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What's most important? Marshall Protocol meets Vitamin A detox
I have history with the Marshall Protocol and it has helped me during 2 separate flare ups of rheumatoid arthritis. The first one was back in 2012 and was the worst episode of my life. It took about 1.5 years for me to be able to work and do normal things. I got off of the medication as it was too expensive and I "had recovered". Anxiety was still there but smoking a few cigs pushed down the symptoms. Original symptoms were inflammation in both ankles, knees, elbows, jaw, neck, connective tissue tightness, eczema, anxiety, sleep disturbances and a whole bunch of pain and limitations.
Anyways, the joint inflammation would rise and fail within tolerable levels for a year or so and then my right knee suffered a flare for a whole year. No other joints were really involved.
In 2018, my right elbow started to swell. Then my right knee, then the left. I got back on the Marshall Protocol. I again quit it after a year due to medication price and the hassle of taking pills daily on a schedule.
Anyways, the same effects started this last March of 2021. Wife got vaccinated and flare ensued slowly, finally climaxing this last month. Now I am planning on getting back on the Marshall Protocol. After finding out about vitamin A toxicity, it fits my life like a glove. (Born with eczema, came back around age 15, when I also developed RA. Went away, came back at age 20. Went away for a few years and now it has been a flare every 2 years or so.) The question now is how to possibly blend these two schools of knowledge and maybe reinterpret what I've learned from Dr. Marshall with what I've come to believe as true with Vitamin A.
What is most Important?
I think the most important thing when it comes to both approaches is to not increase the spillage of vitamin A into the body. Same with ingesting vitamin D. After that, it kind of comes down to circumstance and philosophy. I have to work so I don't want to go ham and blow things up with too much inflammation/detox. These are the options I have considered.
1.) Prioritize the immune system cleanup (slow or fast) of spill sites to get rid of symptoms. Liver storage deficit being secondary plan.
2.) Prioritize getting some liver retinol deficit to allow space for possible recapture and storage of spilled retinol. Let the immune system take care of the site injury at a slow pace so you don't feel like absolute shit all the time.
The Marshall Protocol is about safely reducing the inflammation sites but fails IMO to consider that the vitamin A issue is causing a lot of ones' recurring relapses/difficulties. I'm blending both and plan to do so slowly.
Any input would be appreciated.
From what I've recently read, it appears that vitamin A not only downregulates the number of VDR receptors, partly replaces calcitriol as an alternative VDR agonist/antagonist, but by inhibiting(as endotoxin TLR4 receptor antagonist) interferon gamma indirectly limits D25 bioavailability(i.e. spending) for IFN-gamma -> STAT1 -> (CYP27b1 & VDR) -> 25D -> D1.25 conversion:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3269210/
Vitamin A deficiency increases inflammatory responses
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8972739/
The authors studied the influence of vitamin A deficiency on immediate and delayed type hypersensitivity as well as granulocyte-mediated inflammatory reactions in vitamin A depleted and control rats. The number of circulating leucocytes was 43% higher in the vitamin A deficient than in the control animals. The leucocytosis was a result of a general increase of white blood cells and was not due to an increase in one particular type. The ratio between CD4+ and CD8+ T cells was unchanged. The vitamin A deficient rats had a four times higher T-cell proliferative response and a two times higher interferon-gamma production in vitro than the control animals.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23086657/
Our results showed that retinol suppressed the expression of various inflammatory cytokines in bone marrow-derived macrophages stimulated with ligands of TLR2, TLR3, or TLR4.
Hello @armin, I like your avatar. I spent a few days looking at the MP long ago, but never followed it. Are you saying it allowed you to get off your prescription meds? Or are you saying you got off meds associated with MP?
Interesting that you link your wife's vaccination to your outbreak. I've heard of other people saying their spouse (or other close people) "leaked" after a vaccination--with other vaxes and this one too. "over active immune system" is how VA toxicity is often described. ugh
For me, I think the most important thing has just been to greatly reduce the intake of vitamin A. However, I haven't ever gone as low as Grant.
If you want to reduce spillage of the VA into the body, I suspect that one of the culprits might be alcohol. It may send VA out of the liver into the body? (for good or bad) making many of us here think of ourselves as "alcohol intolerant".
Lots of things seem to mobilize VA, but they aren't necessarily bad in the long run. However, I agree that this needs to be kept to a NON HAM LEVEL! 🙂
There are loads of ideas here for helping detox along such as moving, sweating, soap, bain deratif, fiber, and of course even the anti MP one: sunshine.
If the MP helped you, do you think that means that you were VD toxic? or that it just helped with the VA toxicity by limiting some of the foods that have both?
Welcome! And do remember this is a long haul. I think it was Orion who told me that when I joined up. Important to remember.
What I've failed to understand is why vitamin D was made an absolute and only villain. Why not drop A C E "vitamins" instead(carnivore diet/carnivore+rice diet) since they downregulate immunity if not exactly through the same pathways(all vitamins overlap in antagonizing the same subset of immune system receptors) as D but with the identical net result: less TNF, interferon gamma, MCP-1, CSFs(colony-stimulating factors) etc...
Grant got recovered from CFS on vitamin A-less diet. Anyone in remission from CFS with MP?
Another thing: vit D deficiency is commonly associated with weight gain, while vit A normalization with weight loss and weight gain is #1 side effect of any immunosuppressive drug(i.e. less consumption of glucose/glutamine/fatty acids by immune cells under the same nutrition level).
Quote from lil chick on July 8, 2021, 4:51 amHello @armin, I like your avatar. I spent a few days looking at the MP long ago, but never followed it. Are you saying it allowed you to get off your prescription meds? Or are you saying you got off meds associated with MP?
Interesting that you link your wife's vaccination to your outbreak. I've heard of other people saying their spouse (or other close people) "leaked" after a vaccination--with other vaxes and this one too. "over active immune system" is how VA toxicity is often described. ugh
For me, I think the most important thing has just been to greatly reduce the intake of vitamin A. However, I haven't ever gone as low as Grant.
If you want to reduce spillage of the VA into the body, I suspect that one of the culprits might be alcohol. It may send VA out of the liver into the body? (for good or bad) making many of us here think of ourselves as "alcohol intolerant".
Lots of things seem to mobilize VA, but they aren't necessarily bad in the long run. However, I agree that this needs to be kept to a NON HAM LEVEL!
There are loads of ideas here for helping detox along such as moving, sweating, soap, bain deratif, fiber, and of course even the anti MP one: sunshine.
If the MP helped you, do you think that means that you were VD toxic? or that it just helped with the VA toxicity by limiting some of the foods that have both?
Welcome! And do remember this is a long haul. I think it was Orion who told me that when I joined up. Important to remember.
I never really took medications other than the ones prescribed by doctors in an attempt to help with my "auto" illnesses. The meds I referenced stopping was the MP drugs, primarily olmesartan. I recently started olmesartan and after a week I started to feel really bad. Had to drop to half dose. Olmesartan is used as an VDR agonists but I find it is probably the best used for it's cytokine storm blocking ability as it also protects the heart and kidneys. This is how I plan to blend the two protocols. Marshall Protocol isn't viable for most working people with avoiding light and all that.
Currently, I primarily eat a carnivore diet. Started "keto" around the time of my last remission. I was eating plenty of eggs, liver, dairy and those "healthy" low carb leafy greens. Before that diet, I ate tons of sweet potatoes.
I have been inadvertently been on a Low VA diet for the past 4 months as that is when my flare up happened and I jumped on a primary carnivore diet (beef, some eggs/sausage).
Interesting that you mention alcohol possibly leaking retinoic acid. The worst flare of my life came a few years after quitting drinking for years. Haven't drank alcohol in the last 10 years.
I have a home gym and mini trampoline that I use for exercise. Trampoline is the only thing I currently use with my current situation. Apparently trampolines are really good for detox.
I really don't know how the Marshall Protocol helped but I suspect it was connected to avoiding vitamin A foods by association with avoiding vitamin D. They tend to come in tandem. I do think microbes contribute to disease but I think the Marshall Protocol has the priorities flipped.
Quote from rockarolla on July 8, 2021, 6:07 amWhat I've failed to understand is why vitamin D was made an absolute and only villain. Why not drop A C E "vitamins" instead(carnivore diet/carnivore+rice diet) since they downregulate immunity if not exactly through the same pathways(all vitamins overlap in antagonizing the same subset of immune system receptors) as D but with the identical net result: less TNF, interferon gamma, MCP-1, CSFs(colony-stimulating factors) etc...
Grant got recovered from CFS on vitamin A-less diet. Anyone in remission from CFS with MP?
Another thing: vit D deficiency is commonly associated with weight gain, while vit A normalization with weight loss and weight gain is #1 side effect of any immunosuppressive drug(i.e. less consumption of glucose/glutamine/fatty acids by immune cells under the same nutrition level).
Yes, it is quite interesting.
I'm sure some on the MP have reduced their CFS symptoms and I did as well to a degree. But it never fully went away. It would wax and wane for years and continue to do so. I look back to my pre-drinking days and how much mental focus and energy I had. Haven't drank in 10 years and there are days I feel like a competent human and others where I should be a bear hibernating, barely able to focus of daily tasks.
4 months ago I was 185 lbs (36 y/o Male) and now I am down to 150. I am sure that the increase lipolysis has contributed to increase in symptoms by way of immune response as well as retinol exposure from fat cells. I recently had to cut my olmesartan dose to half because I was going insane. Not sure if I currently need VDR activation. I'm going to primarily use it as a way to protect my organs from collateral damage.
On the MP, coffee is used as a way to modulate the innate immune system if symptoms get too strong. Suppressed immune function via chlorogenic acid is one of the theories on how microbes get the upper hand. Anyways, an interesting thing has started happening with coffee for the past year or so. I would drink coffee, feel great, and get along with my day. And then things would turn. When ever I started drinking coffee, it felt like I was going insane. Like I was drugged. I would switch to tea for a while and come back to coffee, only for 7 days of coffee drinking to then again cause the same state of insanity. I've been trying to figure it out. I thought maybe mycotoxins from coffee or interference with glucose regulation. Maybe a week of coffee drinking eventually ended with a release of too much retinoic acid into the system. This process would repeat like clockwork.
So interesting that you relate feeling worse with dropping alcohol, and yet you haven't brought it back. A small amount of alcohol has been linked to health benefits, but then again, I'm an addict, don't listen to me, LOL.
I wonder if you might be low on some nutrients like the B's? I think they've helped me sometimes, especially I think I was low in B12. Fiber is something I wish I did more of all along.
It does seem to me like loosing weight stirs things up with VA and also with hormones. Jiri has talked about having enough energy input to get well. I think that is a thing and I don't limit my carbs at all.
A couple of persons that I think may be high VA have been diagnosed with the traveling pain, (polymyalgia rheumatica) and it sounds kind of similar. My guess is this has to do with the wrong bone formations that happen during VA toxicity. It isn't getting put where it should, and it is getting put where it shouldn't. Some here have had bone pain during detox and have said it was disturbing. I would guess these fixes will take much time, but are probably apt to be able to change.
I was posting just yesterday about coffee. It's something that has been a constant in my life through many of the (unsuccessful) diet changes, LOL. But I can link the advent of some of my problems to when I began to drink it. I've made it through the morning without it, today. (!) There are many ways that coffee might be influencing things to the worse. It could just be more toxins for the pathway. It could be goofing up hormones (I think it has some estrogens), and of course the adrenals are taken for a roller coaster ride..
My people who have polymyalgia are always on steroids, and if steroids make things better then that points to something goofing up the adrenals, I suppose. Everyone is given steroid creme for eczema, for example.
I used to be much more aware of my coffee nerves and didn't like it (but always was addicted nonetheless)
I mean, look at that black sludgy mess full of plant poisons! We are on a diet of white veg, white carbs and meat! What are we thinking still drinking coffee? 🙂 But we'll see how I do with getting off the addiction, LOL.
(I think some keep coffee on the menu for the bowel moving benefits).
Quote from rockarolla on July 8, 2021, 6:07 amWhat I've failed to understand is why vitamin D was made an absolute and only villain. Why not drop A C E "vitamins" instead(carnivore diet/carnivore+rice diet) since they downregulate immunity if not exactly through the same pathways(all vitamins overlap in antagonizing the same subset of immune system receptors) as D but with the identical net result: less TNF, interferon gamma, MCP-1, CSFs(colony-stimulating factors) etc...
Grant got recovered from CFS on vitamin A-less diet. Anyone in remission from CFS with MP?
Another thing: vit D deficiency is commonly associated with weight gain, while vit A normalization with weight loss and weight gain is #1 side effect of any immunosuppressive drug(i.e. less consumption of glucose/glutamine/fatty acids by immune cells under the same nutrition level).
hmm, can you show research on vitamin E suppressing the immune system? You know, I'm interested in this topic.
I was thinking about the role of oxidants in the immune system, and tocotrienols are tens of times more powerful antioxidants than tocopherols...
Quote from lil chick on July 8, 2021, 9:44 amI was posting just yesterday about coffee. It's something that has been a constant in my life through many of the (unsuccessful) diet changes, LOL. But I can link the advent of some of my problems to when I began to drink it. I've made it through the morning without it, today. (!) There are many ways that coffee might be influencing things to the worse. It could just be more toxins for the pathway. It could be goofing up hormones (I think it has some estrogens), and of course the adrenals are taken for a roller coaster ride..
My people who have polymyalgia are always on steroids, and if steroids make things better then that points to something goofing up the adrenals, I suppose. Everyone is given steroid creme for eczema, for example.
I used to be much more aware of my coffee nerves and didn't like it (but always was addicted nonetheless)
I mean, look at that black sludgy mess full of plant poisons! We are on a diet of white veg, white carbs and meat! What are we thinking still drinking coffee? 🙂 But we'll see how I do with getting off the addiction, LOL.
(I think some keep coffee on the menu for the bowel moving benefits).
I don't think coffee contains a lot of estrogen. Estrogen is fat soluble. You will probably get a lot more from meat. But coffee contains aldehydes.