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NAD deficiency - is this a major issue for vA toxicity/detox?
Yes you’re right this is the main the piece of the puzzle people are ignoring, NADH:NAD+ redox and NAD+ biosynthesis are broken in Vitamin A toxicity.
Complex I needs to be working to maintain the mitochondrial redox for NADH:NAD+ , if kynurenine is impaired you be skipping a large part of the input.
If Complex I is impaired a number of other pathways ramp up to compensate :
HIF promotion -> LDH upregulation -> GDH upregulation
These compensation pathways have costs metabolic costs elsewhere: Ammonia, Lactic acid and sticky blood.
If people can’t tolerate high Vitamin A foods years on low Vit A it means they still have issues with NADH:NAD+ redox and NAD+ biosynthesis which they never fixed. Nad issues are the same reason people can’t metabolise ethanol.
I’ve fixed this issue now and it’s complicated how but I don’t have any issues with tolerating high Vitamin A foods and “vitamin A toxicity” has gone. Stools are normal and dark brown now.
@alexm thanks Alex. I’m really interested in your discoveries. I’ve long been interested in lack of NAD as a driving force of problems. Upregulation of kynurenine causes increase in metabolites that block ALDH as well as other unhelpful problems. Have you looked at Bob Millers work on NADPH steal? I don’t know if that’s related to your discoveries?
I had been doing daily coffee enemas since September to clear toxicity, one day (at the start of January) I tried taking Glycine, Jarrow Bile Acid factors and Pectasol before I did a coffee enema one time. This caused me to excrete 4x as much stuff as normal and felt like a mini liver flush, it was mainly yellow liquid, I didn’t feel like eating any food for days after and only ate some veg (people who do liver flushes are only advised to veg and rice in the days after) so it felt like my liver had dumped something bad possibly stored iron, other heavy metals, chemicals or VA. My skin and face looked a lot better and younger afterwards though.
I then started a new selenium supplement from global healing instead of my usual Now foods one and this one seemed to have a completely different effect on me and seemed a lot more bioavaliable. I felt so much better from this supplement I could feel my gallbladder clearing out and squirting lots when I took this new selenium supplement. Note this selenium supplement also contained ORMUS super charged minerals (which contains rare metals like Gold) as an added ingredient which may be a factor. I then suddenly started craving massive doses of zinc for a few days and it was making me feel great too. It felt like my hormones had finally started working properly.
After this happened I started eating milk chocolate again, and this time it was making me feel amazing, it now felt like I could utilise sugar much better than before, and I didn’t feel bad or have any crashes from it anymore nor did it make my stool pale like before. I had also realised that I hadn’t eaten almond butter for a couple of days. From October- December I stupidly became addicted to almond butter and was eating 1-2 jars a day (1 jar=170 grams) and 100 grams of almond butter contains 13g of PUFA, I wasn’t aware of how bad PUFA was back then and thought that almond butter would be a healthy fat because of the high MUFA and Vitamin E content, it also contains some choline, saturated fat and no sugar. I was doing daily coffee enemas so I could get away with eating this much fat at the time and the higher fat diet seemed to help the coffee enema results compared to eating just meat and carbs. My old approach with the almond butter did make me feel better than the 2 months before where I was doing lower fat low VA with just eating meat with carbs and fiber.
So now that I was eating these large amounts of milk chocolate and had cut out the almond butter, it was making me feel amazing and I felt my testosterone increase a lot. Now when I went outside I was suddenly getting tons of attention and looks from girls when before I was getting ZERO attention from any girls for a year or two. I now had way more drive and resilience now and all I want to do is going outside and do stuff when before I was at home most of the day finding it hard to achieve anything. I started waking up with morning erections (sorry to mention this for the girls on here but I want to prove a point that it does seem like my Testosterone has increased) this hadn’t happened for a year or two so this is another sign of increased testosterone. My voice became much deeper and I was getting much more respect from people than before, including my family, especially my mum. Even the cat that visits my house suddenly became obsessed and attached to me, maybe it’s something to do with pheromones.
So I was eating a ton of chocolate to eg 550 grams a day and had no crashes or feeling bad at all. I noticed when I ate something like oats or meat that had PUFA I stopped feeling like this, however eating chocolate or coconut oil would counter the effects from the PUFA foods. I was slightly aware of Ray Peats work so I cut out PUFA completely. I know this all sounds completely strange, you would have thought chocolate would lower Testosterone and make my health worse but I am getting the opposite effect. Milk Chocolate contains basically 0 PUFA - 0.09g of pufa per 100 grams) it it higher in saturated fat like stearic acid with some MUFA also, Stearic acid displaces PUFA from the tissues, the chocolate brand I have also contains Soya Lecithin (this will have some PUFA) but I think the added Soya Lecithin is actually helpful to me. As lecithin increases the lipid absorption of the fats that chocolate contains so this will help displace the PUFA from the cells and replace them with saturated fat and MUFA. I did not get any of these kind effects from trying phosphatidyl choline on its own in fact that gave me an estrogenic effect.
I’m aware refined sugar depletes minerals and b vits so I am trying to cut down now a bit, some days I was eating 700 grams of chocolate. I’m also aware that some people on here got ill from the RP approach, I think if you have heavy metal toxicity, poor mineral status, gut issues then this kind of diet is a disaster. Certain metabolic types this diet won’t work for either.
Eating all this chocolate I started craving B3 non flush massively , usually I would only feel like 50-100g of b3 and it didn’t seem to do much. Now I started craving massive doses of 1000-3000mg of b3 and it was making me feel amazing. Low dose Vitamin E was also making me feel much better it gave me a very relaxed feeling I took 30-100iu a day, some days I would require more like 200iu.
My thyroid was now working much better, I could go out in sub zero temps with just a T shirt and didn’t feel cold at all, while everyone else looked cold and ill while wearing big jackets. My stools had become dark brown and had green parts at certain times which I now associate with as a sign I’m doing good.
B3, Vit E are what Ray Peat Folk use when they are detoxing PUFA so it makes sense why they are so helpful to me.
They also use a low fat approach, I did have a try with that approach with fruit, milk, a little meat , coconut oil but I do not get the same result as with my higher fat high chocolate consumption strategy. So it’s possible I may have come up with a superior strategy for detoxing PUFA.
In both blood tests from last year showed I had LDH at the high end, this indicitaed LDH was unregulated as a backup pathway for Complex 1/ kynurenine being down and lactate was being increased as a consequence of this (which is bad).
“Quinones like vitamin K2 and emodin, and especially methylene blue (MB) are all oxidizing agents that can oxidize NADH back to NAD even if there is an issue like cancer. So, with quinones/MB you can avoid the excessive lactate buildup and can raise the NAD/NADH ratio even in cases of excessive aerobic glycolysis.”
Methylene blue is a redox-active alternative electron acceptor/donor that bypasses complex I/II.
I then tried low dose Methylene blue and it gave me the nicest soothing feeling in my brain I had ever had, when I had it with niacinamide I felt even better. The combo of the two gave me this oxygenated feeling in my brain that feels really good and this seemed like a sign I have switched my NADH:NAD+ redox and NAD+ biosynthesis back on.
After the methylene blue I started craving things like alcohol badly when usually the thought is disgusting to me, I haven’t been able to tolerate or metabolise alcohol for years and years, even one drink would give me extreme horrible reactions. People with NAD metabolism issues from complex 1 / kynurenine being offline can’t metabolise ethanol.
The MB also made me start craving things like orange juice, carrots, salmon, steak, potatoes badly and these are things I haven’t been able to have most of these for ages and also felt disgusted by them previously.
“The human equivalent doses were 0.2mg/kg and 0.6mg/kg. The duration of the study was 4 weeks and methylene blue reversed the fatty liver parameters back to normal. Several things of note:
“1. Both doses dramatically increased both NAD and NAD/NADH ratio. This may be the single most important marker of oxidative metabolism and overall health. You want as high of a ratio as possible and niacinamide is one of the few know methods to increase it. So, niacinamide and MB may be synergistic in this regard. The lower dose of MB increased NAD by a factor of 2 and the NAD/NADH ratio by a factor of 5. The higher dose increased NAD by a factor of 5 and the NAD/NADH ratio by a factor of 10. Most studies agree that it is the NAD/NADH ratio that matters and not so much the absolute levels but either way it looks like it is a win-win with MB with either dose.
2. The lower dose of MB was much more effective in stimulating mitochondrial biogenesis in the liver than the higher dose. On the other hand, the higher dose was much more effective in lowering triglycerides and other parameters of fatty liver than the lower dose. In addition, only the higher dose resulted in strong increase in oxygen consumption.”
@alexm thank you for sharing. I am going to give increasing saturated fat a try. I for sure went too low fat on this diet, and increasing fat in the last 2 months in the form of coconut oil has made me feel better in general. Fingers crossed it will work for improving VA sensitivity. I’ve also become more sensitive to sugar than I used to be. Maybe there’s a connection here. Thanks again!
@margo No worries PUFA is a major factor for depleting NAD levels in our body and NAD is the cofactor for ALDH, so the saturated fat from the coconut oil should help cancel out the bad PUFA effects. Saturated fat produce high levels of NAD+. I have now realised that some people’s Low Vitamin A diets are also basically a low PUFA diet, which would induce a detox of PUFA, but then people are being advised to avoid sugar and fat as they are said to slow down the detox, but sugar and a bit of saturated fat would help protect against the harmful PUFAs being released. AFAIK Grant’s diet is very low PUFA, once people have fully depleted themselves of PUFA they have glowing skin, look youthful, and much less inflammation.
There were a couple of times where virgin coconut oil did cause some issues for me (when I had it with higher fiber meals) such as gallbladder pain and the build up of something toxic in my blood which felt very uncomfortable but taking methylene blue did fix these symptoms. The coconut oil was fine when I had it with meals that had no fiber. I am aware of what Karen Hurd says about this, that fats can bind to the soluble fiber, which then stops the fiber from binding to the bile and hormones causing issues.
I’m still meaning to try some refined coconut oil to see if there’s a difference to virgin. I have read that coconut oil can increase endotoxin absorption and virgin coconut oil can be allergenic to some people. So I’m interested to see how the refined coconut oil works out for me as I want to cut down on refined sugar now eg less chocolate. Are you using refined or virgin coconut oil?
@alexm very interesting topics. Also just re-read your longer post from earlier today, and I laughed out loud at the cat comment. I love it!
You said "people are being advised to avoid sugar and fat as they are said to slow down the detox, but sugar and a bit of saturated fat would help protect against the harmful PUFAs being released." Do you think then that sugar and saturated fat prevent the detox of PUFA from occurring? So they could in theory be used as a means to delay PUFA detox until you are ready to turn it on? I wasn't sure, because it seemed from some of your writing that saturated fat might speed up a PUFA detox.
I have also heard that statement of Karen Hurd's about the beans + coconut oil, and I think it was mentioned somewhere on the forum the other day, actually. When I first started on coconut oil, I tried eating it as far away from my regular meals as possible (mostly to make sure it didn't aid in carotenoid absorption), but when I did that, I kept craving the coconut oil throughout the day, so I put it into my regular meals and moved on. I may eventually go back and try her separation strategy again to see what happens.
I am using refined coconut oil. I have tried both virgin and refined and didn't notice a difference in how I felt, but I stuck with refined because I didn't want the virgin's polyphenols interfering with B1 absorption or possibly interfering with VA detox. Coconut oil does give me barely noticeable VA symptoms, but not nearly enough to make me take it out, and I'm not convinced that these symptoms are a sign that coconut oil is harming me. For what it's worth, this is the brand I buy. It is delicious - so buttery and smooth. Way better than the LouAna brand that is the default in most stores in the U.S., in my opinion 🙂 Hope you can get some good results soon.
So interesting. I recently (foolishly) got into a debate on Karen Hurd’s page about PUFAs. She is one of the only people, whose opinion I respect, who is saying PUFA good and saturated fat bad. Some of the people there were of the mentality that if Karen says it then it’s correct. A dangerous mentality as some of us will know only too well. So much information that PUFA excess is harmful that I can’t agree with Karen on this one.
I saw this video of Karen the other day and now she just seems and looks crazy to me, sort of like a crazy old cat lady. I know she is 65 but you would have thought she would look younger and better for her age, being a health advocate and following her own teachings everyday, which shows to me her protocol is probably not the key to optimal health.
Likely because her diet has too much PUFA, too much beta carotene (which I have now learnt acts like a PUFA), no saturated fat and no supplements which I think is a big mistake. She also has the view that one doesn’t need to eat organic if eating beans regularly which I think is kind of dumb and not true. I would be interested to see what her HTMA shows but I’m sure it will show some imbalances.
Not fully discrediting her though, I think it’s good she has raised awareness about the importance of soluble fiber and her protocol has seemed to help a lot of people fix their health conditions.