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Nine Year Update
This is so painful to read, @henrik. At least you cleaned up properly and tried to address each point @wavygravygadzooks is making, but you simply don't comprehend what he is writing. You obviously think you comprehend it, looking at your intellectual arrogance, but right now this is like looking at a conversation between Einstein and Trump. Take for example this:
Wavy:
---On what basis do you reject Vitamin A as essential for vision? Why don't you work your way through the references in https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8835581/ and tell me what they got wrong...
Henrik:
I see no reason to indulge in your arguemnts about sight - last time I check I have improved my sight from stopping A, and so has Grant and many others..
Wavy:
You and Grant REDUCED your Vitamin A intakes. They are not zero. And you don't even know how much you are consuming without directly measuring what's in the food you're eating. You can estimate it based on food databases that are listing limited results from a small, undefined sample of the food, but guess what, that is a SIMPLIFICATION of reality, which you so detest... And guess what else, when you changed your diet you didn't just change the Vitamin A content, you changed a whole suite of other things, which in science is what we call CONFOUNDING VARIABLES. Without controlling for those variables, you don't know whether it's the reduction in Vitamin A or something else that is resulting in your improved eyesight.
You see why I am so dismissive of your comments and those of people like you? You basically just told me you refuted an entire review of Vitamin A research relating to vision WITHOUT READING IT and based solely on the fact that you noticed a personal improvement in vision (was this objectively measured by an optometrist?) after purportedly reducing the Vitamin A content of your food (without actually measuring the content of your food). And because you believe a man who also claims to have overturned ALL of Vitamin A science through a not-so-different poorly-measured self-experiment. (Always adding this note: I think there is value in what Grant is doing, he is just way overreaching in his conclusions.)
Henrik:
I agree that I cannot know that it was what improved my eyesight. Actually one can only disprove a hypothesis never prove it but be that as it may - you dont seriously mean that the approximations from databases are so far of that if it shows you are eating f.ex 5% of daily intake you are really quite high?? It might be off but not that much. Also you presume a lot. I eat only locally sourced food and I check my nutrient intake with both analyzis done by researchers and farming organisation on the actual content of the relevant foods. Its not perfect but its pretty good.
How on earth did you come to the conclusion I havent read any papers?? where did you pull that one from?? See my previous part on the content of the food. I dont belive in any mortal man, I belive in arguments and find them sufficient until someone comes with something better, and thats how i think it should be. You should never belive in people blindly but always make your own conclusions.
You completely miss the ball here at the end, and you don't understand what he is telling you. You might ACTUALLY learn something here. You see no reasons to "indulge in your arguments about sight" (articles) and your brain circuit just shuts down and you say "How on earth did you come to the conclusion I havent read any papers?? where did you pull that one from??". You were taken with your pants down when you claim that you, let me paraphrase, "I stopped A, and my vision improved, therefore I don't need to indulge in your articles about vA and vision".
You might throw about fancy sentences like "I don't believe in any mortal man, I believe in arguments and ..." to come off as smart, but when your reading comprehension is like a 5 year old...
And all the people on this forum that is so excited to see what new thing Grant is so excited about, are you freaking kidding me! You actually think that this vA thing is history? Now we can move on to the next one? I am so embarrassed. The moment we lose Wavy on this forum, it loses any meaning in reading it, apart from people actually sharing their lab values, instead of talking endlessly about eggs, detox symptoms and whatnot
Oh oki @sand happy to see you too - its a bit sad you find all of peoples efforts here useless . Love and pancakes to both of you . Im sorry its so painfull for u. Its hard to be a nissemann https://youtu.be/nZcJZSX2AAg
I don't really understand what wavy and sand are arguing for. If a low vitamin A diet doesn't work for them they need to try something else. Whether it is essential as a vitamin or not, people like me who have reduced consumption and resolved many health problems don't care.
Here are some questions I see:
- At what point can we definitively say that vitamin A is a toxin? There's probably no man on earth with such a low body saturation as Grant has. And yet, contrary to what you'd expect from the research he's improving his health, in fact, he's thriving in his 60s, when men usually start having a lot of new health problems. That's puzzling.
- Are the tiny amounts he is getting in his diet enough to keep him from having problems? Or is there still enough stored in the liver after nine years of vitamin A depletion?
- Assuming it is a toxin how is it possible that no species has actually evolved to better handle the damn toxin? And why would the body convert it from one molecular structure to another? Is this a way it has adapted to deal with this ubiquitous toxin?
- And how is it possible that science, which actually shows benefits from supplemental vitamin A, can be wrong? Thousands of scientists can't be wrong, right? To anyone who works in science, it seems absurd to simply overturn all the studies based on a personal experience.
- What if it's not so much vitamin A that's a problem, but something else that's excluded from a rice-bean-meat diet? PUFA? Is it the low fat that's beneficial? Is it the low oxolates? How would you really find out? Give everyone the same diet, but give one group a vitamin A supplement?
One thing that will help shed some more light on some issues – we need more people who have almost undetectable serum vitamin A levels in their blood (with test results that some of us here have provided) and report their health. Have they gotten better over the years? Got worse? IT would help to know. If others replicate Grant's findings, it will further corroborate at least one thing for sure: Vitamin A requirements are vastly overestimated by health officials.
Personally, at the end of the day, these questions don't matter much to me because all I want for myself is to feel good. That's why I do it. Not for the science. For others, the science is tremendously important, and that's why they argue about these questions with great passion.
I wish we could debate without insults and slides. It amazes me how the anonymity of the internet makes some people feel comfortable speaking in ways I would never do in my personal life. Not to coworkers, not to family or friends. Yes, obviously some here are very smart and talented, but then to belittle others? Not cool.
Re: "And how is it possible that science, which actually shows benefits from supplemental vitamin A, can be wrong? Thousands of scientists can't be wrong, right?"
First, I'm sure there are scientists who are aware of the toxicity of vitamin A and probably are wondering to what extent vitamin A is having negative effects in the population.
Second, I also think it's quite easy for the majority of experts to be wrong. In fact, I think it is much more common than the average person realizes. For example, this is a real ad, which was reflective of many doctors (experts in health) views at one time:
Re: "To anyone who works in science, it seems absurd to simply overturn all the studies based on a personal experience." --I think that depends both on 1) the quality of the studies and 2) the quality of the personal experience. If the studies are of low quality (consider this: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778), then it doesn't take much to overturn them.
Monkeys on typewriters trying to write Shakespearean poetry, all the while throwing their feces at an image of the bard himself...good luck foolish little monkeys, you're going to need it.
"Whether it is essential as a vitamin or not, people like me who have reduced consumption and resolved many health problems don't care."
---Ignorant of spurious correlation, one and all. You will care if/when your new favorite "low Vitamin A" diet makes you sick from a different mechanism a few years from now, then you'll be begging some other half-baked prophet to tell you what went wrong and how to fix it and what do you know, now you're stuck in a pinball machine. Lots of people initially feel good on a new diet and then get much worse over time, particularly vegans/fruitarians. Humans are incredibly myopic. What makes you feel good today may bring you to your knees in 5-10 years...how do you think so many people wind up with chronic health problems in the first place? It's people who carefully apply the scientific method in conjunction with evolutionary theory that ultimately figure this stuff out.
"Personally, at the end of the day, these questions don't matter much to me because all I want for myself is to feel good. That's why I do it. Not for the science. For others, the science is tremendously important, and that's why they argue about these questions with great passion."
---Taking a strict scientific approach is not just about understanding the mechanisms underlying people's experiences, it's about achieving a repeatable and predictable outcome by understanding the relative contributions of different variables to a given outcome. Everybody on this and dipSmith's site is fumbling around in the dark, wondering why Grant has been so successful when so many other people are not seeing that success. It is careful, astute people applying the scientific method that will ultimately untangle that web, and they won't get the credit they deserve because hardly anybody understands or appreciates the difficulties of conducting good science.
Why is a person who eschews plants because they are poison defending a pigment that comes from plants?
And then accuse others of being illogical?