Quote from Guest on January 18, 2019, 7:29 pm

Interesting. Maybe you could feed them some egg white if you want to give them a 0 VA animal protein. I definitely think you should give them B12.

Quote from Guest on January 18, 2019, 10:58 pm

Thanks for the feedback! I wasn't planning on adding animal proteine based on the guidlines in poisoning for progit, but it's not something I'm going to rule out. I do really want these mice to thrive and not just survive..

I do agree with you on the B12 front, I'm just trying to work out how to administer it. Maybe sone adensyl/methyl cobalamin drops in their water once a week? Or perhaps putting some on their food. Not too sure

Quote from Matrixik on January 21, 2019, 3:59 am

Some random thoughts: rodents eat differently than humans so maybe first thing should be checking how much B12 they actually need and how they are getting it in nature. Do they need fat from coconut or any other source (besides from fat in grains)? I never had any rodent as a home animal and have no experience with them so take my points with grain of salt.

Quote from lil chick on October 22, 2019, 4:35 pm

I was thinking about Grant's rodent experiment which came to a such a quick end, and I have been wondering if a germ could have wiped them out?   Maybe VA has no use in normal life but only when things get hard?

I get it if Grant really thinks they died of heat--he's a smart guy.  He might also be trying to cover up the fact that his friend or neighbor really goofed up somehow.  (forgot to water them or somesuch)

I suppose that it is interesting that they died during a time when things changed.  Were new germs inadvertently brought in?  Did the heat make germs grow quickly in their water or food or feces?

I sometimes do worry that vit A might go too low in some people and leave them up the creek-- I think vit A has a purpose.

I think Weston Price might have been blinded to seeing some things because it didn't fit what he wanted to see.  (IMO he wanted to find the 'one size fits all' answer to 'what to eat')  Not saying this is the case here.

Backyard experimenters probably really can't do the kind of experiment that needs to be done, which is to see if an animal very low in vit-A status has lowered immune properties.

I see it sort of like Goldilocks:

too much VA:  over-active immune system

too little VA:  under-active immune system

just the right amount:  health

Quote from lil chick on October 23, 2019, 5:59 am

I've brought my chickens through all sorts of heat waves, and I've grown chickens in my garage.   It is hard for me to imagine a garage in Canada getting hot enough to kill small animals.  I live in New England and my garage isn't that hot and it has no shade.  In fact, keeping my garage closed up in summer makes it cooler.

My friend had a bunch of chickens die at once in a heat wave, and it was because someone wet them down... which actually made them hotter.

I've also read about turkeys that someone had on an experimental diet who all dropped dead at the same time.  It was zinc deficiency.  They all had strokes/aneurisms.  This could also be something that happened. 

I can see how if the feed was low in zinc, and the rodents needed zinc to keep detoxing...

Quote from hillcountry on October 23, 2019, 7:21 am

Quote from lil chick on October 22, 2019, 4:35 pm

I was thinking about Grant's rodent experiment which came to a such a quick end, and I have been wondering if a germ could have wiped them out?   Maybe VA has no use in normal life but only when things get hard?

I get it if Grant really thinks they died of heat--he's a smart guy.  He might also be trying to cover up the fact that his friend or neighbor really goofed up somehow.  (forgot to water them or somesuch)

I suppose that it is interesting that they died during a time when things changed.  Were new germs inadvertently brought in?  Did the heat make germs grow quickly in their water or food or feces?

I sometimes do worry that vit A might go too low in some people and leave them up the creek-- I think vit A has a purpose.

I think Weston Price might have been blinded to seeing some things because it didn't fit what he wanted to see.  (IMO he wanted to find the 'one size fits all' answer to 'what to eat')  Not saying this is the case here.

Backyard experimenters probably really can't do the kind of experiment that needs to be done, which is to see if an animal very low in vit-A status has lowered immune properties.

I see it sort of like Goldilocks:

too much VA:  over-active immune system

too little VA:  under-active immune system

just the right amount:  health

lil chick - I agree on most of those points. Certainly the backyard experimenter part, the Weston Price part and probably the Golidilocks part. I can't fathom all the VA research in the world missing the boat by the extent it would take to invalidate everything they say they're "seeing" (inferring mostly), but by the same token, the litany (dogma) repeated ad nauseum at the beginning of 90% of the VA papers, certainly reinforces the "blinders" worn by researchers and likely impedes recognition of the sub-clinical, chronic over-consumption-leads-to-bad-outcomes, part of the equation. It's a conundrum we're going to live with no matter what happens. I'd love to see just enough awareness happen in my lifetime to have these dolts stop the Retinyl Palmitate "fortification" of foods. I want to see an argument at the highest levels about reducing the RDA-DV. If anyone reading has a link to the Vitamin D council guy arguing for lower VA levels a few years ago I'd appreciate seeing that. 

I'm less undecided on the "need VA" question ever since doing the Molar Mass - Avogadro's calculation on Retinol, where one microgram is shown to have 2.1 Quadrillion molecules of Retinol in it. It may actually be a question of - how little do we need? Avoiding a microgram of VA is just about impossible. I recall a paper stating the average person has over 2,000 times that much floating around in their blood serum, and the liver is capable of maintaining that concentration for months, which we all know is basically true, even if we haven't run across the exact numbers. It would be interesting to have an estimate of how many mitochondria we have and make relational comparisons with different daily intakes of Retinol, and do guestimates of how many Retinol-to-Retinoic Acid conversions happen, and how many potential Retinoic Acid molecules there are for each mitochondria. Nice to imagine being able to do all that, but on the practical side,  just reducing VA as much as possible and giving the body time to attain a new homeostasis is the best evidence. I'm finding that when I do a quick summary during a conversation, there's no need to bring up the question of "need VA" or "don't need VA". The main point is that on the whole, we're consuming way too much of it. If it's impossible to get to zero, it's going to be pretty difficult to prove anyway, and since it's the benefits of reduced consumption we're seeing in ourselves and we're hoping to show other people, there's no need to go there.  A "theological" debate is basically pointless, especially when we have such ample and convincing, not to mention helpful, evidence. 

Got the mice relocated to a hilltop, under a big osage orange tree. Made 'em a insulated box with two entrances. Used 2x4's and styrofoam. Caught #6 this morning, so his timing was really good, he didn't miss the bus to Disneyland. 

Quote from lil chick on October 23, 2019, 11:35 am

LOL @hillcountry (mouse disneyland)  Last year we put an emphasis on mouse traps in the attic.  At least here, once we got the place mouse free for a while... It appears the "trail gets cold" and other mice stop following.    It took some perseverance.  Good luck!

Whenever I've been really sick, I've seen my rosacea go pale.   NOTHING else has done that.    I'm convinced that vit A is called up for infections.  And so I worry about people going zero-VA. 

It could be that what actually kills you in some cases (for instance, the influenza virus of 1917) IS your body throwing all the vitamin A it has at something, all at once.  One of my great grandmother's died in the 1917 epidemic (interestingly enough).  It was said that strong people in the prime of life were the ones that died.

IMO a bad enough infection, for long enough, (for instance, bed sores) could actually run down your stores and you could be defenseless when the next bug comes along.

This could be why many of these (vit A) diseases are thought of as modern...  Because now-a-days we don't fight infection as often as we did in the past.  Hygeiene, Antibiotics, the eradication of  Childhood Diseases etc.

IMO people who are truly without any VA issues should probably stick with the RDA and no more than that. 

Docs (or at least natural practitioners) should be acutely aware of the signs of high VA.. 

This is just my opinion:  People with VA issues should probably only go into detox for the amount of time it takes to halt their downward spiral... And then adopt a lowish diet similar to a trad meat and carb diet of an agriculturalist society.  

When we have run down our stores, I wonder if our tastes will guide us, and if we will start salivating when we see butter or pumpkins.  😉  I think if we are aware this could be the case.

Quote from tim on October 23, 2019, 4:04 pm

@lil-chick

https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/important-symptoms-of-the-flu-virus-are-likely-caused-by-transient-hypervitaminosis-a/

Retinoic acid and stored retinyl esters released into the circulation from damaged liver cells cause acute lung injury (ALI) via apoptosis and necrosis of lung tissue.

That quote is from the paper indicating that VA is released during the flu when the flu attacks liver cells. This paper is a really good read.

Also:

As for more general effects on health, vitamin A is considered an antioxidant vitamin and supplements are widely available as measures to prevent disease. In a Cochrane Review of the effect of antioxidant supplements (including vitamin A) on mortality, based on randomized trials, Bjelakovic et al. [82] reviewed all randomized trials involving adults consuming beta-carotene, vitamins A, C, E, and selenium either singly or combined. They included 68 randomized trials with 232,606 participants. When all trials of antioxidant supplements were pooled together, there was no significant effect on mortality (RR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.98–1.06). However, multivariate regression analyses showed that, in the better designed “low bias” trials, beta-carotene was associated with a significant 7% increased risk, vitamin A with a 16% risk, and vitamin E with a 4% increased risk of mortality, whereas vitamin C and selenium had no significant effect on mortality. The authors concluded that treatment with beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality.

Interesting how they used the word considered. Do they not believe that VA is a vitamin?

Quote from tim on October 23, 2019, 6:10 pm

Vitamin A is affected by changes in temperature as well as light; both light and warm temperatures cause vitamin A to be catabolized. In one study, twin calves were fed 6 mg carotene daily per 100 lb body weight and subjected to high and low ambient temperatures. High temperatures increased liver vitamin A utilization; moreover, identical twin calves exposed to solar radiation for 38 days lost more hepatic vitamin A than their cotwins in the shade [106]. Thus, rising temperatures and greater sunlight in the summer months could catabolize tissue concentrations of vitamin A to such a degree that it would prevent influenza viruses from making use of it to replicate. Conversely, the seasonal increase in influenza during the winter months may occur partly from the fact that vitamin A remains available for the virus to replicate in cooler temperatures.