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Six months down
Quote from ZJ on January 9, 2019, 1:10 pmQuote from ggenereux on January 9, 2019, 12:18 pmQuote from ZJ on January 4, 2019, 7:59 pmI may try zinc again but one of the ones I tried was only 15mg and I don't know if I can find a lower dose than that. I haven't been getting organic rice but I'll look into it. I soak it for a day or two and then rinse it well though. I know you can reduce the amount of phytate in beans to some extent but I want to get my zinc into normal range as quickly as possible so I'll be avoiding all anti nutrients for awhile. I've considered going carnivore to boost my zinc but it's expensive and until I get my kidneys sorted out I don't want to increase my protein.
Hi ZJ,
Are you thinking that the added protein is going to cause kidney issues?Hi Grant,
I'm not afraid it's going to cause it but that it may exacerbate it. I'm sure it's the vitamin A that's causing it. Maybe I'm being overly cautious but I had no kidney issues prior to starting this diet and had been eating massive amounts of vitamin A for years. Now after 5 months of no Vitamin A I get a call from my Dr. saying I may have acute kidney failure. That's frightening. I'm eating 90g-100g a day, so I certainly don't avoid it, and I won't go any lower. I'm wondering if some vitamin, mineral, antioxidant, etc. that was abundant in my previous diet and lacking in this one was protecting my kidneys. Or it could be the rebound effect you've mentioned and my zinc deficiency intensifies it. I don't know.
@zj @ggenereux2014 (for potential relevance in detox symptoms/possible copper deficiency symptoms)
Perhaps what was abundant in your previous diet and lacking in your current is copper. Many vitamin A detox diets seem to be highly deficient in it and I have in my times of research come across a suggested inverse relationship in liver storage between vitamin A and copper. So someone who needs to lower their vitamin A levels is likely to already be low on copper going into the diet, at least in my opinion.
It is also relevant as from what I've read and anecdotal reports that I've come across, in order to resolve a zinc deficiency one would first need to resolve any copper deficiency. In fact often the zinc deficiency will resolve simply by resolving the copper deficiency.
Copper has been my most beneficial supplement, pre- and during my time on my vit A detox diet. I'm not providing sources so what I say should likely be fact checked but I will add that I have also read that certain testing methods for copper levels can be misleading, such as hair testing often suggesting excess whilst in actuality being deficient.
Just a suggestion, wishing you the best.
Copper saturation on this low VA diet is for me absolut essential and copper is the most beneficial supplement, I feel good after copper but the symptoms of VA detox became worse. At the beginning of this diet I had a suspicion that I am copper deficient but I had no positive response to the supplement. The body had to get rid of part of the vitamin A first, and then literally began to suck in copper. I have many experiences with copper - mostly bad because of copper toxicity in the past (mercury and heavy metal toxicity, adrenal fatigue) but I know all the symptoms of deficiency and toxicity. I needed more zinc only at the beginning, now not so much.
Sometimes I need to balance copper with iron, if I feel the copper doesn't work, I add a little iron and it works again.
Copper-zinc-iron - these three must be in balance.
And I wondered that no one has written about the copper deficiency on this diet. I can understand if someone has light toxicity, it can be saturated only with the diet but Grant's diet beef, black beans and rice is poor in copper.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3679695
"These findings suggest that a copper-deficient diet may cause defective transport of vitamin A from liver to blood."
I put my low VA foods into Cronometer and my diet is definitely not low in copper. Potatoes alone are an excellent source.
Quote from tim on October 21, 2019, 1:22 amI put my low VA foods into Cronometer and my diet is definitely not low in copper. Potatoes alone are an excellent source.
I need a lot of more copper than RDA ca. 4-6 mg daily+copper in food (and I have sunflower seeds, walnuts almost daily), in saturation I took 12 mg, it would be never possible to saturate only with food (copper rich foods are mostly high oxalate) or it would take a very long time. And the women need a little more copper than men.
I personally wouldn't touch copper supplements with a barge pole. Of the essential minerals it has to be the most dangerous one. Iron, copper and calcium can easily be toxic. Iron is easy to get rid of with blood donations, copper is not, instead it can just accumulate in the liver causing damage. I'm not sure that there is a proven way to diagnose copper deficiency but if serum copper is low that probably doesn't mean that copper is low in the diet, it more likely means that the biochemistry is imbalanced and copper is being stored instead of being utilized making the liver toxic with it.
Quote from tim on October 21, 2019, 2:23 amI personally wouldn't touch copper supplements with a barge pole. Of the essential minerals it has to be the most dangerous one. Iron, copper and calcium can easily be toxic. Iron is easy to get rid of with blood donations, copper is not, instead it can just accumulate in the liver causing damage. I'm not sure that there is a proven way to diagnose copper deficiency but if serum copper is low that probably doesn't mean that copper is low in the diet, it more likely means that the biochemistry is imbalanced and copper is being stored instead of being utilized making the liver toxic with it.
Copper is not a toxin, it is an essential mineral and the body may have excess, deficiency or is in balance. Yes, under certain circumstances it becomes toxic - but this is mostly metabolic problem and copper dysregulation and some forms, especially inorganic, copper from copper dishes or copper pipes are toxic. Vitamin A toxicity creates a biochemical imbalance in the body and as the body gets rid of vitamin A, there may be a higher need for some nutrients. I'm just writing my experience and I don't advise anyone to take copper, the more people write, the more we understand the mechanism of vitamin A toxicity and what imbalances it creates in the body and what helps to detox better. You can test ceruloplasmin, copper in serum and calculate "free copper" - unbound to ceruloplasmin - and it should be within reference range, I don't know how reliable it is, I only used it once. https://ahealthymeal.com/7523/calculate-ratios-of-zinc-copper-ceruloplasmin/ https://www.wilsonsdisease.org/for-patients-families/lab-tracker-copper-calculator
This blog I have found a few years ago, it is just an example that one can also have a copper deficit: http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/candida/exp.html
http://www.angelfire.com/cantina/candida/hands.html
There are minerals as copper, iron, selenium....where the borderline between the toxic and optimal dose is very thin but it doesn't mean that these minerals are always toxic, one must be only careful with suplementation.
When I had copper toxicity, my reaction to the copper supplement was very bad, I even had to limit copper-rich foods for three years.
In Ray Peat forum someone posted a "study" that copper is a "poison" and the opinion that it is just another toxin as vitamin A, I hope this nonsense will not spread here.
And you can always test copper suplement, 2-3 mg daily for 7 days (e.g. solgar copper glycinate)- if you feel better or worse or worse at first and then better or the symptoms of vitamin A detox become stronger, with this amount you will definitly not become toxic. And if you don't feel anything, you probably don't need copper.
I stopped copper supplementation now for three days and again I have every possible symptom of copper deficiency - low mood, anxiety, internal tremor, sleep problems - low dopamine, low immune system - cough and runny nose, sneezing, anemic feeling, I am cold, pains are worse, yeast problems, white tongue but VA detox symptoms stopped too. And if you take a dose of zinc - 25 mg or molybdenum, the symptoms of copper deficiency will worsen, as they are copper antagonists - but you can feel it only if you are very deficient. If the body has serious nutritional imbalances, health problems, then the body slows down detox, it happened to me in the past many times.
After 30 years of vegetarianism, I ate WAPF/GAPS for five years - very high in zinc, and surely enough time to correct a deficiency?
Except that five years ago I was suffering from the worst mental health of my life, and while I now think this was precipitated by Vitamin A toxicity (eating so much liver, CLO, dairy, eggs, etc. etc.), it was a few life-saving supplements that helped me make it through till now: zinc picolinate, B6/P5P, and a handful of other cofactors, plus a low-copper diet for a few years. I agree with the person who recommended plasma zinc, ceruluplasmin, and copper tests. The zinc/copper balance can be off in either direction, and symptoms mimic each other. It can be awful to guess and take the wrong thing! High copper foods were sending me off the deep end (literally).
In my case, I was severely zinc deficient, and severely overloaded with unbound copper. It's taken about five years of supplementing large doses of zinc plus cofactors for my blood test results to come into normal range.
I now think that Vitamin A overload was underlying all of this, but I have no idea how long it takes to correct, or if I can ever stop taking zinc, or what the "right" thing is to do re: supplementation.
William Walsh has done revolutionary research in terms of treating symptoms with simple and straightforward bloodwork and supps. (However, it was Walsh-trained physicians who put me on Vitamin A and calcium last March, which sent me into a horribly painful kidney "attack" and caused me to look up first intolerance to calcium and then Vitamin A toxicity...so choose your advisors well!)