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Labs/Tests
Hey!
So I've also been doing testing with Dr. Smith for a year now (two full program testings 6 months apart). Looking to get my next series of test soon if God permits.
So my serum retinol started at, 37.7 ug/dL and dropped to 36.4 6 months later. Been doing the low VA diet pretty strict throughout this whole process. Only recently have I started having insane cravings for high calcium foods (sardines, milk, cheese, yoghurt) and have partaken a tad. Usually, it makes me feel good at the moment then worse afterwards. My main areas for improvement throughout this process have been anxiety, depression, brain fog, frequent urination, back pain, joint pain and cracking, and vision abnormalities.
My hair tissues calcium went from 48 to 51. My blood calcium is at 10.0 (8.6-10.3). My main symptoms that have gotten worse recently are fatigue, hypothyroid symptoms (cold hands/feet, low temps, fatigue), and joint cracking and muscle achiness. I am also very interested in the idea of PTH going up when calcium intake is low, leaking calcium from bone into blood. Super interesting how your calcium is going low and mine is going higher. I don't get enough close to half the RDA of calcium on chronometer either. I do find that transdermal magnesium helps with muscle pain but joint cracking seems to steadily be increasing.
My zinc and copper blood values have stayed mostly the same. Started at, cu: 81, (72-166) zn: 98 (56-134), went to, 82, 92. I am also a bit concerned with zinc supplementation lowering my copper, formally following some of Morley Robbins stuff which he speaks on how important copper is. Zinc is super critical for the eyes which for me, have steadily been getting worse while on this journey. Have been supplementing for zinc for awhile now and trying to eat as much red meat as possible. Now that I am eating more soluble fiber and antinutrients, many would say zinc requirements are increased. Still trying to find a balance with zinc and copper without tipping one too far to the other side. Can definitely be frustrating as so many people have polar opposite views and people claim they find benefits from each different side.
Hope this helps and hope to learn more on PTH, Calcium, Zinc, copper, and vitamin A.
@daniel Morley Robbins is crazy. He thinks everyone on this planet is iron toxic and that basically all health issues are due to high iron. Also thinks that you should eat a lot of liver to increase ceruloplasmin. I was following his protocol after following Ray Peat diet and it was bad really bad decision.. I will do blood work tomorrow. I want to see what happened with my ferritin, ceruloplasmin and thyroid after basically full year on low vit A diet...
Looks like your lab numbers are actually much better than mine (in my opinion).
I have similar symptoms as you do, i.e. fatigue (although mine is not consistent), sensitivity to cold/cold hands and feet, low temps and joint cracking. I also had random episodes of bone (knee) and joint (hip) pain. I recently dealt with a 3 month long QL spasm that would not calm down. I think it has finally settled. I did not attribute it to vA detox, but after talking to Dr. Smith, I apparently was not the only client of his doing low vA that has had low back pain and/or back spasms.
Good luck with your low vA journey! If you have updated labs of any kind to share, I'd be interested in seeing them as you get them. Thanks!
Can't wait for results. I had tested red/white blood cells, calcium, magnesium, Ha1c, ferritin, ceruloplasmin, copper, zinc, liver enzymes, cholesterol, full thyroid panel. Results will tell me a lot if this low vit A diet for 12 months is doing something.. I should see lower TSH, T3 and T4 in range, lower cholesterol and hopefully my liver enzymes will be lower. 9 months a go they were really high. Like there is some liver damage going on... The liver issues I have are from vit A toxicity or copper toxicity or both. Copper toxicity(high free copper and low ceruloplasmin) is real problem hard to fix.. It can do the same oxidative damage like iron overload, but lowering iron in the body is super easy. Just losing some blood.. Detoxing excess of copper means you need to have good adrenal function, good liver function(which is a nice vicious circle) good bile flow.. I have non of that..
When I had a blood test after 12 months my cholesterol and liver enzymes had normalized, my serum ferritin was 44. I had done a blood donation one month prior to that however that was my first blood donation. My serum ferritin was always much higher in the past. I will get another blood test soon and I haven't made any more blood donations so it will be interesting to see if it is still low. I was taking a lot of Vit D, that could have lowered the ferritin but I think low vA helps with iron overload.
Riboflavin deficiency is a key player in iron overload and it possibly plays a role in copper overload too. It just happens to be the most common nutritional deficiency.
Hi Daniel,
I argue that it's best to avoid restrictive eating and supplementation as much as possible. It's best to consume a fairly normal (yet low vA) diet including all food groups, I include a small amount of low fat dairy in my diet. There are lots of reasons for this. The main reason is that most of us aren't quite as smart as we would like to believe! We tend to create more problems than we solve when we try to play god with our body and biochemistry. Especially when we listen to internet nutrition gurus, which are unfortunately almost always wrong and in being wrong yet presenting themselves as experts create untold misery for others. Following the line of thought of avoiding extremes I certainly won't be depleting my vA stores to the point of deficiency. I am however forever grateful for becoming "vA woke".
Yeah excess retinoic acid is very toxic to bone. It stimulates osteoclasts and suppresses osteoblasts and it also reduces bone collagen.
If anything, I actually expect high PTH if what this study shows about VA and bone resorption is true.
What in that study leads you to believe that you should expect high PTH with vA depletion?
The authors state "High doses of vitamin A are known to increase bone resorption through stimulation of lysosomal proteolytic activity, which also leads to increased secretion of PTH."
With high amounts of vA floating around in the blood during detox/depletion, I figured this would be equivalent to a "high dose of vA". I did not have access to the full article, so I do not know how much in detail (if at all) they go into that statement.
You have me thinking about some interesting things here, when you guys mention the VA "floating around" during detox/depletion.
One of the interesting things mentioned in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHtvZdfqo78&feature=youtu.be
(basics of vitamin A toxicity and metabolism) ... is that they proved that serum VA raised with meals. So, at the very least, this meal-boost should not be happening.
I suppose, though, that the attic/cellar/closet clean-outs that go on in detox lead to blips in serum VA. And of course, until those clean-outs occur, we still have VA stored around in our tissues causing issues directly where they are stored.
There may be other things (like flu) that cause the body to call for serum VA release.
My guess is, however, that although I feel detox, the decrease in my debilitating headaches and nausea make me think my VA serum levels are LESS in detox than they were pre-detox.
I have a lot of curiosity about the seemingly acidic body fluids during detox. (nasal mucus, urine, sweat). Itchy, burn-y etc... These go on an on, unlike the headaches.
(I'll post it here again, because it's more relevant here.)
My vitamin A blood value was 670 µg/l (after 1month of very low VitA) norm: 200-1000.
Is the vitamin E value as insignificant as the vitamin A blood value? My vitamin E value is 5.5 mg/l (after 2,5months very low VitA and unplanned Vit E) norm: 5-20.
The strange thing is, from August 2019 to the end of March 2020, I supplemented 700mg / 900 iE daily. So way too much, and I should have rather too much vitamin E.