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Tackling the Detox setback by Grant Genereux
Quote from ggenereux on June 4, 2023, 4:52 pmDoes anyone here have theories as to why the all carnivore folks seem to be doing so well and without encountering the detox setback?
Here's Jordan Peterson talking about his experience. He is about the same age as me, grew up in Alberta, and his health transformation is about the same as mine (even though he had an issue alcohol abuse).
Is it:
Extra fat intake?
Extra choline intake they get from all the beef?
No carbs?
All of the above?
They are just not talking about it? (I don't think this is the case).
Other ideas?
1. They are in ketosis, chronically raising cortisol and lowering inflammation.
2. People with autoimmunity tend to have “leaky gut” and can be sensitive to a wide range of foods. This can range from different types of grains to dairy. Once they consume these foods they will have autoimmune reactions afterwards (e.g. joint pains, eczema flair up etc.).
Carnivores like Jordan Peterson (steak and water) are on the ultimate food elimination diet and aren’t consuming any foods that could be potentially offensive. Therefore they eliminate all their “autoimmune” reactions and inflammation and return to good health as long as they continue to avoid all offensive foods and stay on their extreme elimination diet.
The thing that threw me was eating too may beans. At the time (early 2021), Dr. Smith's program said to 'work hard on the beans' as a mechanism to get rid of toxic bile. I did that and I developed problems bad. I became weak, hypothyroid, weird muscle issues. It definitely seems looking back that it was detox setback. I'm at a place now where I believe I'm still detoxing and I can for sure push things too hard. Dr. Smith talks about 'agitators' and I've found those things to be relatively valid for me. BUT, I also quit eggs at the beginning of 2021 when I went into my low-A diet and within months I descended into the setback bad. In some ways even now I'm still struggling to get back on track.
I'm slowly doing eggs, I have to take some time off between batches of them because it does seem that they can produce a detox reaction. Fortunately I'm getting some choline from beef. But, the soluble fiber aspect of this detox is something I'm still trying to work out, my body just doesn't seem to like much of it, or it's just that the soluble fiber produces too strong a dumping of VitA or bile, not sure. I suspect I'm still dumping VitA out of my liver, ugh.
I've become very interested in the work of Elliot Overton and his work on the importance of thiamine and I've been recently experimenting with that.
Dr. Smith has continued to double down on his anti-choline, anti-eggs messages which is confounding to me.
I wonder if I had continued to eat eggs if it would have eased my setback pains.
Quote from ggenereux on June 4, 2023, 5:59 pmHi @lil-chick,
Yeah, I don't want to get into debating if carnivore is a better diet or not. I seem to be doing really well on moderately high carb diet so I'm not advocating for the carnivore diet.
What I'm asking is are the carnivore diet folks less likely to encounter the detox setback? And, if so, why is that?
Agreed, there are a ton of variables, and we are all different.
Thanks
I agree. If strict carnivore works for someone that's great, but it shouldn't be dogmatic. I belong to a facebook group that's carnivore adjacent, a group of people who have found that animal-centric diet with some plant based works for them. I'm kinda in that group as to what seems to work for me. With all the sugar hating out there, I've found that I need some degree of sugar in my diet to feel ok. So each person has to work out what's best for them.
@ggenereux2014 red meat only diet is very effective as ultimate elimination diet. It eliminates basically all allergens, it is anti inflammatory due to lack of omega 6 fats, due to high cortisol on this diet. So as a fast fix it's great and for people with serious autoimmune issues it can be life saver. But you don't have to be brain surgeon to see that this diet is crazy unbalanced in terms of micronutrients and over time this deficiency of micronutrients that are not in red meat, this overload of iron and this chronically elevated cortisol will eventually catch up to you.. You will start age more faster and it is not like you can start eating balanced diet again with all the minerals in some normal ratios after eating only meat for years.. I would do carnivore with serious autoimmune issues, but you have to find out why you have autoimmune issues and not just forget about it and hope that this elimination diet will fix anything for you.. It can if you are lucky and your main issue was for example vit A toxicity, zinc deficiency etc.. But more often it is more factors at once some of them not even related to diet..
Thank you again for doing this blog. Invaluable that so many come from such diverse ranges of symptoms and sources of toxicity. purely speculative here. Having said that speculating is betting. I am betting our farm on Garrett's advice and Grant's experience. It is good that we each lay out our backgrounds and basis for our speculations. It helps me sort out what might work for me.
My symptoms in '93 were acute and lasted years. I knew little of vit A then and chalked it up to antibiotic abuse, sleep deprivation, hypercaloric lacto-ovo diet and no exercise. I was not wrong, but did not get to core of problem. It cost me a few years of work. Worst of it was cachexia, jaundice, sciatica and cramps every hour. As I struggled with a range of bets on cause I lost 35% body weight so I started elimination diet where I relied on hemp and fish oils for calories, a fair size list of supplements and brocolli, cauliflower and lettuce for vegetables. The bet was that carbs were causing deficiencies and yeast overgrowths.
In '95 my doc (who went through similar after curing her ulcers with antibiotics against heliobacter) let me know that I was trying to do the equivalent of reading a flight manual while learning to fly a 747 midflight. There was no way I could balance out supplement doses for any nutrients let alone micros. I relented when she put forward zone diet. 40-30-30 at 1500 to 2000 calories per day. I slowly recovered. She is still my doc and is now intrigued by Garrett and Grant.
I did zone 15 years then paleo / keto 12 and did well. Until I started upping intake of A and D with foods and supplements. Ikura, beef liver, eggs, yams, carrots, seaweeds, cod liver oil and cod liver,........ Nov. '22 brought completely debilitating pain. Searched keywords looking to quell pain and allow sleep. sciatica, kidney stones, piriformis, glute medius, appencidtis, ulcers, herniated disc and then finally settled on sacroiliitis. Large liver intake in fall, 2022 and inability to eat any in Dec, 2022 made me suspect vit A. Having read up on Paul Saladino - carnivore with organ meats, I thought to find people with opposing views. Found Garrett and Grant through Judy Cho's interview. Got on to vit A that way. Slow progress since then accelerating improvement.
As acute as pain was, I learned quickly before finding anything on vitamin A that I had zero tolerance for any more liver, oil or supplements with it. The few times I tested Garrett's ideas, the pain taught me quickly.
Here is my best bets on this thread.
I think the carnivores do well as long as their systems are not overwhelmed. The liver is either taking A in (intox) or getting it out (detox). When intox starts, detox stops. Poison is painful going in and coming out. Carnivores recycle upwards of 97% of their bile. Hence the infrequent tiny hard biscuit poops. The muscle meat carnivores do better indefinitely as long as they keep off A. Eat nose to tail and suffer soon. Liver can only store so much until overflow where it just detoxes like it or not. At that point, colon better be able to get bile out before it is reabsorbed. Hard for a colon to do that in carnivore gut.
Liver's detox systems also use up nutrients causing deficiencies. Mostly potassium, magnesium, molybdenum, selenium, zinc, thiamine, folate,taurine which in turn slows down detox and excretion. More pain. Now. Adding these nutrients in is stop gap at best and pointless if colon does not push bile out of anus at least as fast as liver detoxes and pushes out bile loaded with retinoic acid. Switched back to 40-30-30 version of Grant's diet while adding soluble fiber in slowly. Besides supplements (much less now than before Nov, 2022) I now eat mostly oatmeal, apple, date, prune, green kiwi, lemon, lettuce, beef and water. I brought sunfiber and charcoal up slowly to where I can easily take in a tablespoon of each per day.
My guess is if eggs bring relief, it is mostly because of vit A in eggs stopping detox with further intox. I have chickens and miss my 1 to 2 dozen eggs per week. Now I take 1 egg every week or two. My guts flow better now than ever. Feels like I am pooping out bile fast enough to keep up with my liver dumping it out. Symptoms fade faster and faster. Grant's experiment gives good evidence that taking in more vit A may feel good briefly while detox shuts down but long term only makes everything worse. Garrett's timely advice on detox helped me get from pain induced sleep dep (10 minute naps maximum) to sleeping 6 to 12 hours a day - continuously uninterrupted. Edema, range of motion, strength, neuralgia, joint pain, sacroiliitis - all of it fading fast.
Upon further review, I also take 500 mg or so of vit C just in case. I also found some pain relief with 10mg of melatonin. Got onto idea of melatonin from docs who used it as anti-inflammatory with low downside risks. Seemed to help me get over the top on the pain. Thank you again @ggenereux2014
Please do keep on.
Quote from Jessica2 on June 4, 2023, 8:26 amNow if you've read my recent posts it's no secret that I now believe hypervitaminosis A was NOT my main issue (a main reason is cutting it out did NOTHING); ...In my case, it was useless and ineffective at best.
Obviously if you think that vitamin A was not he problem for you, it implies that the advice you gave to vA toxic people should not really be beneficial to them.
You recommended Phosphatidyl choline which turned out a terrible idea for both of us.
Eggs immediately turned out toxic for both of us.
Niacin (maybe that was @jaj's proposition) was awful at small does.
I am not complaining, a drowning man clutches at straws and it is all our responsability for trying these out.
The point I am making now is, if you are not vA toxic, you would be well advised to warn that your ideas are not aimed at vA toxic people, which are I believe a majority here.
I’ve not read all this thread so apologies if I’m repeating. I have a strict limit on my phone time as it’s a seizure trigger for me and I’m nearly out of time!
I think the carnivore diet provides enough choline. Of utterly vital importance. I got severe choline deficiency on the vA detox. I have the labs to prove it. I was particularly vulnerable to this as I was menopausal, but I think it’s a ubiquitous problem. People don’t need to eat eggs, but they do need enough choline, as without enough detox grinds to a halt. Acetylcholine is vital for gut motility and constipation is a detox disaster. Phosphatidylcholine is vital for bile to exit hepatocytes and enter bile canniculi (phase 2.5). Bile without enough phosphatidylcholine is more damaging to the gut lining - causing leaky gut. I mean choline is utterly vital to a successful detox. Meri Arthur is theorising and providing possible further understanding as to why the vA detox, in particular, could mean we require more choline from our diet. The formation of A2E (retinaldehyde - ethanolamine) can steal away a source of endogenous choline. Anyway, the vA detox requires adequate choline, maybe more than the RDA. I’ve tried the low choline way...disaster.
Also the carnivore diet provides plenty of vitamin B3 which is a precursor to NAD, a vital co factor for the vA detox enzymes.
Also the carnivore diet provides plenty of taurine. Another useful substance for vA detox. It can bind retinaldehyde and possible prevent A2E formation. This would be helpful for many reasons, as A2E is a component of lipofuscin, but it would also in theory be choline sparing (Mer Arthur work - see Weak Therefore Strong on YouTube). I think taurine also helps retinoic acid excretion from memory??
Those are some of the reasons that spring to my mind about the success of the carnivore diet. With choline adequacy being number one. I’m sure there are others.
Edit: if choline allows the LRAT enzyme to work efficiently and store vA in the liver when required this can ONLY be a good thing. The intelligent body needs to decide when to do things and having enzymes working optimally allows choice. If there is excess vA floating around unable to metabolise I’d rather have it back stored safely in the liver, where it does less damage. The idea that this is a bad thing I find incomprehensible. Choline does so much more, I mean sooo much more, than just support LRAT. Choline is vital for detox (oh and methylation, and cell membrane health, and myelin health etc etc).
Edit 2: low oxalate is another important factor of carnivore diet. Meri Arthur thinks this is how her daughter got blocked vA metabolism. Important link I suspect.
How many carnivores are succeeding and doing vitamin A reduction ? I know 2 at least perhaps only 5 in my circles. It's definitely one approach that might get enough nutrients like choline as Jenny said. Some betaine and taurine in beef and bison too. Please shout out with numbers. Where your focus is you might know more than me. I like a varied diet so I'm biased.
On the other hand in the Facebook Vitamin A Toxicity group there are plenty of people eating eggs and no one has mentioned a detox setback. At least 50 if not 200 people (because not everyone comments). We have far more active people than this forum (or Love Your Liver it seems) as well but again not all commenting. Although there is overlap of people in all 3 places.
The debunking of Garrett Smith's twitter egg and choline thread was the most popular Vitamin A toxicity post back in December. Mostly by @jessica2. What an amazing job she did even when ill. Put Garrett's efforts to shame. There is a lot of interest in this in that group. Plenty of people not believing Garrett's nonsense and reading the research evidence. Do your research people. And this is an experiment within an experiment. It doesnt work for everybody as eggs cause a strong detox. Garrett saying eggs slow the detox without any evidence is the biggest load of dogma I've ever come across. We have hundreds reporting strong detox. It's best done from the start of the diet as well so joining the party 3 years into Vitamin A detox can be difficult.
I recommend 1-2 eggs a day to my clients plus a balanced diet and I've never received a complaint of detox setback. It's possible people give up and dont tell me. I do try to get feedback. Hundreds of clients over the 3 years I've been doing low vitamin A. Very much similar consistent advice since I started. A bit more emphasis on the choline and the eggs since I realised the benefits but I never advised omitting them.
And then we have probably 15 amazing stories at least of people suffering badly on the Vitamin A reduction diet and being rescued from despair by eating eggs or supplementing. Constipation resolved, gait improvements, bilirubin reduced, digestion and bowel movements improved, fibre better tolerated, supplements not needed so much, extra foods now added, seizures not getting worse, glutamate sensitivity overcome. Possibly as many as 50 people recovering by reintroducing eggs many in Love your Liver but censored by Garrett Smith from telling their stories. My long post in that network with at least 25 studies was deleted. If that isnt enough anecdotal evidence of the need for choline then I dont think you'll ever be convinced.
Speak to proper liver detoxification experts about choline. Meri Arthur a dietician uses eggs successfully for her clients. I would much rather rely on clinicians with results than listen to Garrett Smith guessing.
Choline helps so many factors in the body. Of relevance is gut motility through acetylcholine. Improving frequency of bowel movements or simply resolving constipation. Acetylcholine also helps lymphatic function perhaps crucial if not exercising. The lymphatic system-spleen-kidney route of elimination may be as important as bowel movements. Choline helps absorption and through phosphatidylcholine as I mentioned before helps the intestinal barrier permeability. Choline again through phosphatidylcholine helps improve the safety of the bile acids. These factors are so important before you begin detoxing. Never mind a detox setback. We are very likely to be low at the start with fatty liver and/or Vitamin A toxicity. Cell membrane health being crucial to detox along with methylation. Why are we neglecting this ? 2-3 years since we raised the possibility and we had to do all the hundreds of hours of research ourselves. And now we are experimenting with good results and we're still waiting.
Jordan Peterson disappeared from the internet for a year due to bad health, and this was after his conversion to carnivore.
I think, though, that one of his issues was his trust in our (broken) medical system such as it is.
Hard to know if his year of bad health was just iatrogenic or if there was some VA setback in there too.