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More recent scientific studies suggesting a role for Vitamin A
Quote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 2:19 pm@janelle525 Nah I also had peeled potatoes too with olive oil, fat percentage of beef was probably 20% so it wasn't low fat
Well that's good. But it is too soon to say why you felt worse. I do think a very low vitamin A diet can be dangerous if your liver is very full of it. The problem with this stuff is we don't really know without a liver biopsy. And that is way too invasive. Mawson had a way of testing if you aren't metabolizing it well by checking the ratios of esters. It is the esters coming out that are very toxic. That's why if you inject someone with the ester form it will immediately be dealt with. And like I said I was feeling detox without cheese as well, so it's not surprising it happened to you too. But we can be in the slow boat and be okay. It's when we go on to poopoo the theory and keep saying stuff on forums saying it doesn't work and blah and blah. I could have easily said that at certain points with my dry eyes and heavy menstrual bleeding. But I refuse to poo poo this theory no matter how badly it goes for me. The stakes are way too high. I do believe the world is being poisoned, if we can get the masses to be on board we can shift public perception of it being added to everything and young people's lives being destroyed by accutane. People coming on here poo pooing the diet isn't going to help people getting poisoned by accutane. And we have yet to see a documented case of vitamin A deficiency blindness as a result of the diet, so I'd say we are headed in the right direction, as far as how to do the diet.
@janelle525 I didn't feel worse because of a "detox", I felt worse because of the iron and not anything to balance and metabolise it correctly. I did the low Vit A diet seriously for around a year when I needed to from bad vit A toxicity, but since then going low vit A doesn't make much difference to me in terms of benefits and with the TEI mineral balancing I see far more gains health wise than I ever did with the low vit A diet.
"But I refuse to poo poo this theory no matter how badly it goes for me." - Ok well then you are subscribing to a dogma like a lot of people do on here.
No, not because of dogma but because the world is overloaded with it. And I think most people will do better to limit it. I do not promote zero vitamin A because that's impossible. Even Garrett Smith says 1-2 tablespoons of butter is okay.
How do you know it was the iron? Can you see what is happening inside your body? That's an incredible skill if you can.
@jessica2
I seem smarter because you misunderstood me. I never said Grant's diet is the diet for everyone to heal on I even just said that to Alex. Whittling down your diet to 2 or 3 things I think is way too extreme and that is why I disagree with carnivore. I think one can overdo meat because of it's iron content and saturated fat content. I won't poo poo the theory. The theory is vitamin A can be absolutely toxic and if it does turn out we need some it's a very small amount. That's what I will never poo poo even if the diet itself is causing side effects for me. And yes we do need to educate about cod liver oil and supps and accutane and liver and fortified dairy/high fat dairy.
Quote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 1:12 pmQuote from Joe on August 28, 2024, 12:52 pmQuote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 12:03 pmQuote from Janelle525 on August 28, 2024, 11:46 amYou can find a ton of evidence that vitamin A is GOOD. Does that mean it is all factual information? Hardly. Science is so hijacked. You can manipulate findings easily. What is more interesting are papers revealing the HARM because those scientists are not going to get front page of any science journal.
I mean yeah clearly too much is bad doesn't mean we don't need it though, from doing the mineral balancing stuff it is clear to me that it is needed, just people aren't metabolising it correctly due to various factors or they do have actual toxicity in Vitamin A.
Then how do you explain that Grant did not go blind 9 years ago and die 8 years ago and is in physically better shape than anyone you know at his age?
@joe I'm tired of this argument... Sorry you see things in such black and white terms, maybe because there are other explanations for why this happened.
Was gonna post this on RP forum a while ago but I'll post it here:
I also think viewing Vitamin A only as a toxin is a poor ideology too.
Just because your health issues improved on a low vitamin A diet and just because Grant has been on a low vitamin A diet for 10 years and fixed his health issues neither of those automatically mean Vitamin A is only a toxin.
Maybe you weren’t metabolising the Vit A properly due to your ALDH being inhibited for some reason (lots of things do this), maybe you were toxic in Vit A which slowed down your bile production and going on a low vitamin A diet fixed that issue, maybe having vitamin A toxicity caused you to have a functional deficiency in Vitamin A at the same time and going low vit A made the stored vitamin A more bioavailable , maybe there was a source of glyphosate in your diet or some other pesticide and this inhibited the catabolism of vitamin A, maybe you had mineral deficiencies or metal toxicities causing issues with Vitamin A metabolism, maybe low vitamin A is an adaptive way for your body to operate without vitamin A consumption and there are some benefits to this, maybe you had some pathogen or mold inhibiting your ALDH, there are a lot of possibilities for as to why Vitamin A was causing people issues but I don’t see the Vitamin A is a toxin people considering any of these they just jump straight to vitamin A only being a toxin because they had the experience of feeling better and health improvements on a low Vitamin A diet.
Does it really seem likely that this “toxin” is in pretty much every food humans have been consuming throughout history. If you believe in god do you really think he would make this design error that we have this toxin in most of the food we eat that we all unaware about. Or is he poisoning us all secretly on purpose - doesn't seem likely.
80% of people are slow oxidisers on Hair trace mineral analysis this means you burn through minerals and vitamins at a slower rate which allows you to build up toxicities. Slow oxidisers have reduced thyroid and adrenal activity.
Now if you go on a Ray peat diet as a slow oxidiser it is basically an early death wish and you certainly will have issues with Vitamin A while on a ray peat diet as a slow oxidiser. High sugar consumption, high calcium consumption, high vit A and then you get bad Vitamin A toxicity.
If you are tired of this argument Alex then why are you making it on a blog dedicated to giving evidence and proving that vitamin A is not a nutrient and is in fact a toxin? Why are you putting all this time into a blog that you find is putting forth such a wild fallacy?
You threw out a long list of maybe's that are all a stretch. Throwing that many maybe's does not make your theories any more likely to be true. In fact you are the person making the extreme claim that requires extreme evidence. Evidence that you so far have failed to show. You have failed so long and so carefully, I now have to wonder if you are not avoiding it on purpose.
Grant's books and his posts and many of us on LYL and here on this blog (more quietly) have given overwhelming evidence that the science behind vitamin A is and always was fraudulent all the way down. If vitamin A is a nutrient then why is Grant and a growing list of folk who are clinically deficient not going blind, not dying and in fact are thriving and improving daily?
Perhaps a look at this thread will help you sort it out. Please notice it is not a long drawn out theory of metabolic minutiae filled with maybe's and if's. It is common sense repeatedly proven facts. Facts that beautifully explain why Grant is here doing so well with so many testimonials offering him gratitude for what he has done and is doing.
Quote from Janelle525 on August 28, 2024, 1:31 pmQuote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 12:58 pm
@janelle525 Not sure but the higher your metabolic rate the more you will be able to handle, and the lower then the less you can handle and it can make you more hypothyroid. Also if your glutathione status is good you will be able to handle/metabolise vit A better, if it is bad from toxicities in metals, mold, pathogens, deficiencies of minerals then vit A will probably cause you issues.
I think if you are consuming a bunch of sugar which slows down ALDH, if you are low in potassium mag zinc molybedenum and copper, if you are consuming a bunch of glyphosate, if you are very toxic in metals lowering your glutathione status then its gonna cause you issues, if you have an overgrowth of bad bacteria, fungi or mold then they all burden your ALDH and it won't be processing vit A correctly.
The trouble with certain food sources of vit A like milk , yogurt ice cream is they are all high in calcium which for a slow oxidiser will turn off your proper metabolism as calcium blocks potassium from entering the cells.
And yes if you have built up toxicity in it then it is helpful to reduce intake of vit A
How do you gauge glutathione status? It's not like regular people are going out getting this stuff checked. I've never checked mine. I think asthma and respiratory infections reveal bad glutathione status. And I've never had asthma but I have had my fair share of upper respiratory stuff. I haven't been sick in a yr now. Actually my entire family hasn't been sick. We are eating better than we ever have, we didn't need to eliminate dairy to get there either, both my kids consume ice cream and the younger drinks gatorade and chocolate milk, I eat some cheese for vitamin K2 as vitamin A depletes k. This stuff works. No need to chase your tail on hair tests and supplements. Consume more soluble fiber, make sure you are pooping, get enough animal protein, no fast food, and limit carotenoids and vitamin A. Then the metabolism is fine, sickness is avoided. I think we tend to overcomplicate things. Also I suspect Karen Hurd is on to something with saturated fat. She said this:
"those saturated fats will make no chemical bonds with anything else we have to have fats to be able to make hormones we have to have fats to have the hormones that reduce inflammation but to be able to have a fat to be able to make those nice hormones it has to play if it's so stable it won't play in a chemical reaction then you won't get those hormones and if you don't have any other fats then that means we have to use that saturated fat so it will go through what's called the beta oxidation process which is a six-step chemical process to turn the saturated fat into an unsaturated fat so it will play nicely with its neighbors so a saturated fat is like folded arms across the chest I will have nothing to do with anybody leave me alone I'm just going to go get stored on the body in some nice quiet place and if you want to have a chemical reaction with me you're going to have to fundamentally change me and that's what does happen and when you go through the beta oxidation process most people don't even understand when you actually have to break bonds these single bonds and then you have to make double bonds when that type of chemical reaction happens you create free radicals you create electrons that are just bouncing around without a partner because believe me every electron wants to have a mate it has to have a mate if it doesn't have a mate it will go beat up somebody else and grab its mate because it's got to have a mate no matter what you have to have paired electrons and if you don't you create a free radical and so free radicals get a mate will actually go at I'm talking at huge speeds huge speeds will slam into a cell to rip away a electron and it damages the cell when it slams into it now we have an injury an injured cell and so then we have to have inflammatory things to come in and try to say so section you off we got to heal. But then you also created another angry cell because it's lost an electron and it has to have electron so it'll slam itself into another cell to steal somebody else's electron it's like an allout brawl that's what saturated fats do to us create all out brawls because one guy won't play nice won't play at all just sits there with arm full and say leave me alone might as well just eat the unsaturated fat yes if you just eat the unsaturated fat it's all okay you know you're good you're good no brawls no oxidation well I mean we get oxidative stress from you know other ways so might as well not eat it right . "
Could that be causing low gutathione??? Saturated fat creates inflammation. YIKES. Because everyone is saying these are the best fats to consume. Well let me tell you my Grandma LOVED animal fat and she nearly died of a heart attack.
What fats does Karen like?
Quote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 2:01 pm@janelle525 When sodium and potassium are low on an HTMA usually means your glutathione is down. I'm glad the approach is working for you but yeah this approach doesn't work for everyone.
I tried a very low vit A approach last week with just beef, oats, just to see if my bile ramped up. It didn't and I felt much worse in the sun too from all the iron from the beef without any calcium or copper to protect against it, but then I had some goats cheese suddenly I felt way better in the sun because I had some calcium and copper to balance out the iron and maybe also the vit A was also helping with the iron too. Also I felt my gallbladder squirting bile out when I had the goats cheese but not when I was strictly low Vit A.
So you tried it for a week and determined low vitamin A does not work for you?
And the only adjustment that you made to the diet was to add vitamin A back in?
Quote from Janelle525 on August 28, 2024, 2:16 pmQuote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 2:01 pm@janelle525 When sodium and potassium are low on an HTMA usually means your glutathione is down. I'm glad the approach is working for you but yeah this approach doesn't work for everyone.
I tried a very low vit A approach last week with just beef, oats, just to see if my bile ramped up. It didn't and I felt much worse in the sun too from all the iron from the beef without any calcium or copper to protect against it, but then I had some goats cheese suddenly I felt way better in the sun because I had some calcium and copper to balance out the iron and maybe also the vit A was also helping with the iron too. Also I felt my gallbladder squirting bile out when I had the goats cheese but not when I was strictly low Vit A.
I never said to only eat beef and fiber. I think that is just WAY too extreme. But for some maybe it needs to be done. My husband couldn't lose weight at all eating beef and carbs, now he's losing massive amounts of weight quickly on only beef, chicken, pork. Also I disagree with a low fat diet. I think this can slow down progress. We need fats as the quote I posted above shows. So it's not surprising you felt your gallbladder come to life with cheese. What percentage fat was the beef?
You raise a good point. There are other ways to get gall bladders to open up. Eating beef and fiber exclusively will bind it up. Denise Minger clarifies a bit of what you bring to the table about fats. This would be more appropriately named "In defense of low fat and high fat diets."
Denise Minger - In Defense of Low Fat (youtube.com)
I have gone both high and low fat for more than a week. More than a decade in fact. Worked out a few kinks with adjustments in each diet along the way. I have also done the in between diet she mentioned. The Standard American Diet where everyone gets so much fat in their high carbohydrate diet that they stay well above 10% without coming near 70% of fat in total calories. Am guessing your husband is finding the sweet spot staying out of the middle 10 to 70 area.
Quote from Alex on August 28, 2024, 2:45 pm@janelle525 I didn't feel worse because of a "detox", I felt worse because of the iron and not anything to balance and metabolise it correctly. I did the low Vit A diet seriously for around a year when I needed to from bad vit A toxicity, but since then going low vit A doesn't make much difference to me in terms of benefits and with the TEI mineral balancing I see far more gains health wise than I ever did with the low vit A diet.
"But I refuse to poo poo this theory no matter how badly it goes for me." - Ok well then you are subscribing to a dogma like a lot of people do on here.
Definitive statements about cause and effect about what made you feel worse and better. So it is not possible that other factors contributed or were more causative than your iron issue?
Dogma. Good word. Implies untested theories. Perhaps a thousand or so people on LYL who have tested and are testing this paradigm successfully might change your mind. If you were open minded enough to look at it instead of posting ad hominem attacks and villainizing the group who is clinically having the best results the most often.
You go right ahead. Eat that moderate vitamin A and store up some more. Perhaps you will not have that acute toxicity again in this lifetime. Perhaps you will be slowly dragged down with chronic toxicity instead and blame it on old age and whatever else like all the other pharma loyal folk.
Have you not read Grant's books? And his blog posts? If so why are you dismissing them?