I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.
Why I don’t think that this is a legit theory anymore
Quote from Max on October 27, 2021, 11:14 amMaybe I am just dumb but I dont get why nobody follows my logic here. So I try it again:
This theory says Vitamin A is the reason for a certain disease.
Then according to this theory it should be IMPOSSIBLE to cure or even improve this certain disease while still eating lots of vitamin A. But this is obviously not the case and this alone disproves the theory in my opinion. Isnt this logical?
I think there are symptoms caused directly by vitamin A (acute symptoms of vitamin A administration that polar explorers who ate polar bear liver had). And there are other symptoms that are mediated by viral, bacterial, fungal infections, organ damage and vitamin deficiencies that appeared when the body was weakened.
"IMPOSSIBLE to cure or even improve this certain disease while still eating lots of vitamin A."
I have not seen anyone else on the forum claim this.
I'm with you Max. I've suggested it numerous times before. Paul Saladino is the most obvious example...he had skin problems on a vegan diet but not on a carnivore diet loaded with liver. He seems to slowly be identifying which plant foods trigger his skin problems and which don't.
The biggest point is that it's an oversimplification to blame Vitamin A for all skin and auto-immune problems.
Of course, Vitamin A toxicity or something wrong with a person's Vitamin A metabolism surely is the cause of some skin problems, or might be contributing to autoimmune problems, but it is clearly not solely responsible for all or even a majority of the cases out there.
Furthermore, Grant will never be able to get close to proving that Vitamin A is not essential to bodily health without measuring the Vitamin A content of all the food he is ingesting, without getting his serum levels to zero, and without getting tissue samples and liver biopsies showing that he doesn't have Vitamin A stored anywhere in his body. It will always be speculation.
Personally, I haven't had autoimmune problems before or after becoming Vitamin A toxic. I also did not have any skin problems until I became Vitamin A toxic, and they primarily began after I removed Vitamin A from my diet, as did most of the other worst symptoms I've experienced. My Vitamin A came from food or supplements. I never used Accutane or similar products. There is no doubt in my mind that people can become toxic with Vitamin A for a variety of reasons, but there are plenty of other causes of skin disorders.
The Gerson Therapy allows the body to heal cancer and countless other degenerative diseases and is very high in A. Besides carrot and green juices, it used to use liver juices (though the palest brand new livers from calves slaughtered almost immediately). If I didn't know several people that were successful with it I might doubt it after learning about all the problems with vitamin A. But Dr. Gerson did develop it in a time when fortification and pesticides weren't as widespread. Anyway, my Aunt for example, after doing the full therapy years earlier, lived to 98 drinking 2 carrot juices a day, a liver juice weekly, and liver injections at least weekly. Her skin and her bones were of amazing quality for her age. Likewise my mom revered her stage 4 cancer and got her hair color back and scars healed over 30 years ago doing the therapy for 3 years. She didn't juice much after that or stick with the diet but insisted on raw carrots and some dairy foods every day. She just recently died at 83 of aortic dissection probably due to high blood pressure she had the past few years. She was cancer free and very active with strong bones. Having been to a Gerson hospital growing up and meeting other survivors, there are so many stories of healing skin problems and autoimmune problems which are even easier than cancer, not requiring as much juicing or thyroid meds, but interestingly those on this "modified" program for the less sick are to supplement with vitamin A. So somehow miracles are happening in spite of this.
1. The most effective clinical cure for eczema a drug called Alitretinoin - yet another RA isomer. So I'm not surprised at all by people clearing up their eczema by loading up on a lot of VA. You're probably well aware that VA is used as a cosmetic product commonly used to achieve youthful skin or clear up acne. Of course once we understand how VA actually works as treatment in these cases we begin to realize that it's not a clever thing to do. Indeed, the side effects can be monstrous and the results are never durable.
2. BC is not equivalent to VA. They are used interchangeably on this forum but after reading a lot of literature on this topic, I cannot confidently say much about how much BC is converted to VA and how much of it is immediately excreted. The only circumstance that I'm aware is that a fat rich meal will increase the conversion rate, while a fiber rich meal will decrease it. As an experiment, try combining one of your non-trigger, high VA foods with something fatty and see what happens.
3. My remarks in 2. apply here. I'll just add that I find this style of argument to be really distasteful. If the body of research is so strong, why don't you at least present some of it here and tell us why you find it so convincing? I can show you "countless studies" touting the benefits of fish oil, are you now convinced that it's good for you? If you are, I encourage you to supplement and post your results here. If you're not, perhaps you should explain why you're not always on the side of scientific consensus.
Regarding VA as a cure for eczema. As far as I understand, VA simply blinds the immune system(VDR receptors), allowing pathogens to multiply. And when the VA becomes smaller and the immune system "turns on", symptoms of immunopathology may appear. You can again blind the immune system with VA and see a decrease in symptoms.
Btw, VA is also used as a chemotherapy agent.
Quote from clare on October 28, 2021, 9:43 amThe Gerson Therapy allows the body to heal cancer and countless other degenerative diseases and is very high in A. Besides carrot and green juices, it used to use liver juices (though the palest brand new livers from calves slaughtered almost immediately). If I didn't know several people that were successful with it I might doubt it after learning about all the problems with vitamin A. But Dr. Gerson did develop it in a time when fortification and pesticides weren't as widespread. Anyway, my Aunt for example, after doing the full therapy years earlier, lived to 98 drinking 2 carrot juices a day, a liver juice weekly, and liver injections at least weekly. Her skin and her bones were of amazing quality for her age. Likewise my mom revered her stage 4 cancer and got her hair color back and scars healed over 30 years ago doing the therapy for 3 years. She didn't juice much after that or stick with the diet but insisted on raw carrots and some dairy foods every day. She just recently died at 83 of aortic dissection probably due to high blood pressure she had the past few years. She was cancer free and very active with strong bones. Having been to a Gerson hospital growing up and meeting other survivors, there are so many stories of healing skin problems and autoimmune problems which are even easier than cancer, not requiring as much juicing or thyroid meds, but interestingly those on this "modified" program for the less sick are to supplement with vitamin A. So somehow miracles are happening in spite of this.
That's all very interesting, but I'm wondering where's the contradiction to Grant's work? We're well aware that VA is a powerful and mainstream chemotherapy drug, so it's quite logical that Gerson's therapy would work along the same lines.
I think we need a bit more nuance about VA poisoning. In particular, how it varies between individuals. For example, experiments make it pretty clear that people have different capacities for producing RBP (see the paper Grant cited about RBP and MeTS). I would not be surprised if there was variability in other detox pathways.
And finally, BC and VA are not equivalent. It is quite possible that all BC ingested by your relatives was immediately excreted instead of absorbed. The conditions under which BC is converted to VA are still shrouded in mystery (at least to me).
But Gerson doesn't function at all like chemo. The body is strengthened, and then it heals the cancer. Health is enhanced, whereas with chemo you are poisoning the body and suffer "side" effects. People go on Gerson who aren't even sick just to rejuvenate. Moreover, it was developed out of Dr. Gerson's success preventing his migraine headaches with a potassium rich, low protein diet. He added juices to raise potassium and minerals more and found that one of his migraine sufferers was not only cured from migraines but also skin tuberculosis. Dr. Gerson then was allowed to test his diet on tuberculosis patients, as antibiotics had not yet been invented, and he grew in fame for this in Germany before Hitler rose to power. Later, I think in the U.S. someone begged him to make a cancer therapy for her. He really didn't want to treat cancer but some patients that were turned away from their doctors as incurable would find their way to him by word of mouth. He enhanced the program with more juices and liver detox, as well as thyroid and digestive support. Anyway, to say that this program works for cancer because RA is a powerful chemo agent doesn't make any sense at all.
Quote from wavygravygadzooks on October 27, 2021, 11:59 amI'm with you Max. I've suggested it numerous times before. Paul Saladino is the most obvious example...he had skin problems on a vegan diet but not on a carnivore diet loaded with liver. He seems to slowly be identifying which plant foods trigger his skin problems and which don't.
The biggest point is that it's an oversimplification to blame Vitamin A for all skin and auto-immune problems.
Of course, Vitamin A toxicity or something wrong with a person's Vitamin A metabolism surely is the cause of some skin problems, or might be contributing to autoimmune problems, but it is clearly not solely responsible for all or even a majority of the cases out there.
Furthermore, Grant will never be able to get close to proving that Vitamin A is not essential to bodily health without measuring the Vitamin A content of all the food he is ingesting, without getting his serum levels to zero, and without getting tissue samples and liver biopsies showing that he doesn't have Vitamin A stored anywhere in his body. It will always be speculation.
Personally, I haven't had autoimmune problems before or after becoming Vitamin A toxic. I also did not have any skin problems until I became Vitamin A toxic, and they primarily began after I removed Vitamin A from my diet, as did most of the other worst symptoms I've experienced. My Vitamin A came from food or supplements. I never used Accutane or similar products. There is no doubt in my mind that people can become toxic with Vitamin A for a variety of reasons, but there are plenty of other causes of skin disorders.
Regarding Saladino, I have a couple of questions:
- Do you think BC rich plant foods causing skin problems is contradictory to Grant's toxicity? I don't, so perhaps you could explain how you're making the connection.
- How do you know how much liver is Saladino eating? I know he's selling a lot of liver, but I'm not at all convinced that these two quantities correlate strongly. Also, dare we entertain the possibility of his bias on this subject? If he finds out that liver isn't all that good for you after all, do you think he's going to make a video apologizing to his viewers for ruining their health for years? The required level of humility is pretty rare among nutrition gurus and internet doctors in my experience - though I'd be glad to be proven wrong.
I also strongly disagree with your comments about Grant's own experiment with VA. Sure, he might not prove that VA is necessary, but he proves beyond all reasonable doubt that one can thrive on an absolutely tiny fraction of the RDA. Furthermore, the serious problems he points out in the studies declaring VA as a Vitamin means that the onus is on the proponents of VA. A substance has to clear a very high bar before it is declared essential or a vitamin, and it is clear that VA managed to slip by this bar without enough scrutiny. I'd like to see some convincing evidence that VA is indeed a vitamin and that the RDA's even resemble what is actually required to be healthy.
I think where Gerson success contradicts the poison A theory is that the liver would be filled with A many times over doing the therapy. The palms and soles turn orange, and this is considered normal. (Dr. Smith says this means poisoning every time) Gerson patients have gone on to live decades after this therapy with no signs of hyper-A. Unless coffee enemas remove significant amounts of A, which is something to consider...
Clare, I must say that I'm not surprised that you're unable to make sense of my claims. I'm afraid I have the same difficulties with extracting sense out of your remarks.
First of all, I'm not at all arguing with the benefits of additional potassium. For all I know, it's quite plausible it would have some beneficial effect. Though I'd prefer to see some evidence for its benefits in cancer treatment independent of Dr Gerson's work.
I don't understand at all how you imply that Gerson therapy strengthens the body to "heal the cancer". The only mechanism that I'm aware for "healing" cancer cells is apoptosis, and I'm quite confident that the VA in this therapy would be sufficient to induce it. With traditional chemotherapy, they skip the middleman Retinol, and go directly with RA instead. Sure, this has more side effects, but it is more reliable at producing the desired result - apoptosis.
Gerson patients have gone on to live decades after this therapy with no signs of hyper-A. Unless coffee enemas remove significant amounts of A, which is something to consider...
You seem to have quite a bit of experience with this therapy. Could you give us some estimates for how much VA is ingested in a standard protocol? The body has an absolutely massive capacity to store this stuff (and not just in the liver), I'm not at all surprised that it did not cause long term toxicity. As far as I know, toxicity is guaranteed only when the conversion to RA is triggered.