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Is this the right approach? Doubts arising.
Hi all,
I have been reading through the blog and I have the impression that almost no one is having impressive improvements (I may be wrong). For the people who are getting better, it is a slow process with many setbacks. What I am trying to say is that when people are VA toxic, they remove vit A very fast for a period of time until they get to a normal level (this is what I recall from some of the studies here). Also, as far as I know, milk in the USA is supplemented heavily, so how can many people who have massive vitamin A intake be without illness? I used to consider this a solid theory but I have more and more doubts.
If the theory is correct and vitamin A is very toxic for the body, shouldn't more people here have experienced better recoveries? Also many times people here eat a food that contains some carotenoids and they experience serious setbacks, how is this possible?
I took accutane and I have been on the carnivore diet for the last 3-4 years at least and yet I did not see full improvements (my diet is zero or very low vitamin A since I only eat beef, I do not think there are relevant quantities in the fat). According to this theory, shouldn't I have recovered fully? I am young and provide my body with enough protein to repair tissues.
We know Grant cured his eczema among other things, but he also eliminated many other possible factors and all this may be flawed, I do not know. How can we be sure that it is the vitamin A? For example, many people on vegan diets, fasting and then eating a regular diet... achieve remission from eczema too, even people eating carnivore with lots of bacon, organs...
I think the focus should be on other thing and there has to be a missing link that is more important to recover health than vitamin A. There many other theories out there having much better recoveries and successes, don't you think?
What are your thoughts? Thanks.@ggenereux2014 @orion @tim-2 @beata-2 @ourania@wavygravygadzooks@are
Quote from Gonzalo on September 26, 2021, 10:08 amHi all,
I have been reading through the blog and I have the impression that almost no one is having impressive improvements (I may be wrong). For the people who are getting better, it is a slow process with many setbacks. What I am trying to say is that when people are VA toxic, they remove vit A very fast for a period of time until they get to a normal level (this is what I recall from some of the studies here). Also, as far as I know, milk in the USA is supplemented heavily, so how can many people who have massive vitamin A intake be without illness? I used to consider this a solid theory but I have more and more doubts.
If the theory is correct and vitamin A is very toxic for the body, shouldn't more people here have experienced better recoveries? Also many times people here eat a food that contains some carotenoids and they experience serious setbacks, how is this possible?
I took accutane and I have been on the carnivore diet for the last 3-4 years at least and yet I did not see full improvements (my diet is zero or very low vitamin A since I only eat beef, I do not think there are relevant quantities in the fat). According to this theory, shouldn't I have recovered fully? I am young and provide my body with enough protein to repair tissues.
We know Grant cured his eczema among other things, but he also eliminated many other possible factors and all this may be flawed, I do not know. How can we be sure that it is the vitamin A? For example, many people on vegan diets, fasting and then eating a regular diet... achieve remission from eczema too, even people eating carnivore with lots of bacon, organs...
I think the focus should be on other thing and there has to be a missing link that is more important to recover health than vitamin A. There many other theories out there having much better recoveries and successes, don't you think?
What are your thoughts? Thanks.@ggenereux2014 @orion @tim-2 @beata-2 @ourania@wavygravygadzooks@are
The question is if ones who follow "fad" diets achieve remission long term. The painful symptoms we experience is mostly due to our immune system cleaning house. Fasting lowers immune function, lack of protein as well as diets high in fat. I went relatively high fat carnivore about 2 years ago and it lowered my symptoms but I had brief joint pain flares and eczema flares the whole time. I did the Gundry approach, which is high fat and relatively low protein and did better but flares occurred once I added protein.
Say we lower vitamin A. That doesn't mean that the immune system is done cleaning house from the rouge retinoic acid that has been produced and accumulated over time. Who knows how long that cleanup can take. From my experience, my noticeable flares take about a year to "completely" clear up. I am hedging my bets by doing low vitamin A along with the Marshall Protocol which aims to reestablish a dysfunctional immune system. I feel vitamin A is one such major factor along with PUFAs.
Steroids and biologics cut back on symptoms by "cutting the phone lines". Nothing magical changes in terms of vitamin A levels. The retinoic acid affected cells are still going to be there even if vitamin A levels drop. The house still needs to be cleaned. How to approach that may be the other side of the coin. Quick and painful, or slow and drawn out? Ebb and flow of symptoms may be inevitable. Lowering vitamin A prevents possibly future episodes.
Quote from Gonzalo on September 26, 2021, 10:08 amHi all,
I have been reading through the blog and I have the impression that almost no one is having impressive improvements (I may be wrong). For the people who are getting better, it is a slow process with many setbacks. What I am trying to say is that when people are VA toxic, they remove vit A very fast for a period of time until they get to a normal level (this is what I recall from some of the studies here). Also, as far as I know, milk in the USA is supplemented heavily, so how can many people who have massive vitamin A intake be without illness? I used to consider this a solid theory but I have more and more doubts.
If the theory is correct and vitamin A is very toxic for the body, shouldn't more people here have experienced better recoveries? Also many times people here eat a food that contains some carotenoids and they experience serious setbacks, how is this possible?
I took accutane and I have been on the carnivore diet for the last 3-4 years at least and yet I did not see full improvements (my diet is zero or very low vitamin A since I only eat beef, I do not think there are relevant quantities in the fat). According to this theory, shouldn't I have recovered fully? I am young and provide my body with enough protein to repair tissues.
We know Grant cured his eczema among other things, but he also eliminated many other possible factors and all this may be flawed, I do not know. How can we be sure that it is the vitamin A? For example, many people on vegan diets, fasting and then eating a regular diet... achieve remission from eczema too, even people eating carnivore with lots of bacon, organs...
I think the focus should be on other thing and there has to be a missing link that is more important to recover health than vitamin A. There many other theories out there having much better recoveries and successes, don't you think?
What are your thoughts? Thanks.@ggenereux2014 @orion @tim-2 @beata-2 @ourania@wavygravygadzooks@are
I have never been to the USA, but from what I see on American television there are a very large proportion of people with degenerative illness.
On a pure carnivore diet you lack fibre to pull toxic bile out of your gut. Perhaps that's your problem.
I am 17 months on low vit A diet and I know I have a long way to go. It takes years to detoxify a liver saturated with vit A, but I am convinced I am on the right course.
Do you take any supplements?
What symptoms are you still dealing with? What has improved for you?
I think some people have latched onto the Vitamin A thing a little too strongly without fully considering the other possible causes of their issues. The human body is complex, foods are complex, and illnesses are almost always going to be multifactorial in their causes.
There are definitely some people dealing with Vitamin A toxicity though, and I don't think Vitamin A leaves the body quickly. I'm not sure which studies you're talking about, but in the one that always sticks in my mind, the patient's liver stores changed somewhat quickly, but the doctors didn't measure Vitamin A coming out in the urine and stool, and they didn't measure Vitamin A going into storage in fat tissue...I suspect it takes a long time for everybody with true toxicity to get the Vitamin A out of their body, but some people are better at relocating it from the liver to fat stores where it's probably more innocuous.
There's always the possibility that Accutane problems are somewhat different from Vitamin A toxicity resulting from food/supplement intake, even though the end metabolite is supposedly the same.
I'm not sure if you've seen my posts about gum recession, but I think I may be low on zinc despite eating around 3 pounds of beef every day for a year during my low VA diet. I've been supplementing and finding that it seems to help with some of the symptoms I associate with VA detox like inflammation of my gums and the roof of my mouth. You might consider that you are low on some nutrients despite eating an extremely nutrient dense diet.
@gonzalo, you posed some valid questions. Healing seems to be a long process for most of us. Dietary change is only one aspect. My concern is with all the other aspects necessary to healing and often overlooked. I live 200ft from a tower with scary recent 5G installations. How much does this influence my health is something to ponder about.
I noticed that the palms of my hands when stretched still have orange spots, so my year long low vitamin A journey didn’t seem to do much in this respect. My thyroid antibodies are only slightly lower than before; at least they are going in the right direction. My tinnitus is raging like mad and I am very sad that I have not been able to shift it.
I cannot say I don’t wish for better results. What keeps me going is the fact that I don’t know how to give up the half way.
I think what we should learn from Grant, that there is no reason to ever consume high vitamin A foods. Why risk it, when we know that you dont need much Vitamin A if any at all? But since the results arent there for most of us, I wouldnt restrict too much. Not that I think we need Vitamin A, but I think it is much safer to consume a wider range of foods and if they have some vitamin A, so be it.
My tinnitus didnt change as well but Im only doing it for 3+ months. But Im pretty sure its stress related anyways combined with non-optimal facial bone development.
And from reading lots of healing stories, I found that either something works for you really fast (3 months max) or it wont work at all. I would advice anyone to try low vitamin A but if it aint working, dont keep pushing. Then just just avoid really high A foods for the rest of your life.
@beata-2 and @max-3 have you looked at salicylates wrt your tinnitus. I noticed a correlation between eating high salicylate foods and getting this issue. VA toxicity/detox can cause or worsen food intolerances in some people (anecdotal evidence). I don’t seem to have this problem any more but it went on for at least 2 years coming and going, mainly pulsitile tinnitus. Just mention8ng in case it of any relevance.
@gonzalo I hear you on whether this is right path... after trying many many ideas, low VA is working best for me. Since the science is very limited studying VA excretion and time lengths, we are lab rats(especially after Tane).
After some experiments the last few weeks with fiber, I can say I do better when scaling it back right now, but as I scale back, my baseline health is much better than when I started this almost 3 years ago. It does seem that either fiber is pulling VA out via bile giving way to detox symptoms, or beans are just not healthy for me. I am happy eating the low VA foods I do right now, so committed to reaching 5 years, and then go from there. So I will say I am having success, as it does seem to be moving slowly to 100%.
My reasoning for sticking to the diet is pretty simple
A while ago I got sick to the point that most foods would cause achy joints and pain around my body, I felt like a 70 year old man at 19
I went carnivore and it resolved a lot of the inflammation I was having but the diet was miserable and I had no energy
Switching to this diet I have the same reduction in inflammation as I did with the carnivore diet but with a wider arrangement of foods and more energy
Eating random meals high in VA also brings back inflammation symptoms very predictably depending on the VA content of the food
I don't know if VA isn't the be all and end all as I haven't fully explored the hypothesis, which would be to completely deplete the body of VA stores, but regardless I believe the "perfect diet" will necessarily be low in VA