Liver Craving/Vitamin A Observation

[stargazer1111]

@stargazer1111, have you written out your history anywhere? Eg how you came to Peat and what health problems you had, progress etc. Looking at your post history I would be interested to hear it.

It is long and complicated for sure. I'm not entirely sure what my health history is because I didn't always see a doctor and wasn't always diagnosed. I have a history of hypoglycemia, especially in response to gluten. If I eat anything with gluten in it, my blood sugar is down in the 50s within 30 minutes of eating when it should be in the 140s at least.

But, I was never really diagnosed with anything other than abnormal thyroid function. I was in the early stages of hyperthyroidism back in 2010. My TSH was quite low but my T3 and T4 values were still normal. I ate a zero carb diet for several years trying to combat my hypoglycemia issues but finally added back in starch in 2016 because I felt so bad on zero carb. I did a moderate starch diet for a while but still felt rundown and not quite right. That is when I switched to a Peat-style diet. I had some symptoms of hyperthyroidism like the shakes, slightly elevated heart rate, and night sweats back in early 2016. But, I was still under the delusion that I had hypothyroidism because of all the crap I had read online. After doing a Peat-style diet for a couple of months, I noticed an elevated resting heart rate of about 100. After this, I started having tachycardia events where my pulse would shoot up near 180 and I would end up in the ER. The last time this happened, my heart beat so fast that I lost circulation and an ambulance had to pick me up. Each time I was there they checked my thyroid numbers and found that I was very hyperthyroid. Eventually, I had a thyroid scan done that showed overall inflammation and then an ultrasound that showed two nodules. They think the excessive amount of sugar probably exacerbated an underlying thyroid condition, especially since fructose increases the conversion of T4 to T3.

For the Peat diet, I consumed full-fat milk instead of skim because I hate skim milk. I drank orange juice, grape juice, blueberry juice, mexican sprite. I ate ice cream, the carrot salad, gelatin, and liver. I eventually ditched the liver and switched to a vitamin A supplement based on studies Haidut had posted about large doses being safe. But, understanding vitamin A chemistry so much better now, I realize how foolish that was.

Vitamin A did nothing to slow down my thyroid. I became more hyperthyroid while on the vitamin A, actually.

I had to add back in some PUFA and scale back the sugar. I don't eat zero sugar now. I just do a more balanced amount of sugar and starch and get about 10 grams of PUFA per day. The PUFA definitely help calm the thyroid down. If I get PUFA too low, my hyper symptoms come back.

 

[TheDrumGuy]

Did they ever figure out why you're hyperthyroid? Eg autoimmunity? Are you on any meds for it? I wonder if the hypoglycemia is due to the hyperthyroidism. Like in this graph.

It's interesting that you can use PUFA to suppress your thyroid, kind of confirms Peat's ideas about it I guess. How long do you have to eat higher PUFA before your thyroid cools down?

 

[stargazer1111]

I definitely think Ray is correct about PUFA. I'm not so sure about sugar, though.

The PUFA acts meal to meal. Within an hour or so. It's pretty fast. But, I consume a very carefully controlled amount of it because of how toxic PUFA are. I try never to go above 10 grams.

They aren't sure. When I saw the doctor back in 2010, it was just developing and they had no diagnosis. I am negative for all antibodies so it is not autoimmune. My current endo suspects transient thyroiditis due to the high sugar diet. But, I am skeptical of this as well because I have a family history of thyroid disorders and I had symptoms before the Peat-style diet. It's just that the Peating made it much worse.

Yeah, my glucose tolerance curve is exactly like that and it gets markedly worse with gluten ingestion. Eating extra protein with each meal eliminates the hypoglycemia as long as I stay away from gluten. When people consume a zero carb diet, they actually see glucose spikes several hours after a meal. I believe this to be from the glucagon signaling gluconeogenesis from the amino acids. If you eat enough protein and carbs at each meal, your glucose should stay out of the hypo range because as the glucose begins to drop once the carbs have been processed, the gluconeogenesis from the protein kicks in to keep the glucose from dropping too low.

 

[stargazer1111]

Oh, and they put me on propranolol (a beta blocker) to keep the heart rate down. When I eat correctly now, even with the elevated thyroid function, my resting pulse is back down between 60-80.

 

[Terma]

@stargazer1111 I look forward to seeing how your ideas on RBP pan out.

Obviously they're very interesting from the perspective of anyone who's taken accutane/isotretinoin.

Negative effects from vitamin A including memory, mood and headaches can all apply to me at times. I still take it because over longer periods I turn out better with it than not, even if it sucks on the day of.

Have you ever seen this paper? Regulation of retinoic acid signaling in the embryonic nervous system: a master differentiation factor - ScienceDirect

I've based all my perspective about vitamin A from things articulated in it (which 50 other papers fail to do). A different idea is that vitamin A can trigger brain and memory issues through inducing "growth factory dependency" (NGF, BDNF, NAD/SIRT1, etc.) followed by insufficiency. Because at its core retinoic acid is the major differentiator, while this is "positive", if too much differentiation occurs in the absence of sufficient growth factors to the differentiated cells, they can't sustain the differentiated state and commit apoptosis. On a cell population level this ends up killing too many precursor cells for no purpose and net effect is compromised proliferation rate/capacity and neurogenesis, eventually degeneration.

The paper (and another, I forget) also makes some good notes about the blood forms and distribution/uptake of the vitamin, and how it's not controlled the same the way other hormones are. So there is potential for toxicity through that mechanism alone, as in, insufficient nutrients or any disease state which makes them biounavailable, while consuming huge doses of retinol or ATRA, is a game of dice. For example my accutane course was during a time I wasn't health-conscious and practically guaranteed had a ton of deficiencies to begin with and worse. These days I'm more careful about when/how I take it.

Anyhow this has largely been my assumption on why I had/get issues from vitamin A, rather than compromised RBP, but whatever you find about RBP would interest me just as much, thought I would throw this in.

 

[stargazer1111]

I have not seen that paper and had not heard of that mechanism. Thanks for sharing! I will make some time to read it and see what I think.

My initial thought is that retinoic acid probably isn't the issue because it has a very short half-life. If there was a frank toxicity of retinol (meaning too much retinol rather than too little RBP), I could see excessive conversion to retinoic acid being a problem. But, the research indicates that one of the biomarkers for Alzheimer's is a deficiency or even a total absence of RBP.

 

[Elize]

Greetings to all. I found that Vitamin A lowered my cortisol a lot, when having Vitamin A I become shaky, brain fog, body aches, hair loss and extreme exhaustion To be honest I just decided to drop all supplements and only take my thyroid medication daily and Haidut's Vitamin K which I use three time a week. I still have problems with adrenaline issues due to low levels of cortisol other than the low cortisol which I suspect is due to low glucagon levels I am find. Having sugar and orange juice made me far worse - I have tried a number of times to include it.

 

[TheDrumGuy]

Greetings to all. I found that Vitamin A lowered my cortisol a lot, when having Vitamin A I become shaky, brain fog, body aches, hair loss and extreme exhaustion To be honest I just decided to drop all supplements and only take my thyroid medication daily and Haidut's Vitamin K which I use three time a week. I still have problems with adrenaline issues due to low levels of cortisol other than the low cortisol which I suspect is due to low glucagon levels I am find. Having sugar and orange juice made me far worse - I have tried a number of times to include it.

How much were you taking?

 

[stargazer1111]

Greetings to all. I found that Vitamin A lowered my cortisol a lot, when having Vitamin A I become shaky, brain fog, body aches, hair loss and extreme exhaustion To be honest I just decided to drop all supplements and only take my thyroid medication daily and Haidut's Vitamin K which I use three time a week. I still have problems with adrenaline issues due to low levels of cortisol other than the low cortisol which I suspect is due to low glucagon levels I am find. Having sugar and orange juice made me far worse - I have tried a number of times to include it.

Yes, vitamin A does lower cortisol so I am not surprised. Sugar and OJ do the same thing to me. I get extremely jittery and panicky within an hour or two. I still get some sugar, just not a ton of it. Most of my carbs come from starch and I include a lot of protein and fat with it. Starch + protein + fat seems to lower my adrenaline and keep my blood sugar steady the most of any combo I have tried.

 

[Elize]

Thanks Stargazer, The starches I use are Japanese Yams, or what I know as sweet potatoes, squash and as fats I use coconut oil, olive oil and home made ghee. Do you eat several times a day or only three times? What are the ratios of fat, protein and carbs that you have. I seem to have more adrenaline when eating 6 times a day. I try the Bullet Proof coffee idea - I use Gluten Free tea instead. I take 1/4 of a cup of Macadamia milk from Australia - buy from Amazon or Vitacost, raw eggs, ghee, coconut oil and stevia. Sugar makes me sweat a lot. I boil the eggs for 1/2 minute, blend them in a blender, add the hot milk, the hot made tea as the hot drinks cook the eggs, add the coconut oil, stevia and ghee. I have this at 7am then I have food at 10:30 and again at 5 pm - this seems to work better for me. I find that I wake up every morning at 3 am and then struggle to fall asleep again. I tried taking honey when I go to bed at 10 pm but then find myself very shaky the next day.

 

[Frankdee20]

Damn, vitamin A is evil. I take 10,000 IU occasionally, 2x week, to balance my D3 intake. I may just go back to eating liver.

 

[Dave Clark]

Someone with food sensitivity would be wise to have adequate vitamin A levels, since they are important to reset dendritic cells and mucosal immunity. I somehow wonder if we are not too paranoid of taking vitamin A supplements, noting that most people do not consume enough foods high in vitamin A, and this may be related to the current epidemic of food sensitivities and food intolerances. Of course, depending on your diet, you may not need any supplementation, but if you are not eating liver, not taking cod liver oil, etc., it may be wise to have at least 10,000 units/day in supplementation.

 

[Frankdee20]

Someone with food sensitivity would be wise to have adequate vitamin A levels, since they are important to reset dendritic cells and mucosal immunity. I somehow wonder if we are not too paranoid of taking vitamin A supplements, noting that most people do not consume enough foods high in vitamin A, and this may be related to the current epidemic of food sensitivities and food intolerances. Of course, depending on your diet, you may not need any supplementation, but if you are not eating liver, not taking cod liver oil, etc., it may be wise to have at least 10,000 units/day in supplementation.

You're right, aside from animal livers, and their sausage preparations, next best sources are the omega 3 fish, that is anti-Peat.

 

[Wagner83]

The interrelationship of thyroid hormones with vitamin A and zinc nutritional status in patients with chronic hepatic and gastrointestinal disorders. - PubMed - NCBI

To define the role of vitamin A, retinol binding protein, and zinc deficiency in producing the thyroid hormone abnormalities found in chronic illness, we studied 62 clinically stable patients with hepatic and gastrointestinal disorders. Serum triiodothyronine (T3) and free T3 index (FT3I) were depressed compared to controls (p less than 0.05) in the patients. Retinol binding protein and prealbumin levels correlated with both T3 and FT3I (p less than 0.01), whereas vitamin A levels did not. Vitamin A therapy in patients with documented vitamin A deficiency produced an increase in T3, thyroxine (T4), FT3I, FT4I, and free T3 by dialysis, with a concomitant increase in retinol binding protein and no alteration in prealbumin concentrations. Zinc-deficient patients had significantly depressed T3 and FT3I (p less than 0.001) and increased prolactin levels (p less than 0.01). Zinc supplementation failed to return any of these parameters to normal. Vitamin A therapy in normals produced a transient decrease in T3 and T4 after 1 wk of therapy, but after a further 2 wk, thyroid function returned to normal. Our data suggest a causal relationship between the pathogenesis of deranged vitamin A-retinol binding protein metabolism and the low T3 syndrome either by interfering with T4 entry into tissues or by directly affecting the enzymatic conversion of T4 to T3.

The inter-relationship of thyroid hormones, vitamin A and their binding proteins following acute stress. - PubMed - NCBI

The effects of surgical stress on the metabolism of the retinol-binding-protein-thyroxine-binding-prealbumin complex were investigated. The immediate postsurgical period was characterized by a rapid decline in the serum concentration of retinol, retinol binding protein and triiodothyronine and an increase in the 24 h urinary excretion of retinol, retinol-binding-protein and thyroxine. Similar, but less pronounced, changes were seen in other subjects suffering acute myocardial infarction but were not observed in normal healthy euthyroid males or in pre-operative euthyroid patients. The preparation of specific anti-retinol binding protein anti-serum and the use of this in 'monorocket' immunoelectrophoresis are also described.

So perhaps stress and thyroid function can affect RBP and vitamin A needs or tolerance. That would fit well with Ray's and @haidut's ideas but then you said you eperienced severe hyperthyroidism@stargazer1111

 

[raypeatclips]

Damn, vitamin A is evil. I take 10,000 IU occasionally, 2x week, to balance my D3 intake. I may just go back to eating liver.

Any elaboration on why it's evil?

 

[Frankdee20]

Any elaboration on why it's evil?

Yeah disregard, the only evil on this forum is me.