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Vitamin A Rodent Experiment Continued
@Tim - "considered" indeed!! Nice catch there. Maybe it's the "antioxidant" part they're outing.
I was just reading this one when I took a break to see if there were any new posts over here.
Exposure to retinoic acid (RA) during pregnancy increases the risk of serious neural tube defects (NTDs) in the developing fetus. The precise molecular mechanism for this process is unclear; however, RA is associated with oxidative stress mediated by reactive oxygen species.
Maybe there's so much evidence that VA or RA (or whatever they want to call it) causes (i.e. - "associated with") oxidative stress that some researchers tend to rebel a little bit when they're tasked with trying to show its angelic nature as an anti-oxidant. Vague words like "considered" inserted here and there, that allow some plausible deniability? Or, maybe they're displaying a kind of disdain; like some medieval scribe dropping-a-stitch and leaving a clue embedded in some mind-numbing and meaningless/bogus manuscript.
I'm rummaging around the connections between Nrf2 - Retinoic Acid - and Ozone therapy. It's getting pretty interesting and keeps intersecting the oxidative stress part of it all. I wish I had a better handle on redox chemistry. It looks like the beneficial effects of Ozone in low-dose applications is due to it boosting Nrf2, which in turn is doing all kinds of things to counter the inflammatory response that Retinoic Acid causes.
Quote from tim on October 23, 2019, 6:10 pmVitamin 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.
Whoa, where'd you find that one?
Whoa, where'd you find that one?
It is a quote from the study I posted here:
It's really worth reading the study. The researchers behind it seem to understand that VA is a toxin when it's present in anything more than small amounts. I think the study is also showing us that sunlight is the best antidote to VA.
I like your thinking on the psychology of the researchers. To be fair, gov institutions do warn about excess retinol in the diet. I haven't delved into the beta carotene self regulation science but since it is believed that carotenoids do not present a risk of hypervitaminosis the gov is doing it's job albeit in a lax way. As far as I'm aware though the science doesn't indicate that beta carotene is beneficial so eating the rainbow advice is questionable. The fact that I can go and buy retinol supplements and CLO at my chemist without prescription is very bad. The main practitioners prescribing retinol are not doctors though but alternative practitioners like naturopaths.
At the end of the day, if I had followed a gov prescribed diet I probably wouldn't have VA issues. The gov isn't telling us to drink carrot juice, eat pounds of sweet potato, eat liver, eat high fat dairy, take CLO. That is all coming from self appointed internet health authorities.
So here's what I wonder (and maybe I missed some info on this, so forgive me if so): if rodents were dying in the original 1920's studies due to the small amounts of RA in the pressure-cooked lard in their feed...and if the amount of RA in lard is truly as small as it seems to be...then does this indicate that rodents will somehow avoid A- and Carotenoid-rich foods by instinct, if given a choice? I know for a fact that the desert rats near where we live just LOVE avocados - and these have some carotenoids. Do rats avoid eating liver or cheese or carrots or egg yolks?
I'm just wondering here - but also trying to figure out why such a teeny amount of RA in those original studies would have caused such damage in such a short time.
Neither explanation of the deaths of the rodents in those experiments, (neither the original or Grant's) feel like the right answer to me on. I could 100% be wrong, it's just my intuition/opinion. Neither seems satisfying.
I guess what enters my mind is that not everything is about vitamin A. There are lots of other factors AND vitamin A.
Just like when we take people and put them on a gluten free diet. There are multiple changes going on there, and not all of them are about gluten. Maybe now you are eating eggs for breakfast and more veggies and getting more VA and more protein. Your blood sugar changes. You are shopping at a different store. You're also not getting that peanut butter you were putting on the toast reducing your aflatoxins.
I suppose that they might have even died from trying to detox VA without zinc and C or whatever!
I used to watch "Survivor" when it was a new show. Do you remember they would often go for long periods only eating rice? And some people would get very, very sick?
I'm now remembering back to times when holistic healers would tell me I was toxic. I remember wondering WHY. I tried fasting once and got sick. Passed out, felt like I got hit by a truck after... started eating again...
What if all the bad diseases they blame on A deficiency are actually A detox? Maybe the same with Grant's experiment... Maybe the diet in both experiments led to some sort of toxic condition or deficiency that caused death. For instance the zinc/copper balance got so weird that an aneurysm formed and the animal died.
Maybe the RBP couldn't form because of poor quality protein. My toxic cat begs for meat all day long, can't get enough.
I get what you're saying, Lil Chick. The challenge for me is that since I've been doing these dietary experiments for so long, and over so many different sorts of diets, is that each time, whatever dietary "hammer" I'm holding feels like This Is The Diet to End All Diets, and I get so that I can't even REMEMBER that there are "other factors" out there when I go to bang my hammer into a nail... ("What is it, arthritis? Low libido? Breastfeeding issues? Needing a dental implant?! It's ALL because of too many lectins!" etc. etc. etc.)
In other words, I have a hard time seeing my own blind spots. Like now, when everything feels like Vitamin A toxicity - everywhere I look, I see it! What else could be more primary?! And I would like to bust holes in my blind spots sooner than later this time. 🙂
My husband puts it this way: "Lil Chick, when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
We owe so much to Grant for showing us just how important it is to not be VA toxic. This could be the first time in our version of written history that people have linked retinol to these ancient diseases. The word lupus is very old, for instance. Think of all the suffering!
I'm sure VA had something to do with the deaths of both the original 1920's studies and Grant's garage experiment. Because VA is intricately linked to everything! However, I do think there was probably more going on in both cases, because nutrition is such a huge subject with so many aspects.
If my chicken feed is slightly low in some mineral or vitamin they can eat pebbles, worms or greenery to fill the gap. An animal grown in confinement is going to be so much more likely to suffer from some odd deficiency.
And, in the case of the 1920's study, the fact that they got things so very wrong makes me doubt everything they said. Were they just wrong or were they paid to be wrong? They SHOULD have pointed us in the direction that Grant finally DID point us in!
@yi-at-ldt can we expect an update soon?