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Treating endometriosis, menorrhagia, hormonal imbalance in women with VA
This story I have found two years ago (I don't have menorrhagia, it was only interessant), they treat menorrhagia very succesfully with VA. Maybe the women with menorrhagia and some specific conditions as thyroid problems, anemia, hormonal problems have really VA deficiency???
" I subsequently took vitamin A in very high doses (100,000 IU per day) for about two months. This produced a dramatic improvement in my general health and alleviated a number of long standing symptoms.
I was puzzled by this as I had been taking a number of multiple vitamin preparations, eating lots of vegetables and drinking carrot juice. I had seen more than six nutritional professionals. Yet none of them had picked up on the fact that I needed vitamin A! I researched the vitamin and was able to uncover the underlying problem. Suddenly the mystery of my illness became transparent!
What I found out was that there are two forms of vitamin A. One of these, beta carotene, found in vegetables, is not true vitamin A but a precursor which must be converted by an enzyme in the presence of thyroxine, the thyroid hormone, if it is to be utilized as vitamin A by the body. What is even more rarely mentioned is that certain medical conditions such as diabetes and low thyroid in particular, may block conversion altogether.
The deficiency of vitamin A is extremely hard on the thyroid and the pituitary - organs central to women's health. Low thyroid is extremely common in women with gynecological problems, especially dysfunctional uterine bleeding, and is a leading cause of hysterectomies. The thyroid condition is often overlooked, as frequently it does not show up on standard blood tests which are notoriously unreliable. (My tests results were normal, but my symptoms showed a classical profile for low thyroid.) I came to realize that, as a vegetarian (without dairy and eggs), I had depleted my bodies vitamin A levels by not understanding this problem. I also noted that certain foods frequently used by vegetarians fall into a category called goitrogens (from goiter) which tend to suppress thyroid activity further.
I have read this idea many times, and actually it was one of the reasons I started hitting vitamin A hard. Animal-based VA didn't solve MY menstrual problems.
Stories like this are common in the annals of the WAPF. As is the idea that many people don't convert carotenes to VA.
Perhaps this highlights that everyone is different.
Perhaps some people really ARE vitamin A deficient?
I don't think I was--and the extra VA only made things worse and worse and worse.
I've been talking offline with another female here, and we are quite sure that the VA flows during both ovulation and menstruation. I am certain that vitamin A IS intricately tied to...and flows ...during the cycle. My guess is the cycle works on INFLAMMATION. The ovule comes out of a cyst that bursts. Perhaps an inflammatory process also takes place to start the shedding of the uterus as well. Strange how little we know about these processes! :')
I further came to realize that taking iron for anemia, without vitamin A, could trigger hemorrhaging. This is because iron and vitamin A work synergistically in building blood. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6726453) Therefore taking iron alone lowers vitamin A levels. (This is exactly the sequence that triggered my hemorrhage.) What is necessary, when this happens, is to take preformed vitamin A in very high doses - just the opposite of what I had been taught. High does are indicated and therapeutic in these circumstances because the bodies stores of the vitamin have become depleted, requiring large doses to return the body to a state of health."
Some questions I have:
- Did this individual have her liver tested to determine that her liver stores of Vitamin A were actually gone? (She was taking more vitamin A and carotenoids than normal through supplements and vegetarian sources, so it would make more sense for her to actually have a lot of stored vitamin A and carotenoids in her body.)
- If toxicity of vitamin A depletes thyroid hormone (which it may do through TTR, transthyretin), could it be that this is what already happened to this individual?
- The link does say that iron lowers liver storage of vitamin A, however if her liver was full of vitamin A in the first place what would happen upon the sudden introduction of iron?
- What happens to the carotenoids after the body is no longer able to convert them into retinaldehyde and whatever else? I searched PubMed, but it was hard to figure out because nothing is framed in terms of “detox pathways.” 😝 But I did see some evidence that the body will store carotenoids.
- Is the body able to remove stored carotenoids without converting them into retinaldehyde first?
- Does this story necessarily mean that the iron was problematic because of a lack of Vitamin A? Could it have been equally likely that it was due to a Vitamin A toxicity? https://nutritionrestored.com/blog-forum/topic/iron-overload-and-or-deficiency-are-two-states-that-are-likely-aggravated-by-poison-vitamin-a/
- Dr. Smith used to use Vitamin A supplements in his patients. I wonder if he saw improvements in them as well?
I have a history of low-iron (I had to get iron injections at one point), as well as heavy menstrual bleeding. All signs point to my being Vitamin A toxic at that point, even so I continued to take in lots of Vitamin A (from both food and from supplements), which made the problem worse.
Today I read on FB "iheal.me" by "Anika" that two women had hormonal problems on low VA diet, maybe just a coincidence.
"My menstrual cycle got so messed up that I ended up thinking menopause had started. Reintroduced goats milk and eggs and all is well again. "
"I was also not regular anymore. Now it is all getting in balance again."
But I didn't know, the effect of thyroid on the conversion of carotene into vitamin a or in some other diseases:
"Hyper-β-carotenemia has been observed in various diseases, i.e., liver disease, diabetes mellitus, nephrotic syndrome, anorexia nervosa (protein deficiency), and hypothyroidism."
http://www.jbc.org/content/171/2/513.full.pdf
https://plaza.umin.ac.jp/~e-jabs/6/6.1.pdf
The woman in that article wrote that she only ate carotene sources and took only supplements with carotenoids (Most multiple vitamin supplements currently on the market substitute beta carotene, unit for unit, for vitamin A and many do not label clearly that the switch has been made. (I had taken such supplements)!) and had thyroid problems, she was toxic with carotenoids and at the same time vitamin A deficient.
And some people can have carotenoids toxicity and VA deficiency at the same time, it is a genetic problem, hereditary disease:
https://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/OC_Exp.php?lng=EN&Expert=199285
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gtr/conditions/C2676023/
Maybe this happens to some extent to people who have a conversion problem???
But the woman felt good and her health problems have improved.. with the dose 100 000 IU VA per day about two months - if I ate that amount of vitamin A with my toxicity, I would probably die. Befor low VA diet I was sick for two days only from the tomato soup.
And I forgot to add that I also have cycle problems now because copper is closely related to the estrogen metabolism levels in women (and zinc to the testosterone in men), but for me the cause is copper. And with low copper the thyroid doesn't work optimally.
"Vitamin A is a co-factor of 3,B-dehydrogenase in steroidogenesis and deficiencies of this vitamin may result in impaired enzyme activiiy. The level of endogenous 17j3-oestradiol appears to be elevated with vitamin A therapy." - those women said they have eaten goat's milk and eggs and the problems have disappeared.
"Copper, along with other minerals like zinc, helps maintain optimal thyroid gland function. Studies have shown that the T3 and T4 levels of thyroid hormones are closely linked to copper levels. When blood copper levels are low, these thyroid hormone levels fall. As a result, the thyroid gland may not work as effectively. Given that the thyroid gland helps regulate your metabolism and heat production, low thyroid hormone levels could make you feel colder more easily."
The women with copper toxicity have often estrogen dominancy problems (this was my problem in the past).
"Copper-toxic women are often estrogen dominant. They may benefit from progesterone therapy to help balance their hormones. "
"Thus the relationship between copper and estrogen cannot be overlooked. It has also been reported that women have an increased susceptibility to viral infections prior to menstruation (at which time estrogen and copper levels are high) and an increased tendency toward bacterial infections directly following menstruation (at which time estrogen and copper levels fall). Generally speaking, we find that copper deficiency causes a disturbance in cellular immunity, while copper excess causes a disturbance in humoral immunity. " https://www.traceelements.com/Docs/The%20Nutritional%20Relationships%20of%20Copper.pdf
Quote from bludicka on October 25, 2019, 9:50 amAnd some people can have carotenoids toxicity and VA deficiency at the same time, it is a genetic problem, hereditary disease:
https://www.orpha.net/consor/cgi-bin/OC_Exp.php?lng=EN&Expert=199285
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gtr/conditions/C2676023/
Maybe this happens to some extent to people who have a conversion problem???
Super interesting, @bludicka ! Especially about the genetic aspect of it. I wonder how people with that disease (or conversion problem) detox carotenes? Or if that’s part of the system that is impaired?
Hypercarotenemia is possibly more to do with lack of elimination of carotenoids more than lack of conversion?
Quote from tim on October 28, 2019, 3:59 pmHypercarotenemia is possibly more to do with lack of elimination of carotenoids more than lack of conversion?
Or some combo of both? 🙂 It's irksome to read everywhere how being dyed orange from carrots is not harmful.
Just now reminded about the fact that I spent a few years experimenting with henna dyes...spent many hours with henna dyes on my skin...
I've also run into some hormonal issues, today is exactly 6 months for me on a very low diet and I have stopped menstruating for 3-4 months... it's a bit worrisome, temps are also lower too after having gone up in the first 2 months of the diet. I feel like each time I dump some A which seems to be happening less and less my body needs to rebalance itself... I'm not really sure what to do at this point, I don't feel ready to reintroduce eggs yolks or goat dairy, but I would like my hormones to be more balanced than they are now !
I have an inkling that VA toxicity somehow kept me cycling later in life than was intended. @audrey, are you anywhere near the age that other females in your family stopped cycling?
The only thing that ever got in the way of my cycling was loosing weight to the point of being too thin to mense. (like 95 pounds) when I went ultra-low carb.
It appears you might be into charting (you are taking basal temps?), (such as the method https://www.tcoyf.com/)... You can gain a lot of insight that way! I tell this to everyone... One of the things that charters sometimes talk about is moonlighting to restart the cycle when it has stopped. It really does work! (IMO)... light has effects on us...
A little daily kelp helps bring the chart into line as well.