. Adequate zinc and protein/aminos to support retinol binding protein are important during detox.
This is all in laymen terms, but this is how I picture it
It used to be very clear for me that if I ate too much sugar my skin would break out. This has stopped happening after about 5 months on a low vitamin A diet.
If you'll permit me some wild conjecture: I found a study once (don't have a link at the moment, sorry) which showed that fructose interacted with the BCMO enzyme in the intestinal lining which cleaves betacarotene, up-regulating it. It could be that in a toxic state this results in the creation of more retinol than the body would desire, which - in a roundabout way - results in more acne from eating sugar. But the root is the VA, not the sugar.
Also, given that fructose is readily stored as glycogen in the liver, could this somehow affect the storage of VA in a very overloaded liver?
I have no idea! It's possible
Quote from harrymacdonald on February 25, 2019, 7:38 amQuote from Orion on February 25, 2019, 7:02I think the high sugar and carbs = acne is false, I think it is vitamin A overload from diet, and stem cell death in skin, that causes the dis-regulation of sebum, the immune response impaired, p. acnes then runs free with lots of sebum for food. People with sebum that does not reach the surface get cysts, and those who have sebum reaching the surface, black and whiteheads.
Depleting VA does not cause the body overload, it releases the stored retinoic acid for transport, and having it out in the system = all the detox list of symptoms. Adequate zinc and protein/aminos to support retinol binding protein are important during detox.
This is all in laymen terms, but this is how I picture it
It used to be very clear for me that if I ate too much sugar my skin would break out. This has stopped happening after about 5 months on a low vitamin A diet.
If you'll permit me some wild conjecture: I found a study once (don't have a link at the moment, sorry) which showed that fructose interacted with the BCMO enzyme in the intestinal lining which cleaves betacarotene, up-regulating it. It could be that in a toxic state this results in the creation of more retinol than the body would desire, which - in a roundabout way - results in more acne from eating sugar. But the root is the VA, not the sugar.
Also, given that fructose is readily stored as glycogen in the liver, could this somehow affect the storage of VA in a very overloaded liver?
I have no idea! It's possible
For sure, so many paths, but all seem to have VA in the equation somehow!
I was reading over this thread and wondered about the post that said that sun broke down the vit A in the skin, but a few days later, there it was... back again.
When I put that together with the study that said that alcohol moves vit A from the liver to the tissues...
I wonder if the people in the study drank any alcohol in those two days.
Quote from harrymacdonald on January 19, 2019, 7:05 amQuote from Guest on January 18, 2019, 12:37 pmI have changed the low vA foods I eat and the amounts of them. Also, one thing I didn't really do for the first 2 to 3 months is eat mostly organic, so that may have been something to hold my healing back. I think there is usually outliers and unfortunately I think I am one of those as far as how long it will take me to improve, though maybe there are many others who are like me and they just aren't heard from - it doesn't seem like there is a big enough sample size to know how long it takes to heal. Grant made a comment somewhere here than he knew of others that didn't improve in the first few months and so they gave up.
I don't think you're the only person who hasn't noticed benefits in the first few months. I did a low A diet fairly strictly for about 3.5 months and didn't feel any benefit - It became hard to motivate myself to continue to eat a restricted diet when I wasn't noticing any benefit, so I gave up before xmas.
I didn't notice any issue with consuming more high vitamin A foods, except for with dairy - which is definitely an issue for me. Whether that is because of vitamin A toxicity or not remains to be seen. I am not sure.
I have begun to eat a low vitamin A diet again recently, but it isn't quite as dependent upon grains as it was before and thus is higher in vitamin A than the previous low vitamin A diet.
So I don't think you're the only one. I have spoken to someone who's problems were definitely vitamin A related, who had been doing the diet for a number of months. His serum vitamin A was still very high, in spite of his having improved during that time, so it is clear that this is a lengthy process. Having said that, one would expect that after 4 months, some benefit might have been noticed if this were to be the problem.
I know this post is very old, and you may have forgotten, but when you say your friend had very high serum levels of vA, do you remember how high?