Low Toxin Supplements Dr Smith's perspective on dextrose powder supplementation

[kyle]

You should take a look at his oldest livestreams for comparison.

Ok, this is from 6 years ago. If anything he's noticeably paler and gaunt now. The mouth lines are also markedly more pronounced.

Of course you do. You've only written down criticism, vain judgment, and likened his suggestions to the classic food pyramid...

You can insist I'm some kind of meanie-head or you can take what I wrote at face value, that's on you.

And yes, the diet really looks like the some kind of boilerplate heart association recommendation from the 80s.

Everybody has an ego, yes. Keep it in check, that's all.

Look, its your guy there isn't doing himself any favors with his arrogance.

Play pretend all you want, leave me out of it.

 

[lilrawhoney]

FYI he's somewhat opposed to it.

Oh no, how dare you approach him with logic and reason! BLOCKED

 

[Peater]

I think @kyle has approached a somewhat subjective subject as obectively and respectfully as possible, for what it's worth.

 

[lilrawhoney]

Can someone who is more into Dr. Smith's protocol tell me how his clients get enough calories if he is against fructose, fats as well as starch (glucose)?

If he only supports unrefined starch - it's extremely difficult for a sick person to get enough calories from those on a low fat diet. The energy required to digest thousands of calories of rice is enormous. I see reports in his group that suggest some are struggling with basic things, there's something fundamentally missing in his approach. Without sufficient calories and glycogen, the liver is completely lost.

That’s actually the problem I was running into, because I’m someone who needs a ton of calories. Thats another reason dextrose therapy appealed to me. I also still do slightly fattier cuts of meat like chicken thighs and 80-20 grassfed ground beef.

In LYL I feel like I see more people who are not getting better than those who are and I’m starting to feel like a big part of that is overcomplicating supplements. This forum is where I see more people getting better on low A. The people who follow low A while experimenting and listening to their bodies seem to do much better than the ones who blindly follow Dr. S. In the past week alone I have built a little community of friends who said that some version of low VA works for them, but they had to stop following Dr S in order to start getting better.

 

[lilrawhoney]

Whether derived from fats, proteins or starches all energy is utilized in the form of glucose, no?

I think the question is if beans/rice can be accurately characterized as "nutrient-rich" - my experience is there isn't a substantial nutritional benefit of grains or legumes over eating honey or other sugars. Without access to meat or milk/eggs for example, nixtamalized corn or potatoes can act as something of a staple food where sugar becomes something of an "empty calorie." Beans may offer something in the way of staving off total protein deficiency, but I think over a long enough time frame they fare no better than a fruitarian.

Beans offer soluble fiber, which I’ve come to believe is extremely important.

 

[lilrawhoney]

I'm merely unfamiliar with what the man Dr. Smith advocates. His "diet" though is certainly not 'new' to me in any sense of the word, it's certainly not original. Can you really blame me if I find it a bit surprising it found any currency on a Ray Peat forum? Cut me some slack.

As far as judging a self-proclaimed health 'expert'* on their appearance, I think intent behind my observation is important because I have no ill-will toward him on the level it seems you're implying. If a driving instructor goes off on the meridian around a turn and blows through a red light nobody is going to write that off, right?

Complexion and eye circles are fair diagnostic indicators of health. We can like it or not but I don't see a way around the fact that complexion and dark eye circles don't bode as good indicators of health. Call it distasteful or whatever, fine by me but I'm not convinced it's something to completely disregard.

*Correction: self-proclaimed "World Expert" according to his twitter bio. Humility is truly a lost virtue in our age.

The diet itself holds a lot of validity and many people have found healing on it, which is why it has gained traction here. I personally don’t care much for Dr. S as a person and I don’t care for the cult like mentality he promotes in his groups or his giant ego. But there is also a lot of good information to be found. I’ve just found peace with the fact that I don’t have to like someone to respect some of the work they do.

 

[Peater]

That’s actually the problem I was running into, because I’m someone who needs a ton of calories. Thats another reason dextrose therapy appealed to me. I also still do slightly fattier cuts of meat like chicken thighs and 80-20 grassfed ground beef.

In LYL I feel like I see more people who are not getting better than those who are and I’m starting to feel like a big part of that is overcomplicating supplements. This forum is where I see more people getting better on low A. The people who follow low A while experimenting and listening to their bodies seem to do much better than the ones who blindly follow Dr. S. In the past week alone I have built a little community of friends who said that some version of low VA works for them, but they had to stop following Dr S in order to start getting better.

I think it's important to remember that the simple low VA (Or zero VA for the truly dedicated like Grant) is part of, but different from the low toxin/love your liver approaches. Although even that has factions that argue over eggs.

 

[lilrawhoney]

I think it's important to remember that the simple low VA (Or zero VA for the truly dedicated like Grant) is part of, but different from the low toxin/love your liver approaches. Although even that has factions that argue over eggs.

Very true. Does anyone know if Grant takes any kind of supplements or simply sticks to his bison, rice, and beans?

I’ve mentioned here before that Karen Hurd has tons of success with her clients and she recommends stopping all supplements completely.

 

[kyle]

@Peater Thanks Peater. There's been a lot of threads on appearances of various health figures. Health influencers are uniquely not immune to this type of thing. It's a pretty natural thing to get a "physician, heal thyself" reaction when somebody is claiming to have all the right ideas.

@lilrawhoney

many people have found healing on it

As a very casual observer I see a lot of conflicting reports to that end so I'm reserving judgment. AFAIK it takes 2 or more years to deplete vitamin A stores, I don't know how much personal anecdotes can be relied. Moreover, I don't see how its possible to avoid it eating meat. Beta carotene and retinol are in fats and muscle meats. Not as much as liver, but it is present.

 

[lilrawhoney]

@Peater Thanks Peater. There's been a lot of threads on appearances of various health figures. Health influencers are uniquely not immune to this type of thing. It's a pretty natural thing to get a "physician, heal thyself" reaction when somebody is claiming to have all the right ideas.

@lilrawhoney

As a very casual observer I see a lot of conflicting reports to that end so I'm reserving judgment. AFAIK it takes 2 or more years to deplete vitamin A stores, I don't know how much personal anecdotes can be relied. Moreover, I don't see how its possible to avoid it eating meat. Beta carotene and retinol are in fats and muscle meats. Not as much as liver, but it is present.

You can’t avoid is completely, only lower it. The A content in muscle meats is fairly low and Grant Genereaux has gotten his serum vitamin A to 0 on a diet of bison, rice, and beans. I’ve also seen conflicting reports, but so far I’m feeling good on it and the evidence against VA is pretty compelling to me. But it also took me years to come around to even trying it, because of how I perceived Garret Smith so I definitely understand.

 

[Peater]

Very true. Does anyone know if Grant takes any kind of supplements or simply sticks to his bison, rice, and beans?

I’ve mentioned here before that Karen Hurd has tons of success with her clients and she recommends stopping all supplements completely.

Maybe a good way to approach this is to try Grant's approach first (Which has worked for him for years) and add Garrett's work to try and optimise/troubleshoot?

 

[Blossom]

Yes, definitely narcissistic. Now he feels his clients/members are betraying his perfect model. I see lots of desperate members in his group.

Thor and Will backtracked from the glucose protocol immediately. Only Lia Miller did not recant. Women are the new men it seems these days.

Unfortunately, I have to agree.

AFAIK it takes 2 or more years to deplete vitamin A stores,

In hindsight my main benefits came in the first 18-24 months. Unfortunately covid came about during that timeframe and due to my job demands I went on auto pilot.
In my experience no one struggling with their health has just one problem but many things are imbalanced. Smith’s program was initially one of the main spaces people could turn to when dealing with vA toxicity but the community is expanding and hopefully more people will add to the knowledge base. Smith will ultimately hurt himself and his patients/followers by knee jerk wholesale dismissal of other people’s insights and perspectives.

mentioned here before that Karen Hurd has tons of success with her clients and she recommends stopping all supplements completely.

I agree with her. I’m admittedly a former supplement junkie and the less supplements I take the better I feel. A micellized vA supplement is was the first disastrous health choice I made in the late 90’s.

 

[mosaic01]

Not as much as liver, but it is present.

No, it's not present in meaningful amounts. I have explained it here: Low Toxin Lifestyle - Does Dr. Garrett Smith Have it Wrong, Is Anhydroretinol the Real Problem with vitamin A?

If you eat lots of meat (600g per day), you will receive at max 50 mcg retinol and 100 mcg beta-carotene per day. That's negligible.

 

[cfeehan]

Listening to Dr. S makes me cringe - often - but I have pulled down what feels like a lot of interesting knowledge, and, 6 months into a Low VA/low Toxin eating plan, I've recouped enough energy to tackle 2 things: giving up coffee, joining a gym. I also watch what Thor Torrens is up to - and he also provides some good info. And I stay true and re-read Grant G's writings often. In general, I'm doing better in the 6 months that I've moved away from RP recommendation of dairy and sweet fruits, and added more beef, rice and beans. But, I agree that the program doesn't feel completely dialed in yet.

I added some dextrose while coming down off caffeine, and it's nice. I don't know if it's a long term thing or a short-term helper, but it's getting me through it much easier than on previous attempts to cut caffeine out, which normally takes MONTHS and is filled with lots of moping about.

 

[lilrawhoney]

Unfortunately, I have to agree.

In hindsight my main benefits came in the first 18-24 months. Unfortunately covid came about during that timeframe and due to my job demands I went on auto pilot.
In my experience no one struggling with their health has just one problem but many things are imbalanced. Smith’s program was initially one of the main spaces people could turn to when dealing with vA toxicity but the community is expanding and hopefully more people will add to the knowledge base. Smith will ultimately hurt himself and his patients/followers by knee jerk wholesale dismissal of other people’s insights and perspectives.

I agree with her. I’m admittedly a former supplement junkie and the less supplements I take the better I feel. A micellized vA supplement is was the first disastrous health choice I made in the late 90’s.

Agree with you on all accounts!

 

[lilrawhoney]

Listening to Dr. S makes me cringe - often - but I have pulled down what feels like a lot of interesting knowledge, and, 6 months into a Low VA/low Toxin eating plan, I've recouped enough energy to tackle 2 things: giving up coffee, joining a gym. I also watch what Thor Torrens is up to - and he also provides some good info. And I stay true and re-read Grant G's writings often. In general, I'm doing better in the 6 months that I've moved away from RP recommendation of dairy and sweet fruits, and added more beef, rice and beans. But, I agree that the program doesn't feel completely dialed in yet.

I added some dextrose while coming down off caffeine, and it's nice. I don't know if it's a long term thing or a short-term helper, but it's getting me through it much easier than on previous attempts to cut caffeine out, which normally takes MONTHS and is filled with lots of moping about.

I begrudgingly cut out coffee a little over a month ago, but since starting dextrose I haven’t even thought about coffee and have had zero cravings for it.

 

[gabys225]

Thor and Will backtracked from the glucose protocol immediately. Only Lia Miller did not recant. Women are the new men it seems these days.

Damn, I had no idea Thor backtracked, was it in his private group or on a YT livestream?

 

[kyle]

@Blossom
"In hindsight my main benefits came in the first 18-24 months."
So you had benefits while having Vit A stores? So many testimonials I've seen are full of these kinds of qualifications...Any perceived benefit in the first 2 years is suspect as the body contains stores of vit A.

I'm not going to deny your own experience or the many others seemingly feeling better. All I can say is there's a plethora of alternative theories as to why they felt better besides eating that way. The first that comes to mind is a catabolic high as a result of such an austere diet, similar to keto and low-carb.

But what becomes clear by now is that retinol is in literally everything. Even meat, when not chosen carefully, will give a person up to 100 IU per day. Impossible to get "deficient" by normal means.

@mosaic01 Even your own conclusion doesn't inspire much faith in the argument. The fat solubles vary wildly depending on an animal's diet, I don't think isolated studies or chronometer values can be trusted to have accurate values to begin with. That said, the idea of 0 vitamin A is theoretically impossible to begin with. Waving it all away by calling it "negligible" is a baseless assumption unless a study could be designed to test the idea small doses of vit A are physiologically inactive. Even if Gant himself claims his serum levels read 0, there are limits to tests and thresholds that provide accurate readings and its known for a variety of substances, that tests of any localized area (or blood) are not reflective of across all tissues.

That said, the best option would be grain finished beef, which have a life span of 3-4 years on the low-A diet of corn and soy. (Compared to natural life spans of 15+ years on grass.) The particularities of animal husbandry and ruminant physiology aside, it certainly doesn't stand in support of the theory.

I recently had a conversation with an ex-pharma man that quit his job selling drugs to feed lots in Texas - he was completely shook by the experience and now eats only grass fed. As he explained to me, massive drug intervention was required to prevent cattle from dying before being sent to slaughter houses and he was equally disturbed by the thought of ingesting said drugs persistent in the meat. Make of that what you will.

 

[Parrot]

@lilrawhoney apart from not having coffee cravings have you noticed anything else from supplementing dextrose?

 

[mosaic01]

Damn, I had no idea Thor backtracked, was it in his private group or on a YT livestream?

In the private group. I quoted his post earlier.

Low Toxin Videos - Dr. David Stephens presentation

I thought that was you too, but I wasn’t sure! 😂 I noticed today that he deleted his comments to me. I guess he realized he sounded like an **** after other people called him out. It killed me how when I mentioned that niacin used to be on the “never touch it, it’s poison and everyone that uses...

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