Low Toxin Diet Grant Genereux's Theory Of Vitamin A Toxicity

[Waremu]

"If you create a website named yourretinopia.com, it's a secure investment or a preparation to vulture on what has been vultured. People will be experiencing severe symptoms of poison A clearance (former deficiency) and be viewing themselves in the mirror as yellow in spite of having a skin tone as fair as Sheila's."

This is basically to me like saying there will need to be a recovery forum for the low vitamin A diet and that people will have a disorder of seeing themselves as having carotenemia when there is none. When Blossom was just talking about the orange/brownish tint above the eyes which she said is slowly going away on the low A diet.

Well, it seems that maybe he strongly feels that is what's going on and there is just disagreement or offense taken due to that strong opinion he has of the matter. I am sure he has seen many people as I have in the nutrition world take things too far to the other end, so perhaps he feels that is what is going on here and if someone feels that way, then one may disagree with his assessment and perhaps may take offense to it, but many people will have strong opinions at times if they feel something is not good and is entitled to their opinion, etc. Maybe he can chime in on what he means more.

 

[Waremu]

When alot of people find RPF omega3/PUFA is king and sugar is the devil. Well now vitamin A is the devil, and I am diving in.

Yeah, I just don't buy it, personally. I think someone may not handle a lot of Vitamin A due to low thyroid, but I don't believe in demonizing the Vitamin itself. I think there are too many holes in the theory and it can be dangerous to people who may have unhealthy relationships with dieting/food and suffer from health issues. Not saying people shouldn't try things out like less Vitamin A, but it just seems too reductionist to me to demonize Vitamin A.

 

[Blossom]

By the way, your hair analysis looks great indeed. There are various ones available online that are off the charts, the lab would need to attach pieces to fit the bars.

Thank you.

 

[InChristAlone]

Ok, but how many eggs does she eat a day? How much butter is on the bread she eats every day? Does meat include organ meat like liver? Even if the foods she mentioned in that article are all she eats, what does that tell us about vitamin A? Her diet sounds exactely like that of my grandfather - bread, potatoes, meat, rarely any vegetables, and never any fruits besides some berries here and there. He died at 82. My other grandfather loved fruits and ate lots of eggs, butter, and cream. He made it to 97. This whole theory is vague enough as it stands. Maybe adding short newspaper articles about people from Iceland, and estimations about their vitamin A intake, won't strenghten it.

As Jennifer said: Words and labels matter. Peat has stressed this many times. When you call something that is the antithesis of progesterone a progestin, it has serious cognitive consequences for the people that think about its' biological functions. Similarly, calling vitamin A a poison might limit people's ability to understand the issue, and for example tempt them to forget that correlation doesn't equal causation. There are a million other variables changing when you go on a low-vitamin A diet, yet the idea of a poison will cause you to ignore other possible explanations.

Also, it doesn't really make sense when you think about it. No animal retinol, and no plant-based ß-carotene? Every culture on this planet either lived on a plant based diet, and got a lot of carotene from vegetables and tubers, or on a meat based diet (nomadic cultures and hunters), and got a lot of retinol. Or a mix of both. Even the exceptionally healthy polynesians eat a lot of carotene-rich tubers and get vitamin A from fish organs (including the eyes). The diet proposed here sounds ridiculously restrictive. When you can't eat anything with either a moderate amount of carotene or retinol, then you really don't have a lot of foods lef to eat without risking serious deficiencies in the long run.

A lot of roots and tubers are low in A. There are purple sweet potatoes which have been used as an example of a high carotene source of healthy people, but they are actually low carotene. People leave that out. A lot of starches of tribal people are white starches they properly prepare. Cultures that relied on maize or plantains do not seem to fare as well as the root eating cultures. There is of course the other white starches such wheat and rice. Seems like Asians do well on rice over many centuries. That is extremely low in vitamin A if it has any at all! Of course they also eat vegetables but not all vegetables are high in carotenes.

Taro root is a traditional starch, it is turned into poi in Hawaii and is a low in vitamin A.

Jicama is native to Mexico and is a root that is low in A.

Camas were an important food source for native Americans. It turns to fructose after cooking. Couldn't find info on nutrition content but it is a white bulb.

800 million people depend on cassava as a food source, again another white tuber low in vitamin A.

Someone who does not eat any fresh food like fruits and veggies would become low in vitamin C as they age and probably would not live as long. Hunter Gatherers would have seasonally gotten sources of vitamin C and if they ate head to tail of their kill.


Again this diet is just meant to drain stores of retinol as most of us probably have a lot. It is a temporary thing for most. Grant has just been using himself as an experiment to see if you can be healthy with practically zero vitamin A.

 

[Blossom]

@Steven Bussinger, I’ll have to get my waking temperature for you tomorrow. I can’t find my thermometer of all things.

I got a new thermometer yesterday and this morning temperature 98.3. I’m posting this because I said I would yesterday.

 

[Yi at LDT]

White root vegetables, meat and a little fruit. pretty much sums it up for me and fits with my perception of many traditional cultures (be that right or wrong). Potatoes are actually relatively high in Vitamin C and scurvy may largely be due to vitamin A. Check out Grant's blog post on protein synthesis for more information on the vitamin C connection.

 

[Yi at LDT]

Sorry to interject, for anyone interested, with Grant's permission I've started narrating the E books and blog posts. I'm also repeating the small animal experiment featured in Poisoning for Profit. I should have a new video up documenting the new mice by the end of the week. Hope someone finds this helpful, thanks!

You can find my channel here
Yi at LDT

 

[InChristAlone]

White root vegetables, meat and a little fruit. pretty much sums it up for me and fits with my perception of many traditional cultures (be that right or wrong). Potatoes are actually relatively high in Vitamin C and scurvy may largely be due to vitamin A. Check out Grant's blog post on protein synthesis for more information on the vitamin C connection.

Yes I knew about this, just wanted to bring up that if one becomes low in vitamin C for too long regardless they will likely die early.

I checked out your Youtube channel, very interesting!

 

[Yi at LDT]

Thanks Janelle525! Glad you found it interesting, hopefully over the next few months it will become a valuable resource.

Big fan of Vitamin C and totally agree!

 

[Jennifer]

Yeah, I just don't buy it, personally. I think someone may not handle a lot of Vitamin A due to low thyroid, but I don't believe in demonizing the Vitamin itself. I think there are too many holes in the theory and it can be dangerous to people who may have unhealthy relationships with dieting/food and suffer from health issues. Not saying people shouldn't try things out like less Vitamin A, but it just seems too reductionist to me to demonize Vitamin A.

+1
I agree.

 

[Jennifer]

As Jennifer said: Words and labels matter. Peat has stressed this many times. When you call something that is the antithesis of progesterone a progestin, it has serious cognitive consequences for the people that think about its' biological functions. Similarly, calling vitamin A a poison might limit people's ability to understand the issue, and for example tempt them to forget that correlation doesn't equal causation. There are a million other variables changing when you go on a low-vitamin A diet, yet the idea of a poison will cause you to ignore other possible explanations.

Whoops! Missed your comment. You explained what I meant much better than I did. lol Thank you, Kartoffel. :)

 

[InChristAlone]

Yeah, I just don't buy it, personally. I think someone may not handle a lot of Vitamin A due to low thyroid, but I don't believe in demonizing the Vitamin itself. I think there are too many holes in the theory and it can be dangerous to people who may have unhealthy relationships with dieting/food and suffer from health issues. Not saying people shouldn't try things out like less Vitamin A, but it just seems too reductionist to me to demonize Vitamin A.

I have been orthorexic and don't advise restriction, but I'm mainly referring to restriction that results in low calories or fear of food. This whole thing has had me nervous about eating liver, but I didn't like it anyway! I had to gag it down with hot sauce and coke. I have been doing good with diet lately, yesterday I ended up eating 2400 calories as my in laws made a huge spread of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, bread and french silk pie. I was really enjoying food. I got 1,000 IU's of vitamin A. I am not worried about that amount, and yet I still am studying this issue because I'm a nutrition geek. It hasn't sparked orthorexia for me. I have even gotten back in to making sourdough, I just want to start enjoying food again. The Ray Peat diet completely took that away from me. All I could think about was metabolism and what my blood sugar was doing. And whether starch was feeding bad bacteria. I have had dreams of Ray Peat ya'll...

 

[Tarmander]

Don't forget about the glyphosate connection. The whole reason vitamin A may be poisonous may be due to glyphosate and other chemicals preventing its excretion.

 

[InChristAlone]

Don't forget about the glyphosate connection. The whole reason vitamin A may be poisonous may be due to glyphosate and other chemicals preventing its excretion.

Yes I think it is which is why I switched to only organic wheat, we already had been eating grass fed meats. And then sourdough will make it easier to break down too. Plus all those wild yeasts produce their own nutrients.

 

[Jennifer]

I have had dreams of Ray Peat ya'll...

Was he painting a picture of you? Just kidding! Haha! From 1700 to 2400 calories — go you!

 

[Kartoffel]

I have been orthorexic and don't advise restriction, but I'm mainly referring to restriction that results in low calories or fear of food. This whole thing has had me nervous about eating liver, but I didn't like it anyway! I had to gag it down with hot sauce and coke. I have been doing good with diet lately, yesterday I ended up eating 2400 calories as my in laws made a huge spread of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, bread and french silk pie. I was really enjoying food. I got 1,000 IU's of vitamin A. I am not worried about that amount, and yet I still am studying this issue because I'm a nutrition geek. It hasn't sparked orthorexia for me. I have even gotten back in to making sourdough, I just want to start enjoying food again. The Ray Peat diet completely took that away from me. All I could think about was metabolism and what my blood sugar was doing. And whether starch was feeding bad bacteria. I have had dreams of Ray Peat ya'll...

I'm glad you've overcome your fear of food, but it doesn't seem fair to blame poor Ray for it. He has warned people repeatedly not to take his suggestions as a protocoll. In fact, many health conscious people seem to develop some degree of inability to eat according to their hunger and bodies' signals. I guess this why many people that don't know anything about nutrition are often much healthier than us geeks and experts.

"Some people feel they have to eat for theoretical nutrition, rather than for hunger. And if you force yourself to eat when you're not hungry, that can lead to stress and sluggishness of your intestine."- Ray

"My recommendation is to eat to increase the metabolic rate (usually temperature and heart rate), rather than any particular foods"- Ray​

 

[Blossom]

Don't forget about the glyphosate connection. The whole reason vitamin A may be poisonous may be due to glyphosate and other chemicals preventing its excretion.

I believe this is a huge factor. Ella mentioned it early on in the thread before Garrett Smith started talking about it. Since it came into widespread use in the 1970’s that would at least partially explain why my generation (X) started having health issues earlier than boomers and millennials seem to be suffering even sooner.

 

[InChristAlone]

Was he painting a picture of you? Just kidding! Haha! From 1700 to 2400 calories — go you!

Haha it was weirdly sexual though! I mean there is truth to boosting youth hormones and libido for sure!

 

[InChristAlone]

I'm glad you've overcome your fear of food, but it doesn't seem fair to blame poor Ray for it. He has warned people repeatedly not to take his suggestions as a protocoll. In fact, many health conscious people seem to develop some degree of inability to eat according to their hunger and bodies' signals. I guess this why many people that don't know anything about nutrition are often much healthier than us geeks and experts.

"Some people feel they have to eat for theoretical nutrition, rather than for hunger. And if you force yourself to eat when you're not hungry, that can lead to stress and sluggishness of your intestine."- Ray

"My recommendation is to eat to increase the metabolic rate (usually temperature and heart rate), rather than any particular foods"- Ray​

Yes this is true! And it isn't Peat's fault but more the community that follows him.

 

[Jennifer]

I mean there is truth to boosting youth hormones and libido for sure!

Haha! Yep.