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Matt's log
I didn't take that stool to the lab so yes "who knows" what it was..
Quote from JAJ on June 25, 2020, 3:49 amGreat to hear about your progress @mattia.
I’d be wary of too much vC as I think it impeded my progress. There is evidence it slows ADH/ALDH - useful if symptoms are due to too much retinoic acid but not useful if you want to get the vA out of the body.
Yes thank you for bringhing that up @jaj For now the best thing is to fix my vitamin C deficency for good.
Quote from Jiří on June 25, 2020, 4:32 am@mattia I wouldn't take probiotics. It is hit or miss with them exactly like with antibiotics. Some people have crazy health issues after taking some probiotics. I think anitibiotics will help more people than probiotics. They can "reset" your intestine flora and the new one will develop according what you eat..
I have to agree about the antibiotics, the antimicrobial herbs that I took greatly improved my digestiv disconfort. Before taking them every high GI food would give me acne, now I can tollerate them just fine. It was probably because of disbiosis.
I had very strong die off effects from the spore based probiotic that i took, I will finish with it tomorrow. In the end I think that they also helped me in transitioning my gut microbiome in something healthier. Plus i know that if something goes wrong with the probiotic, I can do another week with the herbs and I will be fine.
Quote from tim on June 25, 2020, 6:03 amPhlebotomy reduces iron but not vA in any significant way. Hookworm therapy has more potential to simultaneously reduce both iron and vA, it also helps regulate the immune system and improve autoimmunity. Only Necator Americanus is currently used which doesn't drink much blood, I think in the future people will realize the potential of the old world hookworm (Ancylostoma Duodenale) for daily blood loss (much healthier to lose a small amount of blood daily than one large amount every few months which is a big stress on the body) as well as vA lowering and immune regulating effects. Leech therapy is a very old and health promoting practise, leeches reduce iron and the anti coagulants they secrete into ones blood stream are very good for helping with cardiovascular issues: https://www.smh.com.au/national/little-suckers-clear-the-path-to-the-brain-20080726-gdsns6.html
If I was unable to give blood and had high ferritin I would order some Necator Americanus as well as some leeches (you can keep them as pets). I wouldn't recommend anyone do this though without plenty of research.
Probiotics are often harmful, at best a waste of money. The most effective supplements to improve gut health are dysbiosis herbs.
vC increases endogenous oxalate production, promotes heme iron absorption, does other bad stuff and contains an unnatural enantiomer. We probably don't benefit from more than the RDA.
Megadoses of B vitamins are likely harmful. As I have pointed out previously transketolase which is measured to test for thiamine deficiency is reduced along with a whole raft of enzymes when someone takes Accutane. This likely applies to Hypervitaminosis A as well. Looking at the causes for why micronutrients are not easily replenished is a far more logical approach than trying to brute force megadoses on the body when intake amounts are obviously not the reason for the deficiency.
Not eating a balanced diet that contains all food groups makes it likely one will suffer from nutritional imbalances. Restricting any macronutrient group will create negative health effects.
It's unlikely we would ever excrete enough copper or retinol at once to change stool colour.
Everyone knows that some sun, exercise and fresh air is very healthy. Extending that to mean full body tanning, calisthenics and avoiding high indoor CO2 levels (with the use of a CO2 meter) helps us maximize the potential of this health promoting trifecta. In the future we are going to see a lot of research coming out about the harm caused by high CO2 levels. The research indicating the importance of low CO2 levels is very new.
Thank you @tim for your comment, I agree helminthic therapy is very interesting. I think that helminth can be used to keep healthy level of iron but not to lower it significantly if you are already full of it. It would take too many worms or too much time.
At the end the healthiest diet is a balanced one including foods from each categories: meat, fish, grains, legumes, mushrooms and fruits.
To diet, sun, co2 levels and intelligent physical activity I would also add exposure to EMF. We are getting more and more exposed to those radiations and it is getting difficult to keep away from them, expecially if you live in a city.
Yeah the old world hookworm can drop iron levels significantly but nobody sells that one.
Since following my version of the low va diet it seems that my body is not accumulating iron so much. I have had to avoid giving blood due to my iron stores not being high enough.
Yup EMF is a tricky one and it isn't just radio frequency from mobiles etc that is a problem. If I had a house built I would have it designed so one end of the house had all the bedrooms and there would not be wiring to those rooms.
Update 12.07.2020
Mostly unrelated to vitamin A
I probably have found the cause of my main health problem: slow and stady unwanted weight loss.
I went to my doc mentioning the multiles swollen limph nodes and my weight loss. After some blood work we found out that I have an active infection with EBV (mononucleosis) and toxoplasmosis. The infection is probably active since a couple of years.
To help my body fight of this infection I will prioritize sleep, rest, sunbathing and lowering physical activity. I will consider supplements that might help with EBV such as L-lysine, monolauring and antiviral herbs.
Related to vitamin A
In the blood work I also tested general healt parameters. It all normalized.When I was a kid I had very high alkaline phosphatase (ALP) that indicate problems in the liver. A year ago I lowered it to 80 with a keto/carnivore diet and now it is even lower at 66 (reference range < 125).
My LDL cholesterol was sky high on the previous diet and now it is in optimal range. This is probably due to the introduction of carbs in the diet.
My sleep is good and I have crazy dreams. I have never experienced dreaming like this. Often going to sleep is better than watching a movie.
I have some acne on my triceps that I didn't have before and the skin around my chin isn't too smooth like it was before VA detox.
I started supplementing with thiamine TTFD as I discovered that I would totaly loose my apetite if I would eat white rice or white bread instead of whole for a couple of meals. I will start also with B2 as suggested by @tim.
Hair mineral analysis
I recived the result of my hair mineral analysis and it does show that almos every mineral in my body is depleated exept for calcium, copper and phosphor. It is probably the virus that is depleating those minerals. Espetially zinc as I have low level of zinc even if I was eating more than a kg of red meat a day. Zinc is used up by the immune system.
The report show that I have some ammount of mercury and aluminium in my hairs.
I wish you all a good day
Hi @mattia,
Re the B2, my previous comment said I'm not in favour of high dose B supplementation. I have explained in other threads why B2 is needed for vA excretion and how it is the most common deficiency but B2 is also needed to convert retinol to retinoic acid. I don't know if large amounts could speed that up or not and make things worse. I personally have planned out a diet to be high in every nutrient including B2 but I don't supplement Bs.
@tim-2 where he is talking about HIGH amounts of B2? I don't understand why you are so anti B complex? I agree that high doses can be problematic. B6 can be toxic etc.. But taking B complex where is like 200% of RDA where is the problem? Having B2 in a diet is nice, but if someone has bad digestion. I think it is smarter to take low dose B complex to make sure you are not running low all the time..
Wow the B vitamins are so important. Matt, do try to watch the video about B12 that I posted.
Anorexia is associated with B12 deficiency.
The entire video is about the fact that B12 deficiency isn't on Dr's radar and that there are a half a dozen tests mentioned in the video that might help a doc realize that B12 is low, but, like VA, it is hard to know what the stores are in the body.
Some people's stomachs aren't making the intrinsic factor (due to autoimmunity in the stomach) so even if their diet is full of B12, they might not be able to use it. They continue to need shots of B12 ongoing.
But the video does mention how ALL the B vities are needed, and overdoing any one will cause trouble.
Personally, I'd rather never take a supplement again, however, I think there is a certain line that if my health crossed it I would supplement. It appears to me that if you supplement B's you have to supplement all. I wonder if "Standard Process" has something that is based on whole foods?
the video is here https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/b12-autoimmunity-stomach-lining-broken-guts/
@tim and @lil-chick I have very high serum vitamin B12. Generally the best thing to do if supplementing with TTFD is getting a b complex but in my case I don't want to get even more B12, so I will only take b2 as it's strictly correlated to b1.
I think that many people today are deficent in B12 but getting adeguate ammounts only with foods it's very easy. Probably who has B12 deficency isn't eating enough red meat or has serious GI problem.
@jiri I agree, b vitamin supplementation should be safe in the majority of cases.
B12 deficiency is not just restricted to those with pernicious anemia. Anyone with SIBO is at risk too:
A common complication of bacterial overgrowth is cobalamin (vitamin B12) deficiency. Patients with normal intestinal enteric flora rely on gastric intrinsic factor to bind to vitamin B12 to permit absorption in the ileum. An animal model of SIBO demonstrated competitive uptake of vitamin B12 by bacteria (especially aerobes).67 Human subjects with atrophic gastritis and bacterial overgrowth absorbed significantly less protein-bound vitamin B12 compared to controls, although this was reversed with antibiotic therapy.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3099351/
I written quite a few times about why supplements, especially synthetic supplements aren't a good idea. The more one learns about them the more one realizes what a bad idea they are. It's not just dosage issues.
A lot of them have different enantiomers and isomers. Synthetic retinol cannot even convert into some forms of retinol because of that. You want to take chemicals made in a Chinese factory to regain your health? Who knows what other problems there are? We live in a complex universe. If you understand how homeopathy works then you'll get my drift. It's not all about the molecule, there is subtle energy and information attached.