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Wax esters a method of Vitamin A elimination in the form of waxy stool?
I started getting really strange looking stools almost immediately after removing Vitamin A from my diet and continue to get them after 2 years of being on a very low Vitamin A diet that has been mostly carnivore. They could contain any combination of orange colored mucus, bright yellow liquid, pale appearance with an almost grainy consistency, or very green.
One characteristic that I've failed to describe, but which has been relatively common, is a waxy appearance to the stool. I suppose it has a kind of matte appearance like paraffin wax?
Well, it turns out that wax esters (beeswax is one) are a fatty acid combined with a fatty alcohol, and waxes in general can include aldehydes as a component. From http://cyberlipid.gerli.com/lipids/wax-esters/
"The various materials named waxes do not form a chemically homogeneous group. All waxes are water-resistant materials made up of various substances including hydrocarbons (normal or branched alkanes and alkenes), ketones, diketones, primary and secondary alcohols, aldehydes, sterol esters, alkanoic acids, terpenes (squalene) and monoesters (wax esters), all with long or very long carbon chains (from 12 up to about 38 carbon atoms) and solid in a large range of temperature (fusion point between 60 and 100°C).
More commonly, waxes are esters of an alcohol other than glycerol (long chain alcohol, sterol, hydroxycarotenoids, vitamin A) and a long chain acid (wax esters). Wax esters are saponified by hot alkaline solutions and give a fatty acid and an alcohol. They are soluble in aromatic solvents, chloroform, ethers, esters and ketones."
I'm not 100% sure on the chemistry, but it certainly sounds as though my "waxy" stools could appear that way because they contain a bunch of Vitamin A in the form of wax or wax esters.
My feeling is that I get these kinds of stools primarily when I am eating a lot of fat (beef tallow, lamb tallow, maybe coconut oil), but unfortunately I have not been keeping track of when my stool has this characteristic, so I can't say with too much confidence. I've sometimes experienced fat malabsorption while eating a lot of tallow and that results in a very different stool than what I'm talking about here (visible globs of fat), so I'm pretty sure these waxy stools are not related to fat malabsorption.
This could help explain why a high-fat carnivore diet helps eliminate excess Vitamin A from the body.
How did you get vA toxic?
I had a variety of Vitamin A sources that included multivitamins, cod liver oil, fresh and desiccated liver, eggs, dairy, and tons of beta-carotene from carrots, winter squash, and leafy greens (my skin was quite orange for maybe an entire year from that). I also had IBS-D/SIBO for at least 10 years prior to getting symptoms I attribute to both Vitamin A toxicity and oxalate toxicity...I'm sure those pre-existing gut problems didn't help matters.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on August 14, 2022, 4:41 pmI had a variety of Vitamin A sources that included multivitamins, cod liver oil, fresh and desiccated liver, eggs, dairy, and tons of beta-carotene from carrots, winter squash, and leafy greens (my skin was quite orange for maybe an entire year from that). I also had IBS-D/SIBO for at least 10 years prior to getting symptoms I attribute to both Vitamin A toxicity and oxalate toxicity...I'm sure those pre-existing gut problems didn't help matters.
I sometimes wonder given the effects of Accutane if the kind of VA will take an according different detox route. You see people getting better with some stuff and others with other stuff, but toxicity may be compound with other toxins.
I'm not super well versed on the Accutane side of the things, but my understanding is that it is basically the same retinoic acid that is the end metabolite of retinol, and that retinoic acid is the most caustic form of Vitamin A. I don't think the body stores retinoic acid like it does retinol/retinal, which means that Accutane is likely to cause immediate toxicity by overwhelming the body with retinoic acid that is already highly caustic. On the other hand, if you ingest too much dietary Vitamin A, you are likely to be storing that in the liver and in fatty tissues as retinyl esters, and in order for that to get back out of the body it typically has to be converted to retinoic acid, but the body does that on its own time schedule as it works through the storage.
Thus, it seems like Accutane is more likely to cause acute liver damage and acute damage to other tissues because it is already in a highly caustic form when ingested, whereas dietary Vitamin A will be caustic as it is converted to retinoic acid during metabolism but that conversion happens over a long period of time and is therefore more controlled and less prone to causing irreversible damage.
Accutane sounds like nasty shit...I'm glad I was never exposed to that stuff. Although...my dietary accumulation was "silent" for a long time and may be just as bad or worse in the end than taking Accutane, who knows.
I'm kind of surprised nobody else commented on my wax ester hypothesis here...
My body craves fat, whether it's for energy, hormone production, or Vitamin A elimination, but ramping up animal fat intake leads to loose stools that burn, and these tend to be pale in color and waxy in appearance, often with orange coloration that either leaches out of the stool or is bound in what appears to be mucus. I used to get a lot of bright yellow color in my stool as well, but that mostly stopped about 6 months ago. Pretty sure all that yellow and orange is various forms of Vitamin A.
I think the liver is binding Vitamin A directly to taurine and fatty acids whenever it gets the chance. There seems to be precedent for this in the chemistry of wax ester production by the liver, mostly documented in oily fish species, but I think in rats as well.
I have had pale stools as well since going off oxalates and adding milk back to my diet. Looks like a white-gray-ish coating sometimes, still with yellow "wiping". Might be same/similar as you are talking about. I never knew what it was, haven't had it in a while since cutting back on dairy. I theorized it was calcium or oxalates or something, as I was pretty constipated and could eat like over 2000mg Ca /day when following cravings. However my diet was not high fat (chose low fat dairy).
Quote from Liz on November 1, 2022, 2:00 pmI have had pale stools as well since going off oxalates and adding milk back to my diet. Looks like a white-gray-ish coating sometimes, still with yellow "wiping". Might be same/similar as you are talking about. I never knew what it was, haven't had it in a while since cutting back on dairy. I theorized it was calcium or oxalates or something, as I was pretty constipated and could eat like over 2000mg Ca /day when following cravings. However my diet was not high fat (chose low fat dairy).
Pale stools is from lack of bile production, when I have yogurt, milk chocolate, or lots of almond butter it causes this, my bile production gets shut off completely from these foods and I feel better short term but my weight starts dropping rapidly.
I made this thread to suggest that the liver might use certain fatty acids to bind Vitamin A directly and then eliminate it via the bile and stool. If this is the case, then those fatty acids are likely resulting in a pale appearance to the stool (fat malabsorption is associated with pale stool). Lack of bile is also associated with pale stool, but is certainly not the only cause.
The brown color of stool is supposedly the result of bilirubin, which is a regular metabolic waste product that needs to be eliminated daily. If you don't eliminate bilirubin, you get jaundice.
If your body needs to get rid of bilirubin and other metabolic waste regularly via bile, why would it suddenly stop releasing bile in response to eating something like yogurt, chocolate, or almond butter? Doesn't make any sense to me. Do you get jaundice if you eat those things regularly?
Quote from AlexM on November 2, 2022, 8:54 amQuote from Liz on November 1, 2022, 2:00 pmI have had pale stools as well since going off oxalates and adding milk back to my diet. Looks like a white-gray-ish coating sometimes, still with yellow "wiping". Might be same/similar as you are talking about. I never knew what it was, haven't had it in a while since cutting back on dairy. I theorized it was calcium or oxalates or something, as I was pretty constipated and could eat like over 2000mg Ca /day when following cravings. However my diet was not high fat (chose low fat dairy).
Pale stools is from lack of bile production, when I have yogurt, milk chocolate, or lots of almond butter it causes this, my bile production gets shut off completely from these foods and I feel better short term but my weight starts dropping rapidly.
I am not so sure it necessarily is from a lack of bile production. It doesn't add up, symptoms and parametres are not consistant. I have had a lot of weird shit (pun!) happening when cutting off oxalates and that was after reintroducing dairy 🤷♀️
Edit: the white stuff did not seem like all stool, it looked more like a coating of some sorts. So not solid pale stool, but almost like a waxy surface coating (I did not poke around, but def looked like a coating)