I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Persistently bad hair & skin quality
If there is one negative thing (two really) I experience while eating low VA is that my skin and hair quality gets really rough. For those of you have been detoxing for years and years and years, did you ever see an improvement in this area? I'm mostly interested in hearing the experiences of those eating a very restricted very low VA diet, but others could of course comment too. Just one day of eating a little bit of VA makes my skin look so much better, however of course that also comes with all of the negative symptoms.
The only way I could make sense of this is that possibly the skin is constantly exposed to VA while detoxing, as it is perspired out through the skin, and therefore the skin gets constant exposure unlike other organs which are instead seeing a steady decrease in their exposure to VA. And then when you consume VA, detoxing stops, so then the skin is not exposed to it any more. But that theory doesn't make sense when you consider all those people who are slathering straight VA on their faces to make themselves look better and younger.
@salt I think that healthy amount of vit A makes the skin nice and smooth. Too much will damage the skin and not enough will make the skin rough, bumpy.. So it is about balance like with everything. I think if someone is on low vit A diet for like 3 years and now thinks that there is no more toxic amount of vit A stored in the liver. Then should find out what daily dose is ideal for him. If it's one egg yolk or he can be ok with much bigger amounts. But that person can't be sure if he is not creating toxicity again. So I would eat the smallest amount possible that gives you benefit. If you don't see any benefit or you have issues eating any food high in vit A.I don't see the point why push it. I am ok with never eating foods high in vit A if it is beneficial for me..
@salt I like your theory. That makes sense to me. Could be different amounts as @jiri said or different types that make the difference between helpful or not.
I’ve not got skin or hair issues but I’m not super low vA anymore. I’ve got fingernail issues though but I think this is vitamin depletion. I think that some people will excrete more via skin than others. I think gut is best way, then kidneys, then skin. If someone has slow bile flow (cholestasis), slow kidneys and/or poor hydration then more would come out via skin.
@salt my skin seems to always get worse if I try things that speed up VA excretion, removing all supplements and sticking to rice/bean medley/lean beef seems best for me. I do think that the insane amounts of VA I consumed in the past along with accutane make my detox a very long journey.
I judge my progress now on skin quality and sleep, which improve most by keeping things simple. My hair shedding continues, low VA has no improvements there, was hoping low VA would help this, maybe in the future, have to wait and see. Male hair loss is a complex issue, so not counting on it though!
I was interested in the fact that vitamin K(2) also has these unsaturated isoprenoid chains. Could it be that VK in a certain context is an antidote to poisoning VA, and vice versa. Just a thought. I wish I was a chemist to sort it out here.
I think lemon water makes my hair and skin soft.
After 17 months, my symptom pattern that started with going low VA still seems to be there, but I think getting gradually less severe as time goes by. That is to say, most of my skin problems started or dramatically worsened when I removed VA from my diet, but most have slowly been getting better over time. The one thing that is killing me right now is gum recession, and I'm still convinced it's the result of Vitamin A turnover in the mouth.
I think it really depends on where in your body the excess VA originally got stored, and how quickly it's being removed from those stores. My best guess is that it comes out of storage in a very caustic form (e.g. retinoic acid), which is why resolving toxicity might lead to worse skin symptoms than taking beauty products that contain less potent forms of VA (e.g. retinol).
I don't think I've ever really had cholestasis myself, and I had no apparent bile problems before removing VA from my diet, yet my skin symptoms sprang up very quickly when I first removed VA from my diet. Thus, my experience seems to suggest that you can get dramatic skin/mucus membrane problems even when your bile "plumbing" is working well, and that these skin problems are a largely unavoidable consequence of detoxing. I would guess that detoxing really slowly is the best way to minimize those problems, but in my experience, once the flip is switched and your body starts dumping stored VA, it's very difficult to slow that process without intentionally throwing nasty stuff at your liver like potent herbal concoctions or heavy alcohol intake, or ceasing micronutrient intake by eating highly processed foods.
I keep wondering if part of the reason people feel so happy on beans is that they prevent high intake/uptake of zinc, and zinc is playing a major role in the turnover of VA in storage. More meat and less beans = more zinc = worse detox symptoms? Tyler Ginter over on Garrett's forum recently said he felt terrible after just one day of not eating his staple of beans at every meal, and he blamed it on the slowing of bile flow or lack of mopping up bile, but I wonder if it's just that his body absorbed more nutrients (particularly zinc) in the absence of beans at every meal. One of Saladino's favorite papers to cite is one that showed significantly reduced zinc uptake when consuming beans alongside animal foods high in zinc.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on December 18, 2021, 1:00 pmI keep wondering if part of the reason people feel so happy on beans is that they prevent high intake/uptake of zinc, and zinc is playing a major role in the turnover of VA in storage. More meat and less beans = more zinc = worse detox symptoms? Tyler Ginter over on Garrett's forum recently said he felt terrible after just one day of not eating his staple of beans at every meal, and he blamed it on the slowing of bile flow or lack of mopping up bile, but I wonder if it's just that his body absorbed more nutrients (particularly zinc) in the absence of beans at every meal. One of Saladino's favorite papers to cite is one that showed significantly reduced zinc uptake when consuming beans alongside animal foods high in zinc.
Did the paper explain what the method of reduced zinc absorption was? I would guess that it was about phytic acid. Soaking and especially pressure cooking beans really reduces the phytic acid levels.
I don't think the benefits of beans are related to zinc reduction. I can confirm that I feel myself androgenic when I eat only beans. I think one of the factors may be the absence of opioids in legumes; opioids there are in milk, meat, cereals, soy and cocoa; it can increase prolactin. Perhaps someday I will return to the bean diet when I learn to eat them without the appearance of symptoms from the intestine.
Quote from salt on December 18, 2021, 12:22 amIf there is one negative thing (two really) I experience while eating low VA is that my skin and hair quality gets really rough. For those of you have been detoxing for years and years and years, did you ever see an improvement in this area? I'm mostly interested in hearing the experiences of those eating a very restricted very low VA diet, but others could of course comment too. Just one day of eating a little bit of VA makes my skin look so much better, however of course that also comes with all of the negative symptoms.
The only way I could make sense of this is that possibly the skin is constantly exposed to VA while detoxing, as it is perspired out through the skin, and therefore the skin gets constant exposure unlike other organs which are instead seeing a steady decrease in their exposure to VA. And then when you consume VA, detoxing stops, so then the skin is not exposed to it any more. But that theory doesn't make sense when you consider all those people who are slathering straight VA on their faces to make themselves look better and younger.
I would wait another 2-3 years of low vitamin A diet, before coming to a conclusion . Healing of whole body is a mystery, I think best it to give it. enough time
For me it was double-edged. I don't get now really awful seb derm, but the one between the eyebrows is still persistent. Overall the skin is less smooth, maybe before the diet retinoids stored in body were doing the same thing as topical cosmetic retinoid products.
More hairloss now, possibly because less rosacea means less blood flow to the face and scalp. I suspect also iron overload from beef could be harmful to hair and skin.