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Nine Year Update
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/myers-briggs-personality-type/#postid-24344
I started a thread on Myers Briggs typing, for fun? or will we see trends?
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on August 16, 2023, 2:18 pmI hadn't previously heard about the arsenic topic to which you vaguely referred. After doing a couple searches, I think what you're talking about is either the switch in microbial arsenic metabolism after the "Great Oxidation Event", or the discovery of microbes in Mono Lake that appear to have a novel mechanism for coping with high concentrations of arsenic in the lake.
In the former case, a major change in oxygen levels across the world resulted in a dramatic shift in forms of arsenic present in the environment, from predominately arsenite to predominantly arsenate. That change meant that existing life forms also had to modify the way they handled arsenic to avoid dying from its toxicity. I see no mention of microbes actively using arsenic for cellular processes, it sounds like they specialized in preventing arsenic from KILLING them because they were exposed to so much of it all the time.
Similarly, in the case of microbes in Mono Lake, it sounds like they have adapted to unusually high concentrations of arsenate in the lake by increasing their ability to selectively uptake phosphate and NOT arsenate (apparently they are chemically very similar, which is why arsenic is so toxic to life...it replaces phosphate in cells, which damages the cells). The microbes also appear to have evolved "resistance" to arsenate toxicity within the cell.
In neither case are microbes actively seeking and using arsenic. Everything I've read indicates that arsenic is and always has been toxic to life on Earth.
Carotenoids constitute a whole family of compounds. Apparently some of them function as defensive compounds, whether or not that was incidental or their primary evolved purpose. I was specifically referring to beta-carotene in my posts. Has beta-carotene been demonstrated to function as a defensive compound? Maybe it has...
I said repeatedly that beta-carotene is CONVERTED to retinol. Pretty sure I never said the body "creates" it, but even if I did, it wouldn't be incorrect. For example, it's commonly said that different elements are "created" via nuclear fission, which is the - as you say - "breaking down" of another element into two constituent parts. The more precise term for "breaking down" beta-carotene to retinal is CLEAVAGE, if you want to nitpick about verbage. Retinal then has to be converted to retinol in a second step.
I'm not going to respond to any of the other bullshit in your post. I may not bother responding to anything else you write because you don't seem to actually understand or appreciate anything I'm saying and you're making a lot of hollow accusations and assertions.
Yes, I ment exactly what I said. It's a pretty newish discovery and here is a presentable representatin of it: https://theconversation.com/ancient-microbial-life-used-arsenic-to-thrive-in-a-world-without-oxygen-146533
Indeed they are thought to have used arsenic instead of oxygen. As I mentioned it was before the "oxygen-explosion".
Quote from lil chick on August 16, 2023, 2:22 pmQuote from Hermes on August 16, 2023, 12:14 pmWhere did that last paragraph come from? But I'm certainly open to a dinner date with you (Lil Chick) and Wavy. I doubt you would see an INTJ and INFJ at a party for long, you know, introverted intuition likes solitude a lot. It's different with those ENFJs though, they just can't get enough of social gatherings, right, Lil Chick?! And if you're not familiar with MBTI, find out your type here, I'd really love to hear if I was right with my suspicions or not: https://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/test It's only 64 questions, a curious chicken will just breeze through it.
sorry I meant Henrik! I didn't meant to startle you, Hermes! ooops
I forget what my Myer's briggs type is, but it is one of the ones that you usually end up a software engineer, which I was before! LOL. Yes, I'm definitely introverted...
Im lost lol. Where did you mean Henrik? Im here anyway 😉
Well look at that...neat-o! I can respond happily to a post sharing info like that. It would make sense that life would evolve to make use of what is most abundant in its environment, so long as there is a chemical pathway that allows for it.
I’ve had a number of people asking me to get a vitamin A test to see where my serum levels are now at. Of course, I was very curious about that too. It sounds simple enough, but it’s not. Here in Alberta, vitamin A testing is lumped in with vitamin D testing and our socialized medical system has stopped providing discretionary testing for these vitamins. ...
That post is 5 years old...not that getting labs has necessarily gotten easier in Canada since then, if anything it's probably gotten harder. Are there no independent companies over there like LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics that are in the US? You can do mailorder labs for a lot of things if you want them bad enough...just figured that someone who is dead set on proving that Vitamin A is a toxin would go to great lengths to provide solid evidence that his body stores continue to approach zero. I live in a small town in Alaska and managed to find a person that will come to my house, draw blood, and mail it overnight FedEx for a very reasonable $40 + shipping costs.
I forgot to point out that the blog post you linked was BEFORE the one I had already mentioned in 2019 when he DID get his Vitamin A tested...so he must have figured out how to do it after that 2018 blog post. I know Covid happened since then, which may well explain an absence of testing until maybe earlier this year, but as far as I've seen there is no explanation from Grant himself about why he hasn't gotten a Vitamin A serum test in the past 4 years. And like I said in the my last post, if you live in or near a well-populated area, I should think it highly likely there is a way to get something as basic as Vitamin A tested if you want it bad enough. His last lab value was extremely deficient based on the reference range...that alone is probably sufficient to convince a doctor to order another test for him!
From his "Eight-Year Update" in 2022:
Sorry, I have no labs to report this year
A few months ago my doctor’s office sent out a notice that they are overwhelmed and are triaging patients on a most urgent care needed basis. That news wasn’t a big surprise because the same phenomenon is being reported all across the country. ...
... Anyways, given that situation and the trouble I had last year in getting basic labs, and being one of the unwashed (unvaccinated) folks, I felt it wasn’t even worth trying to get some more lab work done this year.
Alright, he did post an excuse in 2022. Good on you for finding it. I think it's fair to assume the same reasoning applies to 2020 and 2021. What about this year? The pandemic was declared "over" in the U.S. in May, not sure about Canada. I didn't see any comments about labs in the 9-year update...maybe I overlooked it? I still think he could probably find a place to have it done, even during the pandemic, but I won't judge too much for not having it done during that time period, the world was pretty well turned upside down.
The only reason I'm harping on this point is because he keeps stating how certain he is that Vitamin A is a poison, and how he's overturned ALL the science, despite a dearth of truly indisputable measurements from him. Based on his last two measurements, his Vitamin A levels have flat-lined at 0.1 in the blood, and 0.1 is not zero. If I were so sure that Vitamin A was a poison, I would be doing everything I could to get more blood measurements to further confirm that suspicion for myself and the people following me.
There’s been a bit of ad-hominem banter in this thread. I don't care for such; but, granted, it does seem to have a long tradition in the sciences. (*laughing*)
I personally dislike labels like "vitamin" or "toxin" because the connotation those terms suggest that there’s only one functional role for a substance in the body. Many (all?) substances (even water) can be beneficial or harmful depending on the dosage.
Plus, any potential "halo" effect from the term "vitamin" (in my mind) makes it more likely that Grant is on to something. After all, how is it that, after several decades of trying, medical authorities do not know what has caused auto-immune conditions to have risen so much in recent decades? I think a likely reason that we don’t know the answer is because the answer is hidden behind something that people won’t or can’t question. That is precisely why we should be willing to question such ideas as the "vitamin" status of vitamin A.
In my mind, though, the bigger question is, if vitamin A is causing much of the increase in chronic conditions in recent years, then what factors have changed to make the dosage of it much higher? Many plausible answers have been raised in Grant’s books and by others on this forum. There are plenty of other threads discussing them, so I won't recount them here.
While it would be great to officially test these theories, I think getting the proper funding and attention from mainstream research organizations is a lost cause at this time. (Side note: I worked in both healthcare and clinical research for several years. My view is that, at least in America, the bulk of our healthcare/clinical research system should be razed to the ground and then be started over. But, then, I may be biased.) I think we can be more effective to change things through a grass-roots movement, like the tiny one we have here.
An even bigger question to me that was raised early on in this thread:
I’ve become very interested in another major issue that I feel is just as important, and potentially even more so, than the vitamin A topic. Over the next few years that will be the primary focus of my attention.
@GGenereux2014 – I, for one, am very curious about what this topic might be. Is there anything you feel comfortable sharing at this point?