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Tim's Log
Quote from tim on December 22, 2019, 6:20 am... It just keeps getting more and more mild. My face, especially my nose produces excessive sebum. Low VA hasn't helped this... yet. Vitamin D often helps people with sebum issues so I've recently started taking that every day.
@tim-2 sebum on the face is a lasting issues I have as well, it is reducing, but seems like it will take years at this point. VitD never helped in the past or lots of sunbathing either (but that was on high VA intake). How much are you dosing, daily, topical/oral?
Seb derm is related to excess sebum? so this does show that the face should eventually fully heal as well. Knowing that we have read the skin seems to heal the slowest, it is a patience game!
I do know when I use some extra B5 in will greatly reduce the sebum, as this boost fat metabolism, but I think I used it to heavily in the past and un-balanced other Bs. So seems as the VA excretes, this fat metabolism is increased, or the citric acid cycle improves function.
The sebum output hasn't changed. I'm glad to hear yours is reducing.
I took 350,000 IU over about a week and now I'm taking about 4000 IU per day.
My theory on seb derm is that retinoic acid causes skin cells to die which the oil loving seb derm yeast feeds on. The existingtheory makes no sense because seb derm is patchy, there are areas free of it that are just as oily. Also the exact same area on my chest where the seb derm existed has a lot of grey hair... based on what Grant thinks about gray hair and RA I think that strengthens the case.
Seb derm always perplexed me, nothing I did helped. Low VA cured it. Hopefully it is the answer to the oil too.
In two days I will have been doing this diet for a year. In this time I've invested quite a bit of time into health related research around VA and nutrition and I've significantly furthered my understanding in this area.
This is how I currently eat:
Breakfast:
Granola which contains a range of grains, nuts and dried fruit
Almond milk
Banana
Lunch:
Leek
Cabbage
Potato
Mushroom
Battered fish
1 Egg
Olive oil
Dried herbs and cumin
Dinner:
Chicken tenders or sausage rolls
Baked beans (most of the tomato sauce drained out)
I also take 3000 IU Vitamin D, K2, Lecithin and Berocca.
Other foods/drinks are: Macadamia bars, peanuts, iced tea, beer, ice blocks, gelatin containing confectionery (snakes)
I am currently waiting on the results of my first serum retinol test. I do however have some interesting results back for other tests. Three years ago my cholesterol was high (6.3) when tested and now it is in the normal range (5.0). Three years ago my ALT was high (49) and now it is normal (23). The only thing (aside from iron results below) that came back as outside the normal range was the Chol/HDL ratio (4.8), range is 0 - 4.5.
My iron levels are lower than I expected. I did donate blood in the last couple of months but that doesn't really account for it. My serum ferritin is 37 and I have elevated Transferrin (indicating possible borderline low iron stores) and elevated TIBC. I'm happy about low ferritin but I may want to hold off on the next blood donation for a while. I'm wondering if the low VA diet combined with high levels of other nutrients is having an iron regulating effect. I do have more phytic acid in my diet but I doubt that is lowering iron to this extent.
I started taking Vitamin D in the last couple of months. The first week I took 350,000 IU. Since then I've been taking 8,000 IU per day and recently scaled back to 4000 IU per day. From here I will take 3000 IU per day. My Vitamin D is 139 nmol/L, it's within the optimal range.
Which brand granola do you get ?
@tim-2 Watch out for Berocca it contains Beta Carotene as a color. http://labeling.bayercare.com/omr/online/Berocca-Orange.pdf
Australia include the reference in their labeling (assuming it is the same recipe).
Homemade almond milk? All the almond milks in Canada are fortified with VA palmitate.
Berocca Performance in Australia does not contain beta carotene unless it is an unlabelled colour. You cant buy plain Berocca here. If something contains carotenoids as a natural colour I often don't worry about it anymore unless it contains a lot such as some really orange chicken stuffing containing lots of paprika oleoresin that I encountered. I believe it's really counterproductive to worry about a small amount of VA, especially in carotenoid form. We've even discussed science here indicating that when you go really low the liver shuts down the elimination of VA and goes into conservation mode.
No almond milk here contains VA to my knowledge. I buy a raw activated one that definitely doesn't contain it.
I just picked up my serum retinol results.... after a year of low VA.... *drumroll*....
1.8 umol/L which is 50.4 ug/dL
#lowvaforlife
thats still in the upper range ?
"Normal values range from 15 to 60 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) or 0.52 to 2.09 micromoles per liter (micromol/L). Normal value ranges may vary slightly among different laboratories. Some labs use different measurements or test different samples. Talk to your doctor about the meaning of your specific test results".
if so, this may mean that the benefits start to come later on once that level drops into the lower ranges. Time will tell. I expect to see more progress by the 2 year mark.