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Think Skin? Brad Cohn on X Attacking Low Vitamin A Diets
Brad Cohn has a thread on X where he claims people like Grant and Dr Smith have thin skin and people eating lots of vitamin A, like traditional Ray Peat dieters, do not have thin skin. Then Brad has a lot of other posts also talking about the importance of not being deficient in vitamin A and how low vitamin A has caused problems in the past.
In terms of politics within the Ray Peat community, It is interesting that one of the organizers of the Ray Peat Forum, Charlie, promotes the work of Dr Smith to the extent that Charlie temporarily banned pro-vitamin A posts. Perhaps those on the competing Bioenergetic Forum are more likely to consume high amounts of vitamin A.
Maybe someday this will be sorted out by someone carefully evaluating the evidence from both sides. I haven't seen that yet.
https://x.com/BradCohn/status/1781004176299868192
@jeremy what? It is actually the opposite. Look at people who are using creams with all kinds of forms of vit A on their face. It works to smooth and even the skin by peeling the skin off basically. I had all kinds of acne from like 12yo to 22yo and I was using EVERYTHING prescribed or off the shelf. Most products are based on retinol. I was shedding skin like a snake all the time. It speeds up skin cell turnover. So what you think it does over time when you use it daily for decades. Your skin will be thinner and thinner.. Accutane is the worst because it works systemically. So it is destroying not just skin, but intestine, vascular walls etc. as well.. That's why it has so many side effects. Basically chronic vit A toxicity is really bad for the skin..
I think it is important to consider cases where Low-A doesn't go well for someone. There are certainly plenty of people who have tried it and it did not serve them well.
That said, the poster of the thread Cohn linked was only on the diet for a month or two. And his post is even a little bit confusing in that he talks about his own skin getting thinner, but at the same time he talks about how it was looking better.
From https://bioenergetic.forum/post/15619
Noticed my skin was looking nicer on my whole body especially hands, it was feeling smooth.
Brain fog clearing but replaced with laziness and ADHD like symptoms and still not quite got that mental capacity I used to.
Skin becoming thinner like I am aging rapidly!!!
So I take it all with a grain of salt.
As far as him noticing longtime low-A people's skin being thin and Ray Peaters having thick skin... I'm not that observant/not keen on picking up on some of those specific physical details. There are some longtime low-A people who give off a strange vibe to me that strikes me as slightly "unwell", but there are others who seem to be doing very well. I don't know what most Peaters look like. FWIW I find low-A to have a little more "signal to noise" when it comes to improving health versus the Ray Peat approach, but that's just me. I'm interested in learning about both.
Regardless, as someone who is new to Low Vitamin A ideas, I'm curious to hear if any longer-timers have noticed thin skin (or the opposite).
@joe-2 "I think it is important to consider cases where Low-A doesn't go well for someone. There are certainly plenty of people who have tried it and it did not serve them well."
What is vit A for those people? Eating nothing but grains and meat or simply not eating foods high in vit A? Nobody said eating very restrictive diet long term is good idea. Even Grant said that. But he is doing that diet to show that vit A is not essential and not because it is the best diet for him.. I wouldn't recommend anyone to eat nothing but rice, beans and beef. But I would recommend EVERYONE to stop eating liver, to stop eating a lot of full fat dairy/butter, high beta carotene foods like juicing carrots, doing smoothies with greens etc.. I have very hard time to believe somebody will not benefit from keeping vit A intake at least in RDA range. Which nobody does if that person is trying to "eat healthy". Person like that is ingesting toxic amounts of vit A on daily basis without knowing it.. I was one of them. Everyone will tell you "yeah you don't need to worry about vit A toxicity, just don't at polar bear liver.." and stupid stuff like that. They have zero knowledge about slow toxin buildup aka chronic toxicity no acute poisoning situation.. It applies to mainstream medical system as well. If you drink bottle of methylmercury yeah doctors will find out what happened to you. But if you have mouth full of amalgams, you eat big ocean fish all the time etc. and you end up with cancer or something because of that chronic mercury toxicity they will not looking for it. They will be like oh cancer too bad. There you have chemo, but you will die anyway.. Zero testing for potential toxins or searching for the reason why that person ended up with cancer.. Shitload of people are extremely sick due to chronic vit A toxicity, but nobody cares. Btw low vit A diet didn't served me well first year or so as well. Because the body was dumping vit A into the blood like crazy and I felt like I am on high dose accutane again.. 5 years in and it is completely different story.. So yes if you are trying every couple of months new protocols and diets because you don't feel ideal on it. You will get nowhere with that approach... It took literally decades to poison myself. So I wasn't expecting to feel great 5 months into not eating daily 5 times RDA like an idiot..
"Regardless, as someone who is new to Low Vitamin A ideas, I'm curious to hear if any longer-timers have noticed thin skin (or the opposite)."
To answer your question. You need to realize like Dr.Smith says "it is poison coming in and it is also poison coming out." This is so true for vit A. So I can easily see how people get much worse easily especially first 6-12 months of detoxing. Especially if they are doing it wrong like too fast, without needed supplements so their body runs low in all kinds of things etc..
I'm interested in what the person means by thin skin. One of the negative symptoms people get is myxedema, a sign of low thyroid, and it appears like a rubbery or waxy layer below the facial skin. Getting rid of it is hard and if it goes away you are doing something right. The second photo below shows myxedema before and after thyroid treatment.
Another thing is visceral fat. It can be in the face, even in the earlobes. It's associated with metabolic disease. When you get rid of it, is a good sign. The first photo below is not a low VA doctor, however, I think his photo is a good example of what people will look like when they get rid of visceral fat. Back to more like they looked in their teens. He was NOT fat before getting rid of his visceral fat.
The two before and after photos are quite similar aren't they? I wonder if they are two names for the same thing.
My rosacea areas have often felt lumpy as if something bad is happening underneath and bubbling to the surface. The healed areas now feel soft and thin like skin should feel.
My thighs, where I was getting broken capillaries, actually feel sort of rubbery and tougher instead of delicate and easily bruised and upset.
Quote from Jiří on April 19, 2024, 9:34 amBtw low vit A diet didn't served me well first year or so as well. Because the body was dumping vit A into the blood like crazy and I felt like I am on high dose accutane again.. 5 years in and it is completely different story.. So yes if you are trying every couple of months new protocols and diets because you don't feel ideal on it. You will get nowhere with that approach... It took literally decades to poison myself. So I wasn't expecting to feel great 5 months into not eating daily 5 times RDA like an idiot..
Thank you for all that perspective. What changes have you noticed now that you are 5 years in?
Quote from lil chick on April 19, 2024, 9:52 amAnother thing is visceral fat. It can be in the face, even in the earlobes. It's associated with metabolic disease. When you get rid of it, is a good sign. The doc below is not a low VA doc, however, I think his photo is a good example of what people will look like when they get rid of visceral fat. Back to more like they looked in their teens. He was NOT fat before getting rid of his visceral fat.
Ha! Dr. Sean O'Mara! I like him. Not only on nutrition but also his emphasis on sprinting. Also, I'm glad to hear about your skin improvements on Low A.
@joe-2 "What changes have you noticed now that you are 5 years in?"
I can walk, I can work, I can sunbath, I can do sports. I am far from optimal health and I have much more issues than just vit A. But before I started low vit A diet I couldn't even walk 20 minutes. I was dreaming that I can work and that I can at least somewhat function like a normal human..
There are two kinds of low thyroid diagnoses, just like there are two kinds of diabetes. In one category we have cells which seem to have lost their ability to sense the hormones. In the other category, the hormones are not getting produced in high enough quantity. Let's call one "deaf cells" and the other "deficient hormone".
I wonder if "deaf cells" is caused by VA in the cells, while "deficient hormone" is caused by VA in the glands.
Maybe that is why there is sort of an overlap between diseases of blood sugar and thyroid.
Edited to add: VA isn't the only toxin out there, just a very ubiquitous one already, and one that we are purposefully supplementing
@lil-chick vit A has the same transport as thyroid hormone so there you have it. But there is many things that can mess with thyroid function. Heavy metals even copper etc.. There is also some self regulation of the body for sure. If the body feels like there is not good environment to make and burn a lot of energy the body will lower thyroid function.. That's why it is dangerous to take hormones like thyroid hormones without knowing why you have low thyroid hormones.. I started taking synthetic T4 again after many years of not taking any and I again I felt worse and worse. Unfortunately I can't test reverse T3 here. But I am 100% sure that the body instead of making T3 and speed up metabolism was just making reverse T3.. The guy Gbolduev knowing a lot about biochemistry due to him and his wife having cancer said the thyroid comes last and I believe in it. Once everything in the body is at least in some balance thyroid hormones will go up again. Obviously if you are not deficient in key things like iodine, selenium etc.. But to ignore the cause of low thyroid and just start taking hormones is not fixing the root cause and it will push the body to the red zone and eventually something bad will happen.. Many people are simply under chronic stress and all they need is to be completely relaxed and to do nothing. Zero stress just relax and heal the body.. I think that is the reason why many rich people look good and are healthy even in higher age. Because they don't have to worry about things like money and they can just disappear somewhere on the yacht for couple of months every time they feel like they need it and just relax and heal. "Normal" people can do it maybe once a year for 10 days? After that again into crazy chronic stress state.. There is no pill that will fix life style issues like that..
@jiri and that is my husband in a nutshell. (the poor guy has so much stress) I wonder if it is directly the STRESS or indirectly the nutrients stress depletes. Or perhaps the hormones the stress depletes. I suppose a person can study how Dr O'mara is fixing people and find some clues. His ideas have already helped me, ie: throwing out alcohol. In my opinion, alcohol was competing with other needed detox. Sprint-like exercise also seems to be a magical and necessary component of the overhaul.
Perhaps it is more than just the growth hormone boost, but the breaking down and building back some new cells that aren't "deaf".