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Why I don’t think that this is a legit theory anymore
Yes, I have experienced episodes of night blindness and dry eyes three different times. However, I’ve always recovered from them. If this condition was indeed due to VAD, then rather than recovering from the condition I should have gotten progressively worse with time. That has not happened.
My daytime vision is now about the best it’s ever been in my adult life. I’d rank it as nearly perfect and of course significantly better than it was 7 years ago.
My night vision is once again very good.
A number of other people on this forum have also reported improvements in their vision.
For those that think having VA accumulate in the eye is a good thing, please check out this prior post on AMD.
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/vision/?part=2
Fundus Autofluorescence and RPE Lipofuscin in Age-Related
Macular Degeneration
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25774313/
For me, I’ll continue to take my chances without any VA.
I think people need to be careful and not jump to conclusions. Sure, people's progress is slow going here, and we have setbacks, but (as documented in the above paper) we are trying to reverse decades of accumulation and damage.
If anyone wants to wager on my vision ultimately failing on this diet, I'm all in.
Grant
Quote from tim on October 29, 2021, 10:29 pmWEEKLY injections of 7.5IU of vitamin A. When they mentioned 10IU that was 10IU per GRAM.
Grant has experienced some level of night blindness and dry eyes multiple times. He must be one of the most vitamin A depleted humans on the planet. You're going to claim his symptoms are due to detoxification of tiny amounts of vitamin A?
As I said, xeropthalmia is very difficult to develop if one is well nourished in other respects. It normally occurs in conjunction with other deficiencies such as riboflavin and protein deficiency. A well nourished adult that starts with a liver full of vitamin A is going to take many years to develop undeniable xeropthalmia.
I also don't think that xerophthalmia is caused by detoxification of small amounts of vitamin A. As I said, my explanation is that there is some factor in food with VA, such as egg yolks and butter, which probably protects the eyes from damage 13-cis RA. And if a person does not have enough of this factor to survive detoxification, he will get xerophthalmia. Let it not be the lard factor, but something else. In addition, supplements with VA do not always help to treat xerophthalmia:
I also don't think that xerophthalmia is caused by detoxification of small amounts of vitamin A. As I said, my explanation is that there is some factor in food with VA, such as egg yolks and butter, which probably protects the eyes from damage 13-cis RA.
"Damage from 13-cis-RA" is claiming symptoms are due to vitamin A toxicity so the second sentence contradicts the first.
And if a person does not have enough of this factor to survive detoxification, he will get xerophthalmia. Let it not be the lard factor, but something else. In addition, supplements with VA do not always help to treat xerophthalmia:
Despite being shown there is no "lard factor" you now want to believe that instead of a mysterious factor that protects against deficiency that there is something in egg yolks and butter that protects against xeropthalmia caused by retinoic acid toxicity when retinoic acid toxicity doesn't even cause xeropthalmia.
In addition, supplements with VA do not always help to treat xerophthalmia:
If people are malnourished then it's unlikely that just taking retinol will cure xeropthalmia. In fact many people that are malnourished that develop xeropthalmia probably have some liver retinol stores. Of course their RBP can be very low but that doesn't mean their liver stores are depleted. The malnourishment needs to be corrected obviously so that the body can heal and so that retinaldehyde can be properly utilized in the retina.
Quote from tim on October 30, 2021, 7:19 amI also don't think that xerophthalmia is caused by detoxification of small amounts of vitamin A. As I said, my explanation is that there is some factor in food with VA, such as egg yolks and butter, which probably protects the eyes from damage 13-cis RA.
"Damage from 13-cis-RA" is claiming symptoms are due to vitamin A toxicity so the second sentence contradicts the first.
And if a person does not have enough of this factor to survive detoxification, he will get xerophthalmia. Let it not be the lard factor, but something else. In addition, supplements with VA do not always help to treat xerophthalmia:
Despite being shown there is no "lard factor" you now want to believe that instead of a mysterious factor that protects against deficiency that there is something in egg yolks and butter that protects against xeropthalmia caused by retinoic acid toxicity when retinoic acid toxicity doesn't even cause xeropthalmia.
Again, to cause eye damage, you need to:
1) the presence of 13-cis RA
2) the absence of the fat factor defence eyes
The authors of your study did not prove its absence, they only found vitamin A in lard.
Quote from tim on October 30, 2021, 7:26 amIn addition, supplements with VA do not always help to treat xerophthalmia:
If people are malnourished then it's unlikely that just taking retinol will cure xeropthalmia. In fact many people that are malnourished that develop xeropthalmia probably have some liver retinol stores. Of course their RBP can be very low but that doesn't mean their liver stores are depleted. The malnourishment needs to be corrected obviously so that the body can heal and so that retinaldehyde can be properly utilized in the retina.
In this case, you are probably confusing malnutrition and "vitamin A deficiency".
1. Not true. End stage xeropthalmia only occurs from VAD not retinoic acid toxicity.
2. The "fat factor" you referenced had nothing to do with protecting against toxicity. It was speculated it protected against deficiency. It turned out there was no "fat factor", it was just vitamin A. This has been clearly demonstrated to you yet you mostly choose to ignore my points and carry on with your non sequitur assertions.
At this point I'm not going to continue this debate because it's just thread spam at this point.
I agree with you @max-3
I also think this theory is not valid. I hate to say this because I believed in it, but not anymore... (sunk costs).
Some important aspects:
- Nobody here is getting real benefits. Yes, the excuse is always that it takes longer to deplete vitamin A, etc. Really? I mean there are many protocols out there and the body once provided with the right conditions usually heals very fast. This is in my opinion is the number one reason why I do not believe in this theory, nobody is seeing noticeable improvements. Yes, Grant cured his eczema, but there are many other variables (like for example elimination of most plant components that could cause an immune reaction).
- My experience with foods has been the same: my worst reactions have come from foods with no vit A. No problems with high vitamin A foods.
- Regarding the experiments being flawed... I do not know... If vitamin A was so toxic, I think someone would have figured out long before, since it is used in many medical treatments.
I'm glad to hear that you have experienced continued health improvements. However this does not prove that one's diet is optimal or sustainable long term. Many people that try all sorts of fad diets report health improvements initially. Because nutrition is complex and multi-casual a diet can help in some ways and hurt in others.
Yes, I have experienced episodes of night blindness and dry eyes three different times. However, I’ve always recovered from them. If this condition was indeed due to VAD, then rather than recovering from the condition I should have gotten progressively worse with time. That has not happened.
You've experienced symptoms of VAD. You'll disagree so how do you explain it? Even people that have been in a state of Hypervitaminosis A for years don't normally get night blindness or dry eyes so please don't blame it on vitamin A.
Who knows why it's cyclical but we do know that xeropthalmia comes on very slowly so it wouldn't be surprising to experience symptoms cyclically at first.
@ggenereux2014 Pls can you do ceruloplasmin blood test next time you do it? Everyone thinks that vit A is needd for ceruloplasmin synthesis.. I will do blood work next week. I really wonder what my ceruloplasmin will look like after 2 years of low A..