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puddleduck’s progress (CFS symptoms)
@puddleduck Some watermelons are injected with aspartame (cheaper than sugar) and also the water used for the injection might be problematic.
RE: There are studies showing significant post prandial increases in retinoic acid levels after retinol and liver consumption. @ggenereux2014 Have you seen any similar studies done for beta carotene consumption?
Yes, I do remember a study showing an increase in both serum retinol and RA. I'll try to find a reference.
I bought Chris Masterjohn’s “The Vitamins and Minerals 101: Cliff Notes” ebook, and in it he says: “an average intake of 3000-5000 IU [900 mcg-1,500 mcg retinol] of vitamin A per day is best for most people.”
The RDA is 700 mcg RAE for women, but IMO a 500 mcg RAE maximum is more appropriate for us lady folk, considering the Swedish osteoporosis study, but I have found 250 mcg RAE too high for me even after 4.5 years of strict avoidance, so... 😕 It’s difficult for me to view this inflammatory molecule as a nutrient, but I appreciate that you do and I feel it is important to have the “contrarian perspective” (a.k.a. extremely conservative mainstream everywhere else lol) represented here.
In a 2022 Substack post titled “What I’m Doing for Allergies,” Chris says he eats liver regularly and makes sure to consume at least 3 eggs daily, along with 3 grams of spirulina and 10,000 IU vitamin A as retinyl palmitate.
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/what-im-doing-for-allergies
It’s impossible to know if he can somehow be thriving on so much vitamin A...but if I took even half that dose of spirulina and retinyl palmitate, the “fires of hell”—as Grant aptly described it—would burn me alive in short order.
Did it actually or did depleting vA levels lead to you not needing to supplement anymore? Any improvement in your liver function could have resulted in you not feeling the need to supplement anymore, why would megadosing have resolved a deficiency if it hadn't over a period of years?
The bolded is totally possible. I think it could be a bit of both, though. Megadosing improves symptoms, aids repair of deficient organs, and helps the body more efficiently deplete vitamin A. I would imagine repair takes some time, considering the harm thiamine deficiency causes to so many different body systems. The gut may not be able to absorb nutrients properly again right away.
(Avoiding gluten for a year could’ve potentially improved absorption in my case, too. Hard to know for certain.)
Yeah autoimmunity may be partly epigenetic. I think excess retinoic acid plays a massive role in it. Healing may require not just the normalization of retinoic acid levels but consistently low levels for a period of time.
Makes sense.
From what I’ve read, consuming/absorbing beta carotene can lead to increased blood levels of both beta carotene and retinol for a couple of weeks, at least.
Let me know how it goes.
Will do!
Eggs have many potentially problematic components, people can have an allergy to egg white which contains no vitamin A. You can't automatically assume that it's the carotenoids or retinoids in a given food that are causing the issue.
I can eat eggs whites without a problem.
Andrew B seems to think I reacted badly to eggs because they “increased detox,” and I’m still open to that possibility. But if “increased detox” feels that horrid, I’ll pass.
However, I do suspect eggs reduced bile flow in my case, perhaps for more than one reason.
The bigger issue with oxalate can be endogenously produced oxalate, not dietary oxalate. You can't determine if oxalate is not an issue by comparing your reactions from high oxalate foods to high carotenoid foods. It is a different substance that can exert its toxicity in a different way. Often people with oxalate toxicity feel better after consuming high oxalate foods.
I suppose I would have to order a lab test to figure out if that endogenous oxalate thing is happening... Maybe I’ll do that eventually, if I start to feel stuck again and decide to seek out the help of a microbiome specialist.
But I never took vitamin C or glycine supplements for long, and didn’t experience extreme dumping symptoms (like crystals or sand coming out of me) when I restricted my oxalate intake to below 50 mg daily. If I had noticed any majorly weird symptoms, I’d be digging more deeply into it. For now, I’ll continue to stick to a low-oxalate diet (less than 200 mg daily).
I do suspect I react negatively when I suddenly consume 1,000 mg oxalate out of the blue, but I’ve been limiting my oxalate intake for around a year now so increasing my oxalate intake would not alleviate “dumping” symptoms at this point (not that I am sure anymore if I had/have those necessarily).
In a recent blog post, Sally Norton mentions an interesting study:
“Aside from mechanical damage to the tissues, oxalate can also have a dramatic effect on cell physiology, including inhibiting the immune response to infection and shifting immune system toward uncontrolled inflammation.
“Long before oxalates become crystals in tissues, oxalic acid damages immune cells (macrophages) and puts them in a pro-inflammatory state (with reduced cellular energy, increased oxidative stress, and damaged mitochondria)[16]. Dr. T. Mitchell’s team at the University of Alabama found damage to circulating immune cells in their human volunteers just 40 minutes after giving them a spinach smoothie with 720mg of oxalate[17].”
This stood out to me, because it completely contradicts Dr. Goldner’s experience. 😂 I mean, unless this causes hormesis or something. 🙃
But it does offer an explanation insofar as why I *possibly* react poorly to cocoa powder and spinach.
That backs up my hypothesis about how these low fat vegan diets can help (at least in the short term), that they're lowering retinoic acid levels. Most people don't consume CLO or liver so cheese is often going to be the main source of retinol in the diet. 100g of cheese contains 330mcg of retinol. One egg contains 70mcg of retinol.
Yeah, I agree.
I dunno if you’ve come across Jennifer Depew, but she is a registered dietician in America who recognized she was suffering from chronic hypervitaminosis A independently from Grant’s work. She shared a document with me about how she addressed it, and noted that for the first phase of her recovery a vegan diet was helpful.
It takes at most a few months for most carotenoids to be metabolized. You can see this when cattle are grain finished. Their fat is white after a few months of grain feeding.
That is encouraging! I’m already noticing improvements, and it hasn’t even been a week since cutting back.
You aren't going to want to hear this but I think those ideas are problematic. Eating a pound of raw cruciferous veges per day is very anti thyroid. The linolenic acid in flax seed oil has a very poor conversion rate to DHA and is more susceptible to oxidation (including within the body) than linoleic acid meaning consuming flax seed oil for many years may contribute to causing disease. Apart from taking fish oil in small amounts (if seafood isn't consumed), EFA supplementation contradicts basic physiological understanding. pH balance has little to do with dietary intake.
I mean, I’ve heard it before...I believed all of that for 15 years, and look where it got me. 🤪 But seriously, my biggest concern with spinach smoothies is the oxalate. I imagine that makes some people with autoimmune disease feel so much worse.
To err on the side of caution, I am taking an iodine supplement in the morning and waiting to eat my cruciferous veggies with my evening meal. Also, I’m not consuming any pressed oils at all. And as for going 100% raw? I can’t get enough fiber doing that. 😜
Fish oil ruined my life, basically (I mean, it was probably the retinol in the cod liver oil, but all fish oil contains aldehydes), and I feel poisoned when I eat oily fish even still.
Fish oil supplements take up the largest shelf in the nutritional supplement section of my local pharmacy, even though there are many studies linking them to cancer. So I am opposed to them. I’d take an algae-based DHA supplement before I’d take fish oil again, but since my executive function has improved on the flaxseed I’d rather not risk supplementation at all.
I do strongly believe I developed an omega 3 deficiency, and that flaxseed is somehow managing to replenish my DHA (and all the rest) to some extent, seeing as my executive function has improved, but I can’t back that belief up with references atm.
Having seen such major improvements so far I’m not tempted to stop what I’m doing...at least not until my TSH comes back sky high. I’ll be sure to update here if that happens, of course. It is worth keeping an eye on, for sure. 👍
Thanks again for your advice and sharing your perspective, @Tim-2! It is good to talk about all this stuff, and I appreciate your opposition to extremes. It’s good to have an advocate for balance in this space!
Quote from Ourania on September 8, 2023, 12:33 am@puddleduck Some watermelons are injected with aspartame (cheaper than sugar) and also the water used for the injection might be problematic.
That is so disgusting, wow I’d never heard about that... 🤢 Watermelons where I live come from Ontario, Canada, and they aren’t that sweet or red so I hope that isn’t happening here. But Dr. Goldner’s community is international, so it does make one wonder. 😬🤭
I attached a figure that I think puddleduck might have been thinking about from the Linus Pauling Institute.
Link to the page where I found the picture: https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/dietary-factors/phytochemicals/carotenoids#provitamin-A-function%20lutein%20and%20zeaxanthin%20being%20processed%20to%20apocarotenal
There is little research on just apocarotenoids (uneven breakdown products of carotenoids) so I think you should be careful to do any sure comment on them. I share @lil-chick's mindset of that I am vary of any and all carotenoids until proven otherwise though I think like you that they are generally less acutely problematic compared to retinoids.
PS. I am also interested on the convertion rate of apocarotenoids into retinoic acid and what percentage of carotenoids have to first turn into something else before leaving the body.
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@david wrote:
There is little research on just apocarotenoids (uneven breakdown products of carotenoids) so I think you should be careful to do any sure comment on them.
What have I said that you disagree with? I've said multiple times here that Carotenoid Breakdown Products can be genotoxic. I don't think I've ever said a good thing about them.
I share @lil-chick's mindset of that I am vary of any and all carotenoids until proven otherwise though I think like you that they are generally less acutely problematic compared to retinoids.
Trials like the CARET trial have already shown that high intakes of BC can increase rates of cancer and heart disease. The cause is not the BC molecule itself but either retinoic acid or CBPs or both.
If in response to learning this information someone minimizes their intake of high carotenoid foods and then goes about their life I think that's a fair and reasonable response and one that won't affect them much nutritionally and socially. If however someone reacts by trying to avoid all carotenoid intake I think that will probably affect them nutritionally and socially and provide little if any benefit.
PS. I am also interested on the convertion rate of apocarotenoids into retinoic acid and what percentage of carotenoids have to first turn into something else before leaving the body.
The figure you posted just shows that retinoic acid can be produced from the asymmetrical cleavage of beta carotene. That has nothing to do with non provitamin A apocarotenoids. It is not even hinting that retinoic acid can be produced from non provitamin A carotenoids.
Hi @puddleduck! First, thank you for sharing your story in so much detail.
I was wondering if you ever identified any contributing factor to your vitamin A toxicity or it was caused by excessive consumption of retinol and carotene alone?
What I mean is that I know vitamin A metabolism can be impaired in people with thyroid issues, for instance. What I find very relatable about your story is that you seemed to be doing totally fine until your vitamin A intake reached a certain threshold, and things went downhill from there.
Quote from Viktor on September 10, 2023, 7:14 amHi @puddleduck! First, thank you for sharing your story in so much detail.
I was wondering if you ever identified any contributing factor to your vitamin A toxicity or it was caused by excessive consumption of retinol and carotene alone?
What I mean is that I know vitamin A metabolism can be impaired in people with thyroid issues, for instance. What I find very relatable about your story is that you seemed to be doing totally fine until your vitamin A intake reached a certain threshold, and things went downhill from there.
Hey @viktor! 🙂
I had asperger’s from childhood and dysautonomia from teenage-hood (there were signs of it even before I crashed with CFS), but not thyroid issues. So I was doing quite well, yes, despite those challenges. It is common for CFS patients to be high-achieving, “go-go-go” types who are fit and active before they suddenly get their first Post-Exhertional-Malaise crash, but of course I don’t know if everyone with CFS has chronic hypervitaminosis A.
Because I took porcine-based thyroid hormone medication twice in my 20s (there are some naturopathic doctors in the USA who will prescribe thyroid medication based on symptoms even when the patient has normal labs, as I did), and they didn’t improve my symptoms I don’t believe ramping up the metabolism is a panacea unfortunately.
It was worth trying, I guess, because there are people for whom it can help.
In my case, growing up on an industrial canola and wheat farm exposed me to loads of glyphosate, and the farmhouse I lived in had black mold, so those environmental toxins probably were a big part of the reason I hit that chronic hypervitaminosis A toxicity threshold earlier than most.
Another possible contributing factor is genetic problems. Switching to a rich, Weston A. Price Foundation style diet for the first time in my life at age 15, which scared me away from consuming as many whole grains and legumes as I had been raised on, was a bad fit for my particular needs since it seems I am an “over-methalator” type(based on symptoms, not a genetic test thus far). Some of us just start out with extra weaknesses...
Wish I could be more helpful, Viktor!
ETA: I was extremely lucky to spend most of my childhood outdoors in the sun, largely without sunscreen. Sunlight deficiency is a serious problem all around the world now that kids are staying indoors to play virtual games instead of going on real-world adventures.
@david and @tim-2 I don’t have anything to add because the biochemistry stuff tends to be kinda over my head, but I do appreciate reading your discussions of such details. Thanks for being awesome, you guys! 😎
I don't either think one should avoid all carotenoids, it is not even possible eating real un-processed foods. I think carotenoid content in foods are a trade-off between nutrients, for you and your microbiome, and fat-soluble compounds like carotenoids. Have you seen and heard of Pareto-optimazation of mutual opposite goals?
-I think Pareto-optimaztion can be help to realize that one have to objectively choose what one think is important since there are many optimal solutions on the Pareto frontier. Many solutions are not even possible, like no one can't be both the fastest human and be a world champion in lifting heavy weights at the same time.
Here is a 1995 cell study that shows that it is at least possible for some of a non-vitamin A carotenoid, canthaxanthin, under certain circumstances to be transformed into 4-oxo-retinoic acid. The study is called:
"Efficacy of All-trans-β-Carotene, Canthaxanthin, and All-trans, 9-cis-, and 4-Oxoretinoic Acids in Inducing Differentiation of an F9 Embryonal Carcinoma RARβ-lacZ Reporter Cell Line"
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003986185710892?via%3Dihub
"By the same criteria, β-carotene at 10 μM also induced differentiation, but less strongly and more slowly than the retinoic acids. In contrast, the oxocarotenoid (or xanthophyll) canthaxanthin, at 10 μM, had little effect on differentiation, unless preincubated in culture medium, from which 4-oxoretinoic acid was recovered and identified as a decomposition product."
If you are interested to look more at apo-carotenoids, apo-carotenals and apo-retinoic acids, then this carotenoid database seems promising:
http://carotenoiddb.jp/
It would be great if @johannes2 could say something about carotenoids. Though I don't get all of his writings I find them very interesting, like this quote from him in this thread:
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/why-i-dont-think-this-is-a-legit-theory-anymore/?part=14
- "Even though it does not get cleaved to two retinal molecules, lycopene may still be equally as or more toxic than β-carotene, since it is more fat-soluble and can be metabolized to acycloretinal and subsequently to acycloretinoic acid, which, from a chemical perspective, looks like it would have pro-inflammatory effects and has been reported to induce apoptosis (Kotake-Nara, Kim et al. 2002); autoxidation of lycopene can yield apo-12’-lycopenal, which is predicted to interact with acetyl-CoA carboxylase 2 (ACACB), the rate-limiting enzyme in fatty acid synthesis, so lycopene may be more lipogenic than other retinoids
- Lutein seems to be one of the more toxic carotenoids, since it gets cleaved to one molecule of (3R)-OH-retinal and one molecule of (3S)-OH-retinal; in the VITAL study participants supplementing with lutein had the greatest hazard ratio for getting lung cancer of all groups (Satia, Littman et al. 2009)"