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Tackling the Detox setback by Grant Genereux
The real impressive case study for carnivore is not for Jordan Peterson, but for his daughter. She recovered from full blown rheumatoid arthritis- the kind that forced her to get joint replacements as a child.
When I went through my cats deaths, which seemed to me to be on the early side (age 17 rather than 22) and knowing I gave them too much vitamin A...Their diagnosis was kidney disease... I really was trying to keep them carnivore and I felt like something was missing. They started turning their nose up at the meat.
As someone said back a ways, eating nose to tail might be more toxic, but maybe the cats did need something else besides muscle meat and fat to get better or prolong their lives.
Were they going through retox? Then perhaps fiber or charcoal would have helped. Perhaps they needed more of some nutrient or building block to solve kidney disease. Or maybe they were just too far gone.
I wonder if there is an animal-based fiber that I could have given to my cats or that even could be taken by carnivores. Or maybe there are fibers that carnivore animals and people can tolerate. I once knew a gluten and dairy free person who thought konjac solved her gut.
If vitamin A sort of ruins the surfaces of organs "eczema of any organ", (lesions, scarring, deterioration, leakiness) I can totally see how Jessica's essential fatty acid experiment/idea might be a building block of speedier VA recovery. We'll see how that goes as it seems multiple people here including myself are giving that a go.
I liked Joe's metaphor about trying to read a flight manual mid-flight piloting a 747 and I'd like to add that there is a storm and it's midnight.
I'm not sure I got my point across or maybe I'm not done with my thought about acute vs chronic.
1. When poisons are floating around that is what I'd call "acute" poisoning, and I think you see vomiting, runs, prostration, sweating, headache, panting, flu-like or hangover symptoms, runny nose, zits, restlessness as you try to deliver the poison out. All this hard work can lead to weight loss
2. and when your organs are exposed to the poison in the long term that is what I would call the "chronic" poisoning and here you see things like scarring, loss of functions, lesions, deterioration, weight gain (fat or swelling), low energy
My suffering through time seems to have been all about phase 1, while husband seems to be all about phase 2. Perhaps I'm actually more well now because my suffering? I don't know.
Thanks everyone here for the feedback and thoughtful comments. Do you have suggestions as to the next steps regarding this topic? Obviously, asking people to take on a low vA diet, and just keeping their fingers crossed, hoping for the best is not going to cut it. I guess some recommendations might be:
- Go all muscle meat carnivore for the first 6 - 12 months?
- Priming the pump so to speak with choline? And can this be done effectively without eggs?
- Low vA + AC + fibre?
- Other approaches?
- Giving up is not an option.
Quote from Jessica2 on June 4, 2023, 2:12 pm@alexm sudden unexplained weight gain of 30 lbs put on in a month, especially around midsection where my gain pattern NEVER happened, diffuse hair loss, inability of hair to grow past shoulders, high cholesterol and blood pressure, fatigue, general achiness, inability to concentrate or focus, inability to tolerate exercise after a lifetime of using exercise for control of depression and resultant worsening depression. Since I had been mega dosing cod liver oil and using retinol face creams I thought for sure my issue was high vitamin a.
I agree with you Jessica, saying "detox is hard" is unacceptable. I always took the approach of not eating the foods that didn't agree with me, but not being religiously strict about it. I am lucky that is was very apparent for me right from the first day that vitamin A was giving me my issues (intracranial pressure being the biggest one at that time) and I only later pieced it together that my vitamin D supplement was straight cod liver oil. But I have seen so many other people struggle like you and I think the responses to those people have been unacceptable at best.
However the symptoms you list don't ring a bell as vitamin A toxicity for me. They sound exactly like the symptoms I got after I have covid the first time. Wondering if they all turned up for you after coming down with covid. Also wondering if alternatively you know if you were exposed to mold before those symptoms developed because I've seen two stories now of unexplained massive weight gain in response to mold exposure.
I ate a lot of meat initially for me up to 450 grams but I couldnt eat enough and it was easier to add eggs for a bit more protein and baking. The low vA plus fibre plus AC in my opinion at the start is the worst option because of the leakiness at the start and the prompting of a strong detox in ill people.
2. A balanced diet with 1-2 eggs a day is the way I would start it and I needed more choline so 3 eggs a day plus meat was what I needed to replenish choline. Younger women might need 1 egg a day. Older women 2-3 a day. Really up to each person to find the right egg level. Choline supplement if eggs not tolerated or you prefer. Eggs provide biotin, selenium and iodine which may be important too and need supplemented too if you dont eat eggs.
You may want to look into glutathione as it could make you reconsider your postulate regarding the mechanism of cancer. GSH/GST can detoxify cells from retinoic acid. I don't think it's a one-way trip as you previously speculated. There's a lot more, it really is instrumental in VA detoxing, but I dislike typing and my keyboard is scuffed, so here's a study: Apoptosis and glutathione: beyond an antioxidant
Hi @andrew-b,
RE: The low vA plus fibre plus AC in my opinion at the start is the worst option because of the leakiness at the start and the prompting of a strong detox in ill people.
Maybe so, but that’s what I did in the early stages, as did the two friends of mine. None of us encountered a major detox setback. And, I was extremely ill too. So, if it's the worst option, it somehow didn't apply to us.
RE: Eggs
I really have a hard time agreeing to eggs. They are definitely an allergen for many people and eggs are at the top of the list of “trigger foods” that cause eczema flare-ups. Factory farmed eggs are usually juiced up with beta-carotene to make them bright yellow-orange. Surely, there’s a better option for getting the choline needed.
@ggenereux2014 The low vA approach has nearly killed people. Triggering a strong detox for ill people. Liver enzymes going up, bilirubin going up, weight gain and some people suicidal by the very nature of the vA. I've been in 3 forums. I've seen possibly hundreds of similar stories. You say you were extremely ill. I do tend to think you made it more difficult with low vA if you presumably triggered a detox. You want to build people up so that the body naturally detoxes from a place of better health.
The eggs have got the most vA out the liver for me. The improved symptoms indicate it. If I knew how to test for it I would. Perhaps biological age might help. Eggs have biotin which works synergistically with the choline at removing vA. There's plenty of people eating eggs. Eggs are part of cooking. If Garrett can allow one tablespoon of butter then logically I see no problem with an egg allowance to keep people happy or with something easy to bake with. Otherwise will it catch on ? An egg is cheaper than supplementing I presume also. There's hundreds of us already proving eating an egg isnt a problem. The rest can supplement if they wish.
Hey @andrew-b,
RE: I do tend to think you made it more difficult with low vA if you presumably triggered a detox.
I was extremely ill before starting my diet, so my state of health had nothing to do with triggering detox.
RE:Eggs:
But, haven't most people coming into this already been regularly eating eggs, including in baked items? So, here they are now sick with autoimmune diseases, etc, in-spite of eating eggs?
But, maybe you're right. It could be that going cold-turkey off all vA intake is too jarring to the liver for many people. Maybe just reducing their vA intake combined with eggs is a safer approach.