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Tim's Log
ah yes i see it. is this one of the issues preventing you in believing vitamin A is not a vitamin (if i remember correctly)?
i wonder in these patients with night blindness leading to full blindness that they actually have a scotopsin ligand deficiency (maybe fatty acid deficiency? i don’t know) on top of a “vitamin A deficiency.” rxr/rar have so many other ligands other than retinoids, most of them which are fatty acids. In hypervitaminosis A maybe it doesn’t progress to full blindness (but very crippled state) because there is always retinal around to activate those receptors. i think it’s more of a lack of receptor activation (no vitamin A AND no ligand to activate scotopsin) vs over activation of receptors which leads to destruction.
i’ll need to dig around some more, but i wonder if scotopsin can be activated by fatty acids, not just 11-cis-retinal. the assumption that the natural ligand of rxr/rar has to the be tightest binding ligand and physiologically possible is wrong.
just my guess for now.
Hi @tim-2,
Here's a paper documenting the effects of isotretinoin on meibomian glands.
Title
Effects of isotretinoin on meibomian glands
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/41k4v4h1
Journal
Optometry and Vision Science, 92(9)
My understanding of the term xerophthalmia is that it encompasses a spectrum of dry eye disorders, from mild to culminating with the lesions of the cornea and ultimately in blindness (and almost always leading to bacterial infections once the tissue is damaged). The xerophthalmia spectrum definition is documented in Sommer's book.
But, in the developed countries it is more usually termed MGD and "dry eye disease", whereas in other regions of the world it is termed Xerophthalmia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5984976/
Several lines of investigation, including solid-state NMR, FRET, and MD simulations, have shown that there is a strong preference for DHA, as compared to other lipid species, to accumulate at the lipid-protein interface of rhodopsin (63, 64, 69, 79, 107, 108). Based on this work, it was previously suggested that the ability of DHA to more deeply penetrate the receptor’s core may also have functionally relevant implications in rhodopsin activation (63, 94). Our results suggest that DHA may behave as a weak ligand with multiple low-affinity binding sites (Figs. 3 and and4).4). This view is consistent with saturation-transfer NMR experiments, where the effect of titrating DHA in rhodopsin-containing reconstituted membranes was fit to a ligand-binding model with ∼16 binding sites (69).
if i'm reading it correctly, it seems like DHA can act as a weak ligand to rhodopsin (scotopsin + retinal). but it doesn't really say anything about scotopsin in the absence of retinal.
i think my guess will have to remain a guess for now. need a study of scotopsin without retinal involvement.
slightly off topic, but interesting article i bumped into: https://www.jlr.org/content/early/2020/05/05/jlr.TR120000742.abstract
check out the pdf on page 23 of 28. there's a nice chart of how all-trans-retinal gets recycled back to 11-cis-retinal. but this paper also focuses on not-so-good non-specific aldehyde actions of retinal and the random creation of bisretinoids which are "toxic."
Quote from tim on May 29, 2020, 6:40 pmMost people say to cut mine shorter
My mother cried when I gave my son a buzz cut, it did not help him. Might be fun to experiment! You don't have to go the whole Keanu Reeves, but I think he is a good example of a dude who is better with hair even when the forehead is growing.
Not all my high-vA suspects have the widows peak or thinning. Some are distincly low-brow!
Oh, and there is always the old-wive's tale that hair likes to grow out. Have a great day, Tim!
Do you have indisputable evidence for non-retinoids being able to replace all the functions of Vitamin A? Filling in for something else is at worst bad at best unsatisfactory. DPA can replace DHA to an extent but not completely, cadmium can replace zinc in some functions with poor results.
I don't get the concern which is common here about VA's essentiality (when decades of science and evidence show that it is) when none of us got problems from Vitamin A per se, we got problems from too much of it. Grant is trying to prove it doesn't exist, that doesn't mean that an extremely restrictive diet like he is following is optimal for people trying to heal from VA toxicity.
I pointed out to pano200 that the study they posted discussed how Accutane can suppress retinal in the eye. Therefore it can cause the first stage of Xeropthalmia due to a deficiency of retinal. ATRA and 13-cis-RA are well known enzyme inhibitors so it isn't exactly surprising. Xeropthalmia is specifically caused by retinal deficiency. Hypervitaminosis A never leads to the end stages of Xeropthalmia.
I agree with your understanding of the term Xeropthalmia and I think this is in line with the WHO definition. Xeropthalmia is not known in developed countries as MGD or dry eyes though, it is a global term for the sequelae arising from VAD. The specific sequence of degenerative changes occuring in Xeropthalmia has no other cause but dry eyes can have other causes.
I don't have enough hair in the middle bit to pull if off well unfortunately. Maybe one day low VA will help me get back to that stage at least!
It isn't socially acceptable to be hanging onto wisps these days and I think that of the women that will start dating a balding man they are more likely to be ones that prefer men with very short hair anyway, balding men working in customer interfacing jobs are less likely to create a bad impression if they are shaved. Everybody looks bad balding no matter what hair length but men that have strange shaped heads as well, they are really unlucky...
I would do well to get a bit of a tan going (maybe your son as well?), looks much better than fair skin with a shaved head, and low VA really helps with skin health and resilience against the sun, that's my experience anyway.
A lot (most?) of Hollywood actors use hair systems or have the world's best hair transplant surgery. Most people think it's only publicly bald actors like The Rock and Bruce Willis that are the bald hollywood actors! Reeves probably got that middle bit filled in a bit. Personally I think he would look better in that photo with it shaved. If low VA works for hair loss I should pack up my bags and move to LA and start a natural hairloss clinic because movie stars are way more open to fringe natural therapies than most LOL
Many men are not genetically sensitive to excess scalp DHT and other causes.
@are
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/132/7/1805/4687342
I recommend reading the whole article, it has lots of good info.
A more modern experiment showing what happens to rat fetus eyes if rat fetuses are deprived of Vitamin A:
Hi @tim-2,
I think it is incredibly important to prove that vitamin A is not a vitamin - at all. And, yes, that’s the primary reason I continue to follow my very restrictive diet. My goal is to get a 0.0 serum level test this August. But, I agree that my diet is probably not the optimal diet for regaining one’s health, and other people don’t need to be so restrictive; unless they want to make this an n > 1. Also, I continue to do really well on my restrictive diet, so I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing too much.
One of the reasons I choose bison over beef, is that it is very low in fat, and therefore even lower in vitamin A than the trace amounts found in beef. Also, in an effort to eliminate even more vitamin A, I’m changing from making blood donations to much more frequent plasma donations.
What significance would you put on a university lab conducted repeat of the 1925 Wolbach and Howe study that I documented in my eBook? It is the study that “proved” vitamin A being so essential. If a modern-day repeat of the study (including taking the animals through a reproductive cycle) gets the opposite results of Wolbach and Howe, would that then change your view?
Thanks
Grant
Quote from tim on June 1, 2020, 4:02 amDo you have indisputable evidence for non-retinoids being able to replace all the functions of Vitamin A? Filling in for something else is at worst bad at best unsatisfactory. DPA can replace DHA to an extent but not completely, cadmium can replace zinc in some functions with poor results.
It's not that fatty acids are "filling in" for vitamin A, but it's more that fatty acids are the possibly the true natural ligand for the vitamin A related receptors in the body. From what I've gathered so far, vitamin A overstimulates a lot of receptors in the body and current science thinks that the tightest binding agonist ligand (lowest kd) that is the is found readily in the body is the natural ligand. if there are other ligands that better regulate these receptors (such as fatty acids like DHA) and not overstimulate these vitamin A related receptors, this would be better for our body right?
there is a compound out there that is an inverse agonist to a lot of vitamin A related receptors and it slows down the activity of those receptors. Many sick people are getting great results from this compound.
for those 2 articles you posted, i’ll reread that first article when i have some time
Quote from tim on June 1, 2020, 4:02 am
I don't have enough hair in the middle bit to pull if off well unfortunately. Maybe one day low VA will help me get back to that stage at least!
It isn't socially acceptable to be hanging onto wisps these days and I think that of the women that will start dating a balding man they are more likely to be ones that prefer men with very short hair anyway, balding men working in customer interfacing jobs are less likely to create a bad impression if they are shaved. Everybody looks bad balding no matter what hair length but men that have strange shaped heads as well, they are really unlucky...
I would do well to get a bit of a tan going (maybe your son as well?), looks much better than fair skin with a shaved head, and low VA really helps with skin health and resilience against the sun, that's my experience anyway.
A lot (most?) of Hollywood actors use hair systems or have the world's best hair transplant surgery. Most people think it's only publicly bald actors like The Rock and Bruce Willis that are the bald hollywood actors! Reeves probably got that middle bit filled in a bit. Personally I think he would look better in that photo with it shaved. If low VA works for hair loss I should pack up my bags and move to LA and start a natural hairloss clinic because movie stars are way more open to fringe natural therapies than most LOL
Many men are not genetically sensitive to excess scalp DHT and other causes.
I'm sure I should just drop this line of talk, I hope this isn't getting too off-topic, LOL. I spent a good 15 years on WAPF ways of eating! One of the children in my milk group had some balding, a girl of about 12. She also experienced debilitating headaches.
I'm not sure if the thin areas of mine above the temples are actually growing in more hairs. BUT, like I said when I compared my one year photo with a photo early on in lowered-VA my hair TEXTURE has changed. Each strand seems to be stronger, and there seems to be less friz. Friz, wispyness, thinning, coarsness.... They all show that the strands have telemeres are not happy. I almost feel like some of my new texture looks wig-like, where every strand is like every other. Amazing. (edited to add: I put a photo on my log)
Regarding tanning, I have a friend of my age (mid 50's) whose hair has always amazed me at it's smoothness, where mine has always been coarse. She spends every avaliable summer moment at the beach or in the sun. I think you may know that I now have a notion that we may make Vitamin D in our (oils of) our hair? Like cats and chickens do.
Now for the Off Topic stuff....Regarding social acceptable, couldn't care less! 🙂 My own fashion needs are quite different than most women (size of a 12 year old, hair of a 70 year old, red face). I've had to throw out all boiler-plate fashion advice. My son has a u-tube video and women have told me he is adorable. That is his style type. Could be yours too! 😉
Great money-making idea, your hair clinic! DO IT hee hee
If your only problem is hair loss then I want to trade places with you. I can even give you all my earthly possessions if you trade places with me. Wow, how awesome would it be to have some small shallow problem, I wish I could experience that.