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This was a good theory with mediocre results
I'm pretty sure choline is considered "non-essential", like taurine and some other very important nutrients, only because it can be synthesized by the body in smaller amounts from other nutrients. It's not that it's not essential for health, it's that it's often not essential to ingest it directly from food because your body can synthesize it from methionine. But a lot of "non-essential" nutrients like choline and taurine are extremely important for liver function and should probably be considered absolutely essential to ingest in the modern era when we are bathed in toxins on a daily basis. Red meat is a powerhouse not only because of what your body can use directly, but also because it contains tons of building blocks for other useful compounds like choline and taurine...our bodies practically run on sulphur that comes from meat.
@jaj I've suffered from poor word recall throughout my low Vitamin A diet as well, even though other parts of my memory are quite sharp (much sharper than some family members who are not sick). I've wondered if I had a shortage of acetylcholine as well and had actually reviewed that Peirson Center page several times before now. But, at least in my case, I find it highly unlikely based on how much meat I've been consuming for the past few years (and for my entire life). This is not to say that you don't have a deficiency, but I think you can wind up with a lot of those symptoms through other pathways. But there's certainly nothing wrong with getting more dietary choline! Hopefully that does help your symptoms. I looked into choline supplements and was disappointed to find that most or all of the phosphatidylcholine is derived from soy.
@wavygravygadzooks Pure Encapsulations one looks ok.
I think body doesn’t make enough choline. Makes more in young women due to oestrogen effect on PEMT Gene. However, with PEMT SNPs this is damaged and in some populations 50% carry PEMT SNPs. Post menopausal women and men always need from diet. Some interesting studies done on this gene and different populations. Very low incidence off PEMT SNPs if diets choline deficient. I guess babies wouldn’t survive.
Quote from Jiří on October 8, 2022, 2:42 am@kurtis I experienced "detox" first 6 months on low vit A diet for sure. Simply after 10+ years of ingesting huge amounts of vit A I suddenly stopped.. So for the first time in daceda the body could actually start releasing some of the vit A. Not just storring it all the time.. So I started having symptoms like I was ingesting even more vit A or when I was taking accutane.. The body was simply duping loads of vit A from the liver to the blood.. Because like I said for the first time in decade my blood level of vit A was low.. So for me I was 100% vit A toxic and I had detox period. After that intense period it was coming in waves. So for example couple of weeks I was feeling great. Nice very smooth skin without dried flaky spots etc.. and out of nowhere even when I didn't change nothing in my diet etc.. symptoms were back like I am on accutane again.. Very dry eyes, lips, very dry flaky skin, sun sensitivity etc.. This was less and less common. Now after 3 years it almost doesn't happen. So I agree with you that I don't think vit A is a problem for everyone. But for me it was for sure and I am glad that I find out about this vit A chronic toxicity issue from Matt Stone and his blog.. I think I would be dead by now if I still continued with insane things like taking cod liver oil, vit A supplements, eating liver, 5 egg yolks a day, ghee, cheeses etc.. I understand my body much better now. It saved my ass..
That's good to hear @jiri as I've had almost no 'relief' that people speak of in early stages of dropping Vit A intake.
I get brief moments of relief - and then seemingly back into symptoms.
The concepts of 'detox' and 'healing crisis' are not new to me as I've worked in the wellness field - but this Vitamin A is tricky compared to other 'toxin' issues!
In answer to the opening post I just want to add that of course food is not the only reason why people get sick, nor is vA the only poison we ingest when we eat. We all know that. In fact, we are more or less slowly poisoning ourselves from the day we are born, otherwise everybody would live forever. Obviously it has to be this way for physical beings to prevent overpopulation.
There are other major causes, like the steadily increasing electromagnetic radiation, which have a more or less severe impact on the health of many people (myself included) and until these are addressed changes in the diet may improve some symptoms but won't lead to perfect health. Thankfully there are ways to harmonize EM radiation and I'm living proof that some of them work very well.
Other causes are energetic and can't be influenced by purely physical changes. This is probably too esoteric for many here on the forum but such things as deceased people that are attached to one's aura, curses, black magic, blocked emotions, various negative entities and plenty of other things can cause physical as well as emotional and mental problems that will magically disappear once these things have been dealt with.
So it's not just vA, but vA is a major factor that we can remove now that we are aware of its consequences, just like everything else we find that causes trouble.
My thinking has gone this way too. I’m using Klingharts pyramid as a model. Physical, energetic, psychological, intuitive, spiritual.
I’m a research scientist but I also did a degree in psychology and counselling training when the kids were small. Then later nutrition training. I feel I understand the physical and psychological layers to a reasonable level. Bioenergetics is a whole new area for me. Fascinating.
I see vA toxicity as a sabotaging element that once present needs addressing. One way to do this could be improving nervous system balance to allow improved detoxification. However, if people keep piling in the vA in with supplements and food they are inadvertently self sabotaging. A moderately low vA diet would seem to be the best way to go. I don’t personally advocate a very low vA diet.
‘...vA is a major factor that we can remove now that we are aware of its consequences, just like everything else we find that causes trouble.’ Entirely agree. I think knowing about vA toxicity is golden knowledge.
Thought. Do high meat people do the best on the vA detox? Has this ever been looked at? This includes carnivores obviously but others, like Grant, eat a lot of meat. Whereas others, like me, can’t, as I digest it poorly. Is this the deciding factor as to who goes into the detox setback cycle?? I don’t think this was a question on Grants survey? Not quantity anyway. I eat meat, but do I eat enough to get the nutrition (primarily thinking of choline but other too), I need? Probably not.
@ggenereux2014
Quote from Jenny on October 14, 2022, 4:12 amThought. Do high meat people do the best on the vA detox? Has this ever been looked at? This includes carnivores obviously but others, like Grant, eat a lot of meat. Whereas others, like me, can’t, as I digest it poorly. Is this the deciding factor as to who goes into the detox setback cycle?? I don’t think this was a question on Grants survey? Not quantity anyway. I eat meat, but do I eat enough to get the nutrition (primarily thinking of choline but other too), I need? Probably not.
@ggenereux2014
I can only speak for myself but since I've dropped plants altogether I'm feeling great (the occasional brief detox setback notwithstanding), not just physically but also and especially mentally. It's an altogether different clarity of thinking compared to a condition in which the body has to deal with incoming carbs and plant toxins all the time.
Also, no carbs means no addiction to sugar which reduces the inclination to any addiction and leads to a totally balanced demeanor. There is no craving for anything - food, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, other drugs, sex/porn/masturbation, games, buying stuff etc. - and no emotional highs or lows. Not everybody seems to consider this a good thing but for me it's just peaceful, like a calm sea no matter which way the wind blows.
Of course it's a very simple and extremely restricted way of eating, but once the body has adjusted and gone through whatever withdrawal symptoms there are (muscle cramps for example, that many consider to be electrolyte deficiencies), then it's very smooth sailing. I prefer eating butter and ground beef these days, either raw or cooked, though I'm going to add some pork soon since I found a quality source recently.
I fell off the wagon twice in the past decade when I tried to incorporate other things like organ meats, dairy, honey or certain raw plant food and returned bit by bit to a conventional diet but now that I know for a fact that eating only muscle meat will not create imbalances or deficiencies there is no reason to eat anything else, except maybe for the sake of variety. And so if necessary I tell myself: Today I will eat only meat and butter. Maybe tomorrow I will eat something else but not today. So there's no pressure as it's only today, every day 😀
Thanks @carnivore
I’m currently more thinking in terms of what meat HAS, rather than lack of plants. If one is only eating meat then one is getting a lot of the nutrition in meat because that’s all that’s being eaten. Is it some nutrient that is high in meat and therefore is particularly high in a meat only diet (or very meat based diet like Grant’s) that is so helpful?
Basically, what have I done wrong? Choline is what immediately springs to mind, due to Andrew Baird’s extensive research and trial. Also, it would explain my disastrous liver results in Oct 2020. However, this is not the only possible. Meat is high in niacin and taurine. Both nutrients that help vA detox.
Grant highlighted 2 years ago that carnivores don’t have detox setback cycles. Garrett Smith said it was because they weren’t detoxing. Really? I don’t believe that. I think they have enough of the magic ingredient/ingredients so they don’t get the detox setback cycle.
‘I also wondered why people on the now popular carnivore diet are not reporting the detox setback trap many people here reported on their low vitamin A diet. Maybe, it was just not being reported by the carnivore folks. But, I think it is probably just not happening very often. I think it is a beneficial side-effect of eliminating carbs and not consuming other foods that contain aldehydes while on that diet.’
What if it’s simply something people get when they eat lots of meat?