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Tim's Log
Quote from lil chick on November 10, 2023, 7:56 amHi Arket, Matt Stone just did a video on how he believes VA causes his asthma. My nose has problems like yours. One thing that helps is to apply a little bit of vaseline just inside the nostril. My guess is this has to do with detox of the ears and nose area into the mucus that leaves the body.
I sure hope so. This trouble with breathing is really getting to me, I'm getting depressed.
@arket, have you tried to inhale sea salt water steam? That has helped me when I have has trouble breathing....
I heated a liter or two of water on the stove and added some spoonful of natural sea salt, and some drops of iodine (if you have lugols at home) and then just inhale the steam for a while. It should ease breathing in a couple hours or sooner. I got this idea from a pharmacologist in a German Pharmacy when i lived there during the corona years. My lungs could not tolerate the chronic face mask use that was required at work there. I got trouble breathing. The salt steam took care of it!
RE: Breathing issues and hypervitaminosis A
If you look at the cute pictures of me when I was seven years old, you'll see small nostrils. Ten years later, I started taking Prozac (fluoxetine, an SSRI) after an 'expert' neurologist recommended it because I had trouble paying attention at school after tick-borne encephalitis. It turns out that one of the side effects of SSRIs is that they inhibit the excretion of vitamin A. Within a few years I had become a mouth breather and my nostrils had widened considerably. When I compare them with those of my siblings, mine look much bigger. Vitamin A causes hypoxia, which I think Tim pointed out in a post. It's no surprise to me that vitamin A is probably involved in breathing problems and even asthma.
Maybe it's worth looking into hydrogen gas?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257754/ (wide therapeutic applications)
https://eagle-research.com/ (for devices)
Not being as healthy as you know you can be is very frustrating.
Thanks, but I think that the problem is internal so I don't want to use any external means to deal with it. I just try to hold on, stay strong and hope that it gets better over time when I start getting rid of vA stores.
@arket, do you eat enough animal protein?
I wonder why you have not been able to detox any vitamin A yet. I had yellowish palms too but it disappeared quite fast like in half a year or so...after going low vitamin A. I eat a lot of meat though and no potatoes. I do the beans. Liver detox requires lots of amino acids, all of them in bioavailable form.
Are you eating white flesh potatoes or yellow? I bet this is important in your case as you eat such huge amounts.
Edit. Sorry Tim, I realize this is your log.. should have answered in Arkets log
The main source of mercury in seafood is not from human activity. It's from underwater volcanos. Seafood mercury levels haven't changed that much through history.
Only certain species are high in mercury. It's common for bodybuilders to consume tuna which contains about 350mcg mercury/kg making it a high mercury fish. Consuming tuna frequently can lead to mercury toxicity. Consuming low mercury species like sardines (13mcg/kg) and salmon (14mcg/kg) frequently does not cause mercury toxicity.
Hair analysis can be useful but a lot of the time data from it is interpreted in ways that aren't scientifically sound.
Now let's compare heavy metal intake from low mercury fish to other foods. 100g of sardines contains 1.3mcg mercury.
Dietary Cadmium Intake and Sources in the US
The food groups that contributed most to Cd intake were cereals and bread (34%), leafy vegetables (20%), potatoes (11%), legumes and nuts (7%), and stem/root vegetables (6%). The foods that contributed most to total Cd intake were lettuce (14%), spaghetti (8%), bread (7%), and potatoes (6%).
Cereals and bread supply 1.57mcg cadmium/day/person. Potatoes supply 0.52mcg cadmium/day/person. Fish and shellfish supply 0.04mcg cadmium/day/person.
Sardines, salmon and a lot of other seafood does not stand out as high in heavy metals.
Heavy metals are present in most foods. Our physiology is designed to be able to detoxify the amounts normally present in the diet. Liver dysfunction can lead to a slowing of metal detoxification. Liver function determines if the trace amounts of heavy metals present in most foods bioaccumulate long term.
I want to expand on this post of mine in order to compare data on arsenic intakes from rice consumption to data from this post on dietary cadmium and mercury intakes.
Arsenic in brown rice: do the benefits outweigh the risks?
In response to concerns raised by the public, the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition conducted an assessment based on the existing evidence of health risks from inorganic arsenic in rice and products that contain rice (16). The investigation concluded that the average concentrations of inorganic arsenic are 92 ppb in white rice, 154 ppb in brown rice, 104 ppb in infants’ dry white rice cereal, and 119 ppb in infants’ dry-brown rice cereal. The data demonstrated that inorganic arsenic concentration is 1.5 times higher in brown rice than in white rice.
A generous serving of white rice per person is about 1/3 of a cup or 65g uncooked rice. If white rice contains 92mcg arsenic/kg then 65g uncooked rice contains 6mcg arsenic.
Dietary Cadmium Intake and Sources in the US
Our findings indicated that among the US population ages 2 years and older in 2007 through 2012, the latest period for which Cd data were available in the TDS, the average daily Cd intake was 4.63 μg/day. This estimate is lower than some previous estimates among segments of the US population.
Please educate yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjBuTbA3XlQ
What comes to my detox taking so long, you do realize that there are different levels of vA accumulated in people, no? My vA intake has been extremely high from food and supplements for 20 years. Each year I have eaten more vA than you usually get from one lifetime, so I have more than 20 lifetimes worth of vA in my body. You can't just get rid all of it in just two years.
Previous post continued.
Arsenic speciation in fruit and vegetables grown in the UK
Mean fresh weight arsenic levels in potatoes were found to be 0.35mcg/100g, in apples 0.27mcg/100g, cabbage 0.53mcg/100g, cucumber 1.79mcg/100g, leek 0.66mcg/100g, lettuce 3.08mcg/100g, parsnip 1.04mcg/100g.
It's clear that rice consumption will significantly increase dietary arsenic intake. I've compared cadmium intake levels with arsenic intake levels, now let's look at how difficult arsenic is to detoxify compared with cadmium.
What is the Biologic Fate of Arsenic in the Body?
Introduction
The primary routes of arsenic entry into the body are ingestion and inhalation. Dermal absorption also occurs, but to a lesser extent.
The half-life of inorganic arsenic in humans is about 10 hours [Rossman 2007].
Arsenic undergoes biomethylation in the liver.
Approximately 70% of arsenic is excreted, mainly in urine [Rossman 2007].
Arsenic is excreted in the urine; most of a single, low-level dose is excreted within a few days after ingestion.
Distribution
After absorption through the lungs or GI tract, arsenic is widely distributed by the blood throughout the body. [ATSDR 2007]
Most tissues rapidly clear arsenic, except for skin, hair, and nails [Lansdown 1995].
Two to four weeks after exposure ceases, most of the arsenic remaining in the body is found in keratin-rich tissues such as
hair,
nails,
skin, and
to a lesser extent, in bones and teeth [Yip and Dart 2001].
What Is the Biological Fate of Cadmium in the Body?
Excretion of Cadmium
Absorbed cadmium is eliminated from the body primarily in urine. The rate of excretion is low, probably because cadmium remains tightly bound to metallothionein, MTN, which is almost completely reabsorbed in the renal tubules.
Because excretion is slow, cadmium accumulation in the body can be significant. Cadmium concentration in blood reflects recent exposure; urinary cadmium concentration more closely reflects total body burden. However, when renal damage from cadmium exposure occurs, the excretion rate increases sharply, and urinary cadmium levels no longer reflect body burden.
Accumulation of Cadmium
The total cadmium body burden at birth is non-detectable (CDC 2005). It gradually increases with age to about 9.5 mg to 50 mg (ATSDR 1999). The kidneys and liver together contain about 50% of the body’s accumulation of cadmium (HSDB 2006).
Cadmium Half-Life
The biologic half-life of cadmium in the kidney is estimated to be between 6 to 38 years; the half life of cadmium in the liver is between 4 and 19 years (ATSDR 1999). These long half-lives reflect the fact that humans do not have effective pathways for cadmium elimination. Cadmium has no known biologic function in humans. Bioaccumulation appears to be a by-product of increasing industrialization. Any excessive accumulation in the body should be regarded as potentially toxic.
My initial impression is that a cadmium intake of 4-5mcg/day is far more concerning than an arsenic intake 2 or 3 times higher.
I won't be avoiding white or brown rice but I won't be consuming large amounts of it either. Reducing rice intake won't really do much to reduce total daily heavy metal exposure though.
It appears that the only natural way to increase cadmium detoxification may be through sweating. Other than that EDTA can be used to chelate it.
Cadmium Toxicity and Treatment
5. Reduction of Body Burden
There is no agreement in the literature regarding treatment of Cd toxicity. Human studies are few and anecdotal. While clinical protocols exist for the use of EDTA, DMPS, and DMSA [101–104], they rely for the most part on clinical experience and on in vitro and animal studies [105, 106]. EDTA is the agent most widely accepted for clinical use. While it may seem axiomatic that reduction of body Cd burden would decrease its toxic effects, not all authorities agree that active measures beyond avoidance are indicated, at least for acute poisoning, where concern exists that chelation may aggravate damage to the kidney tubules [107, 108]. For chronic exposures, however, there is considerable evidence of chelation's clinical efficacy, in humans and in experimental animals. Several chelators have been used. Clinically available chelators include EDTA, DMPS, DMSA, and British Anti-Lewisite (BAL). BAL is more toxic than its derivatives, DMPS and DMSA, and is seldom used clinically. Several experimental chelators, including DTPA [109] (available from the National Strategic Reserve for radiation poisoning), NaB [110], and others [111, 112], are also being investigated but are not clinically available at present.
It is clear that EDTA [113, 114], DMPS [115], and DMSA [116] increase urinary excretion of Cd, but DMSA seems to have little impact on overall body burden of Cd [117, 118]. Studies in vitro [119] and in vivo [120] suggest that EDTA is superior to DMSA in mobilizing intracellular Cd. In clinical use, EDTA is credited with an anecdotal report of relief of rheumatoid arthritis [121], as well as reduction of oxidative stress [122], and reduction of general metal toxicity [123, 124]. The efficacy of EDTA is apparently improved with concomitant use of glutathione [125] which also protects against nephrotoxicity; efficacy may also be improved with concomitant use of antioxidants [126] including mannitol [127], as well as thiamine [128], methionine [129], or zinc [130]. DMPS has not been studied as extensively as EDTA and DMSA but appears effective in rats [131], is available over the counter in Germany, and may be compounded legally in the United States.
EDTA is approved by the FDA for lead and other heavy metals, and has a long history of safe use. It should not be given faster than one gram per hour nor in dosage greater than three grams per session. Sessions should be at least five days apart, and replacement of essential minerals should be done orally between sessions. Several effective protocols exist implementing these principles [101–104].
Cd is also significantly present in sweat during sauna, which appears to be a moderately successful modality for reducing body burden of Cd without risk of tubular damage [132], albeit at a rate slower than that of intravenous chelation with EDTA.
