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Tackling the Detox setback by Grant Genereux
Does 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?
@ggenereux2014 I think that wavygravy's thread had lots of carnivore thoughts. https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/carnivore-and-bile-acid-malabsorption/. It does appear that wavy gravy was experiencing some sort of troubles.
Lots of other threads have diverged into carnivore discussions, and some people bring up the downsides to it. I think there are some, at least for some people.
It does seem like some people who are very bad off, for instance Jordan Peterson's daughter, might need to get off of plant foods entirely to feel better. I guess we realize here that plant foods can be troublesome in lots of various ways.
I wouldn't say it's across the board, that people do better on carnivore, though. Everyone is so individual.
Hi @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
@ggenereux2014 For what it's worth, if I had to guess, my bet is on the fat. I think grass fed meat (what a lot of carnivores eat because they are aware of the drawbacks of conventional meat) has a better fatty acid profile and it's these fats that help detox more safely than carbs do, even if the carbs are low VA.
2nd guess would be the mineral density of meat is also helping. Absorption isn't being impeded by fiber or used up to process refined carbs or sugars. Just a guess though.
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.