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Wavy Gravy (Tricky Turkey) 4 Year Update
@tricky Im curious if you have done any research into oxalate toxicity ?
Up until I discovered vitamin A toxicity that was my leading theory behind my skin(aggressive cystic acne) and digestive problems. When I first started carnivore in 2020 I was following the PKD approach. This is a version of carnivore used by a group in Hungary known as Paleomedicina. During that first year I had horrible diarrhea that would often burn after going. Similar to what you describe in your progress report. Originally I thought this was due to oxalate dumping, but am curious if this was more attributed to vitamin A toxicity. The PKD approach to carnivore requires you eat a pound of liver per week. They also severely restrict your overall food intake to roughly 400 grams of total food a day(pre cooked weight). Overall this diet did not help my skin issues and left my digestion worse off than before. Would not recommend this version of carnivore to anyone, however they do claim to get good results with their patients. They are very dogmatic and will blame you for not following diet closely enough if it does not work.
Over the next few years I experimented with different versions of animal based diets, but was under the general assumption my still present health issues were from oxalate dumping. A lot of people in the community talk about how it can take years to clear the nano crystals from body. While I do believe there is research to support this idea, I am skeptical if this was my main issue. During those years I always had some form of high vitamin A foods in diet so its hard to judge the two theories separately. Was routinely eating cod liver, occasional beef liver, ghee, carrots, butternut squash and avocados.
There seems to be a more compelling mechanism for excess vitamin A being the culprit for my aggressive cystic acne. Growing up on 2-3 bowls of cereal as a kid could have lead to this accumulation problem. Was also put on one round of accutane at end of high school as well. Skin was miraculously clear for 2 years, but eventually the cystic acne came back. So far I have not found any research or antidotes of oxalate toxicity and cystic acne. Grants fist e book highlights how excess vitamin A in skin can cause various inflammatory conditions. I found this compelling and the best possible explanation I have come across for my skin issues.
There does seem to be a lot of overlap between the two theories though. Both oxalate and vitamin A are substances the body is equipped to handle in moderate to small amounts. The body produces small amounts of oxalate as waste products. The debate is still open on whether the body needs vitamin A. When over consumed the bodies defenses weaken and subsequent accumulation happens in body. Unfortunately both seem to take a very long time to clear out. I have heard some people in the low vitamin A community dismiss oxalate as a concern, but this seems short sighted and possibly trading one toxicity for another. Certainly eating spinach salads and sweet potato chips will quickly overwhelm the bodies ability to safely excrete this substance.
Unfortunately my skin has been pretty rough the last few months, so I am still searching for something that could help. Whether this is part of the detox process is to be determined. Thankfully my digestion has improved markedly over the last year and I mostly have normal bowel movements, with occasional loose stools and gas after meals. One thing that has puzzled me is that regardless of how normal my bowel movements are, the stools are always floating. I was told this is a sign of fat malabsorption, but even when I go low fat I get this. Overall its pretty low on my priority list of health issues but something I was hoping would resolve if my body started producing healthier bile.
Quote from Griffin on September 9, 2024, 12:53 pm@tricky Im curious if you have done any research into oxalate toxicity ?
Up until I discovered vitamin A toxicity that was my leading theory behind my skin(aggressive cystic acne) and digestive problems. When I first started carnivore in 2020 I was following the PKD approach. This is a version of carnivore used by a group in Hungary known as Paleomedicina. During that first year I had horrible diarrhea that would often burn after going. Similar to what you describe in your progress report. Originally I thought this was due to oxalate dumping, but am curious if this was more attributed to vitamin A toxicity. The PKD approach to carnivore requires you eat a pound of liver per week. They also severely restrict your overall food intake to roughly 400 grams of total food a day(pre cooked weight). Overall this diet did not help my skin issues and left my digestion worse off than before. Would not recommend this version of carnivore to anyone, however they do claim to get good results with their patients. They are very dogmatic and will blame you for not following diet closely enough if it does not work.
Over the next few years I experimented with different versions of animal based diets, but was under the general assumption my still present health issues were from oxalate dumping. A lot of people in the community talk about how it can take years to clear the nano crystals from body. While I do believe there is research to support this idea, I am skeptical if this was my main issue. During those years I always had some form of high vitamin A foods in diet so its hard to judge the two theories separately. Was routinely eating cod liver, occasional beef liver, ghee, carrots, butternut squash and avocados.
There seems to be a more compelling mechanism for excess vitamin A being the culprit for my aggressive cystic acne. Growing up on 2-3 bowls of cereal as a kid could have lead to this accumulation problem. Was also put on one round of accutane at end of high school as well. Skin was miraculously clear for 2 years, but eventually the cystic acne came back. So far I have not found any research or antidotes of oxalate toxicity and cystic acne. Grants fist e book highlights how excess vitamin A in skin can cause various inflammatory conditions. I found this compelling and the best possible explanation I have come across for my skin issues.
There does seem to be a lot of overlap between the two theories though. Both oxalate and vitamin A are substances the body is equipped to handle in moderate to small amounts. The body produces small amounts of oxalate as waste products. The debate is still open on whether the body needs vitamin A. When over consumed the bodies defenses weaken and subsequent accumulation happens in body. Unfortunately both seem to take a very long time to clear out. I have heard some people in the low vitamin A community dismiss oxalate as a concern, but this seems short sighted and possibly trading one toxicity for another. Certainly eating spinach salads and sweet potato chips will quickly overwhelm the bodies ability to safely excrete this substance.
Unfortunately my skin has been pretty rough the last few months, so I am still searching for something that could help. Whether this is part of the detox process is to be determined. Thankfully my digestion has improved markedly over the last year and I mostly have normal bowel movements, with occasional loose stools and gas after meals. One thing that has puzzled me is that regardless of how normal my bowel movements are, the stools are always floating. I was told this is a sign of fat malabsorption, but even when I go low fat I get this. Overall its pretty low on my priority list of health issues but something I was hoping would resolve if my body started producing healthier bile.
Sounds like you and I share a number of things in common, although I never had skin problems before adopting a low VA diet.
Yes, I am very familiar with Paleomedicina and the PKD. I actually emailed them early on and asked if they had any experience treating people who thought they had Vitamin A toxicity. I think you can guess what their response was...(something along the lines of, yes, we can treat any condition with the PKD!). I didn't trust them and never consulted with them, and I'm very glad I didn't. I speculate that they have a good success rate with their clients because a lot of them are very ill with conditions like cancer and it may be that eating a ton of VA from liver acts like chemotherapy for those individuals with a net beneficial effect in the short-term, but for the rest of us that aren't facing imminent death eating a bunch of liver tends to make us worse in the long run. There was another user on this forum who left a while ago who had a nightmarish experience on the PKD with all its liver consumption.
I am also very familiar with the world of oxalate toxicity. Like you, I first blamed all my problems on oxalates because I'd eaten ridiculous amounts of spinach, chard, and other extremely high oxalate foods for years. I hung out on the Trying Low Oxalates forum for a while and did improve some things on a very low oxalate diet. I had a distinct period where I was unmistakably peeing cloudy urine after starting low oxalate, but there were a lot of issues that persisted well after the cloudy urine stopped, so then I moved on to VA toxicity as the cause of the remaining problems. I think both oxalate and VA stores can continue causing problems for years and it can be difficult to distinguish between their effects when you have a history with both of them.
There is a very strong tendency for people to try to make the world black and white, particularly when they have a poor understanding of the complexities involved. There is plenty evidence to indicate both oxalates and VA can be harmful in certain amounts, no need to claim it's either one or the other, and the combination of oxalates and VA in the diet is quite likely synergistically worse than simply the sum of the two things.
Personally, I've always thought that skin conditions were less likely a direct consequence of systemic oxalate accumulation and more likely an immune response to xenobiotic compounds passing through a gut with increased permeability; the permeability could be the result of ingested oxalates, lectins, other plant secondary compounds, bacterial overgrowth and metabolic byproducts, VA metabolites like retinoic acid, pharmaceuticals, etc. I definitely think you're on the right track by cutting out all these offending substances on a carnivore or near-carnivore diet, although I'd like to hear more of your take on things at this point in your experiments.
My own little theory regarding pimples.
There seems to be two kinds of acne that occur on my face. The deep, long lasting zits and the shallow, peel-away-in-2-days zits.
My theory is that the deep ones are hormonal (as in fertility hormones) and the shallow ones are VA (as in pustular rosacea).
Babies get acne as their mother's hormones leave their body. Kids get the deep pimples when going through puberty. Women get the deep pimples around PMS time.
There may be other types, these are just the two I'm the most familiar with.
My theory for you might be the same reason I still have hot flashes after 6 years: Maybe we aren't ridding ourselves of hormones properly because of sluggish liver or detox pathways. So, in a way the hormonal ones might still have VA underlying...
Lil- chick,
Yes I definitely see how hormonal issues can lead to acne for some people. I developed cystic acne at 16 so the transition into puberty seemed to kick start this process. Now at 30 years old Im not sure what the answers are. I do get the smaller pimples you are mentioning, but I also get very deep and inflamed cysts all over my body. These often have to be cut out as they do not go away on their own. The ones on my legs are especially painful, as are the ones behind the ears.
Tricky,
I am not surprised you received that answer from Paleomedicina. Your theory on the liver consumption acting as low grade chemotherapy for their patients is compelling. The majority of their success stories are confined to cancer patients, with some crohns success stories as well. Overall I found them to be incredibly dogmatic and was frustrated they could not entertain any other theories on healing skin issues. If my acne was strictly caused by plant anti nutrients I would be cured by now.
With that said I do think a diet that removes or minimizes these anti nutrients will be the best path forward for myself. My first 6 months on low vitA was on meat, beans, apples and rice. In the last month I have gone back to a more carnivorous approach with some occasional white rice. I struggle to maintain weight as a construction worker and having some carbs with dinner seems to help stabilize weight. I was thinking of removing the white rice for a bit to see if its contributing to my current flare ups. In the past I did not notice any difference when adding rice into diet so I'm not sure this is the culprit. I know chronically elevated insulin can contribute to acne so I do make sure to keep overall carbs in check.
(25708) Denise Minger - In Defense of Low Fat - YouTube
More appropriately titled "In Defense of Low Fat or High Fat"
Curious how this concept takes into account gluconeogenesis on meat intake above 24oz/day. Curious how higher meat intake and the inherent gluconeogenesis consistently affect ketogenesis. In 12 years I only have a year of experience with carnivore and only intermittently.
Quote from Griffin on September 10, 2024, 11:00 am@lil-chick@tricky
Lil- chick,
Yes I definitely see how hormonal issues can lead to acne for some people. I developed cystic acne at 16 so the transition into puberty seemed to kick start this process. Now at 30 years old Im not sure what the answers are. I do get the smaller pimples you are mentioning, but I also get very deep and inflamed cysts all over my body. These often have to be cut out as they do not go away on their own. The ones on my legs are especially painful, as are the ones behind the ears.
Tricky,
I am not surprised you received that answer from Paleomedicina. Your theory on the liver consumption acting as low grade chemotherapy for their patients is compelling. The majority of their success stories are confined to cancer patients, with some crohns success stories as well. Overall I found them to be incredibly dogmatic and was frustrated they could not entertain any other theories on healing skin issues. If my acne was strictly caused by plant anti nutrients I would be cured by now.
With that said I do think a diet that removes or minimizes these anti nutrients will be the best path forward for myself. My first 6 months on low vitA was on meat, beans, apples and rice. In the last month I have gone back to a more carnivorous approach with some occasional white rice. I struggle to maintain weight as a construction worker and having some carbs with dinner seems to help stabilize weight. I was thinking of removing the white rice for a bit to see if its contributing to my current flare ups. In the past I did not notice any difference when adding rice into diet so I'm not sure this is the culprit. I know chronically elevated insulin can contribute to acne so I do make sure to keep overall carbs in check.
@Griffin that is brutal and when I have had acne that wouldn't heal on it's own it's always been impetigo. Some impetigo is resistant and so you might also want to learn about herbal antibiotics. Black walnut tincture is one that works. I'm crossing my fingers that things slowly get better for you. I too have had some infections try to start behind the ears.
Another weird old cure is drawing salve, I've never tried it on acne but I had a deep splinter from feeding the wood stove and it started to look like a big boil. It worked great. What it does is thin the skin over the problem and then the boil can drain and it's mildly antibiotic too. Icthammol. It's an over-the-counter thing available from most pharmacies.