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ShanMan's progress
Quote from Ourania on September 14, 2023, 2:59 amWe eat meat (beef, lamb, pork, roedeer, very little chicken or guinea fowl), white rice, white potatoes, very white wheat flour, iceberg lettuce, cauliflower, celery root, white of leeks, lemons, onions, garlic, black beans, chickpeas, oat porridge, honey, coconut palm sugar, white sugar, coffee once a day (home roasted).
Spices : oregano, bay leaves. No pepper. Gherkins in vinegar.
Everything only home cooked from scratch. Three times a week at least the meat is cooked in water, no roasting, to extract minerals. At least once a week minced beef raw (minced at home, then frozen at -25C at least a week). Bread is home made barley bread or flat wheat bread (pitta/chapati style).
Plenty of saturated fats in the meat. A bit of olive oil here and there. Sometimes sesame paste.
We only eat at lunchtime, at night we eat leftovers but not after 5 pm.
Rarely we eat fruit : fresh figs, banana, apple peeled, pineapple.
And how are you feeling? What improvements did you have? How long have you been on the diet?
Everything here : https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/ouranias-log/
Quote from El on September 14, 2023, 12:08 ambut why don't you try doing the grant thing. Don't take any supplements, everyone takes supplements. and thus it is impossible to know if the diet works
Diet includes the same compounds that are the same compounds in supplements, by and large.
Taurine is in meat. I just bump it up.
Thiamin and Riboflavin are in Beans, and so on. I just bump it up.
Choline and Betaine are also in foods I eat. I definitely think Grant's diet (being higher in meat with the fat) was closer to sufficient, but I am bumping it up.
And so on.
What supplement (and compound in food) do you think is confounding my results?
I also already explained that when we follow a diet low in vitamin A, it is also low in polyunsaturated fats. That releases large amounts of vitamin A and polyunsaturated fats into the body. That makes you react very badly to the sun. You have to take saturated fats for that, beef tallow and the reaction to the sun disappears
That is an interesting position. I do think that PUFA / MUFA plays a role in backing up cells and the liver's ability to oxidize it and its metabolic byproducts.
What does sun do directly to PUFA/MUFA, or why would increasing saturated fats help?
I have read some studies on saturated fats displacing PUFA/MUFA in cells. And, I do want to angle towards that. My idea is to keep the amount of soluble fiber high to generate butyrate (a saturated fat) along with modest amounts of coconut oil that are mainly used in making rice (which increases the amount of resistant starch, making even more butyrate).
I do not think having tallow would be overall helpful. Tallow does have a decent amount of PUFA / MUFA. Typical amounts are:
- Saturated fatty acids:
- Palmitic acid (C16:0): 26%
- Stearic acid (C18:0): 14%
- Myristic acid (C14:0): 3%
- Monounsaturated fatty acids:
- Oleic acid (C18-1, ω-9): 47%
- Palmitoleic acid (C16:1): 3%
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids:
- Linoleic acid: 3%
- Linolenic acid: 1%
I've only recently learned that oleic can significantly contribute to PUFA thru much of the work of Fire in the Bottle on Youtube.
Quote from Shannon on September 14, 2023, 10:41 amI also already explained that when we follow a diet low in vitamin A, it is also low in polyunsaturated fats. That releases large amounts of vitamin A and polyunsaturated fats into the body. That makes you react very badly to the sun. You have to take saturated fats for that, beef tallow and the reaction to the sun disappearsThat is an interesting position. I do think that PUFA / MUFA plays a role in backing up cells and the liver's ability to oxidize it and its metabolic byproducts.
What does sun do directly to PUFA/MUFA, or why would increasing saturated fats help?
I have read some studies on saturated fats displacing PUFA/MUFA in cells. And, I do want to angle towards that. My idea is to keep the amount of soluble fiber high to generate butyrate (a saturated fat) along with modest amounts of coconut oil that are mainly used in making rice (which increases the amount of resistant starch, making even more butyrate).
I do not think having tallow would be overall helpful. Tallow does have a decent amount of PUFA / MUFA. Typical amounts are:
- Saturated fatty acids:
- Palmitic acid (C16:0): 26%
- Stearic acid (C18:0): 14%
- Myristic acid (C14:0): 3%
- Monounsaturated fatty acids:
- Oleic acid (C18-1, ω-9): 47%
- Palmitoleic acid (C16:1): 3%
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids:
- Linoleic acid: 3%
- Linolenic acid: 1%
I've only recently learned that oleic can significantly contribute to PUFA thru much of the work of Fire in the Bottle on Youtube.
interesting ray peat fans. They promote beef tallow a lot.
Quote from Shannon on September 14, 2023, 10:41 amI also already explained that when we follow a diet low in vitamin A, it is also low in polyunsaturated fats. That releases large amounts of vitamin A and polyunsaturated fats into the body. That makes you react very badly to the sun. You have to take saturated fats for that, beef tallow and the reaction to the sun disappearsThat is an interesting position. I do think that PUFA / MUFA plays a role in backing up cells and the liver's ability to oxidize it and its metabolic byproducts.
What does sun do directly to PUFA/MUFA, or why would increasing saturated fats help?
I have read some studies on saturated fats displacing PUFA/MUFA in cells. And, I do want to angle towards that. My idea is to keep the amount of soluble fiber high to generate butyrate (a saturated fat) along with modest amounts of coconut oil that are mainly used in making rice (which increases the amount of resistant starch, making even more butyrate).
I do not think having tallow would be overall helpful. Tallow does have a decent amount of PUFA / MUFA. Typical amounts are:
- Saturated fatty acids:
- Palmitic acid (C16:0): 26%
- Stearic acid (C18:0): 14%
- Myristic acid (C14:0): 3%
- Monounsaturated fatty acids:
- Oleic acid (C18-1, ω-9): 47%
- Palmitoleic acid (C16:1): 3%
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids:
- Linoleic acid: 3%
- Linolenic acid: 1%
I've only recently learned that oleic can significantly contribute to PUFA thru much of the work of Fire in the Bottle on Youtube.
more than saturated fats is stearic acid
Quote from Hermes on September 14, 2023, 2:26 pmThis is an awesome health update. What a journey you have had with serious chronic illnesses and problems. And you have shown perseverance in finding answers to your health issues. The insomnia is probably the worst as it just messes up your day to day life so much. It always amazes me how much shit people go through, but don't give up, keep going. I also like your detailed graphs. I have lowered the eggs, mainly sticking to one per day. For now the benefits outweigh the concerns, especially their lutein and zeaxanthin content (PUFA is negligible). There may be a point where I reduce them even further to just a couple a week or even none.I've stopped supplementing with lecithin and I'am sticking with phosphatidylcholine, about 4g a day. The lecithin gave me digestive problems.
I have thought about switching to phosphatidylcholine as I am now pretty convinced that a source of choline is necessary for maintaining a high(er) rate of detox.
Yes!!! The night wake-ups sometime accompanied with horrible nightmares that caused me to not be able to fall asleep (along with piercing tinnitus) were .... supercali-horrible! My Oura ring graphs are horrible enough, but they really don't reflect the amount of negative experience this was. Vitamin A and PUFA, and Aldehydes are just HORRIBLE.
I do have some amount of hope now that there will be more days that I actually sleep through the night. Especially since it has nearly happened a few times in the recent past!
Quote from El on September 14, 2023, 11:25 amQuote from Shannon on September 14, 2023, 10:41 amI also already explained that when we follow a diet low in vitamin A, it is also low in polyunsaturated fats. That releases large amounts of vitamin A and polyunsaturated fats into the body. That makes you react very badly to the sun. You have to take saturated fats for that, beef tallow and the reaction to the sun disappearsThat is an interesting position. I do think that PUFA / MUFA plays a role in backing up cells and the liver's ability to oxidize it and its metabolic byproducts.
What does sun do directly to PUFA/MUFA, or why would increasing saturated fats help?
I have read some studies on saturated fats displacing PUFA/MUFA in cells. And, I do want to angle towards that. My idea is to keep the amount of soluble fiber high to generate butyrate (a saturated fat) along with modest amounts of coconut oil that are mainly used in making rice (which increases the amount of resistant starch, making even more butyrate).
I do not think having tallow would be overall helpful. Tallow does have a decent amount of PUFA / MUFA. Typical amounts are:
- Saturated fatty acids:
- Palmitic acid (C16:0): 26%
- Stearic acid (C18:0): 14%
- Myristic acid (C14:0): 3%
- Monounsaturated fatty acids:
- Oleic acid (C18-1, ω-9): 47%
- Palmitoleic acid (C16:1): 3%
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids:
- Linoleic acid: 3%
- Linolenic acid: 1%
I've only recently learned that oleic can significantly contribute to PUFA thru much of the work of Fire in the Bottle on Youtube.
more than saturated fats is stearic acid
Getting more stearic does appear to be helpful. Though, I was not aware they materially impact levels of retinoids and carotenoids in peripheral cells. I only know of stearic acid's apparent signaling capabilities (towards higher metabolic rates).
Do you have any indirect or direct models / evidence that shows why stearic acid is the big lever in lowering Vit A levels in the dermis / skin ?
Early stage in life
Diet: Tried to be "low fat". Fast food, meat / potatoes, milk / cheese, pizza (especially buffet's with ranch / garlic butter), lots of soda (Dr Pepper)
I doubt your original diet was that problematic, probably just far too high in dairy fats which is the most common way to get subclinical Hypervitaminosis A in my opinion. Most of our instinctive food choices tend to be far better than our information based ones but dairy products are quite new evolutionarily and perhaps we don't always have the same level of instinctual awareness around them compared with other foods.
And, I completely stopped the fish oil at the end of November when I became persuaded Vitamin A could be an issue, and could not find a reasonable source that would describe how much Vit. A was in typical fish oil.
Low just like fish. Fish oil should probably be avoided but not because of vitamin A. It's only fish LIVER oil that must be strictly avoided due to vitamin A content.
I'm not yet convinced we need to be taking external DHA/EPA as long as we get very little PUFA, but every once in a while get a small amount of ALA. So, I do have a couple walnuts from time to time.
Then have a look at DHA levels in long term vegans (or fruitarians eating no seed oils). ALA in small amounts will not result in significant EPA/DHA production. ALA in large amounts is unhealthy.
Our ancestral diet contained lizards, snakes, insects, eggs and animal brains as well as fish. It's unwise to remove the only food group left in the modern diet that is a guaranteed source of not just DHA but also iodine and selenium.