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

[tallglass13]

I emailed him and he responded timely. He did state there is a correlation between Progesterone and increase in RBP. he then stated Progesterone may be the "antidote" to high VA. In his book he describes how retinoic acid is in the sebaceous glands and the acid is in the oil. the sebum then burns the skin and the hair off. Contrarily, Progesterone is known to regrow hair, and is the main chemical in Finasteride. So, anything that increases progesterone, can give protection against VA, by increasing RBP's. RBP's help transport VA "safely" according to Grant. So a lot of progesterone's benefits could be by protecting the cells and tissues from VA>

 

[franko]

I emailed him and he responded timely. He did state there is a correlation between Progesterone and increase in RBP. he then stated Progesterone may be the "antidote" to high VA. In his book he describes how retinoic acid is in the sebaceous glands and the acid is in the oil. the sebum then burns the skin and the hair off. Contrarily, Progesterone is known to regrow hair, and is the main chemical in Finasteride. So, anything that increases progesterone, can give protection against VA, by increasing RBP's. RBP's help transport VA "safely" according to Grant. So a lot of progesterone's benefits could be by protecting the cells and tissues from VA>

Very interesting stuff. I'm glad you asked him because I remember the part about the VA / RA mechanism of hair loss, but I forgot that he said that about progesterone. I just went to look it up.

"I also suspect the progesterone hormone being a strong factor too, since it is proven to increase the levels of the RBP, and thus increase the transport of retinoic acid [Source]. Therefore, I expect that women who have had children to have somewhat different incidence rates of the autoimmune diseases later in their lives than compared to those who did not. Lastly, I strongly suspect that there may be a connection with the interaction of the hormones in birth control pills and the cascading effects they have on progesterone levels too."
- ETFOH, p. 302​

And he links to this study:

Progesterone-induced secretion of a retinol-binding protein in the pig uterus.
Progesterone-induced secretion of a retinol-binding protein in the pig uterus. - PubMed - NCBI

A retinol binding protein(s) of molecular weight about 17 000 has been demonstrated in uterine secretions from pigs in the luteal phase of the oestrous cycle. This protein was induced in ovariectomized sows treated with progesterone or progesterone plus oestradiol, but not in sows given oestradiol or corn oil. The vitamin A content of secretions from progesterone-treated animals also increased relative to those in controls. The apparent Kd of the binding protein for retinol was 2.6 X 10(-6) M. The protein had some affinity for retinoic acid and oleic acid, but did not bind retinyl esters of retinal. The protein probably comprises 5% or less of the total fraction of low molecular weight proteins induced by progesterone. A similar protein was found in allantoic fluid of pregnant animals, suggesting that, like uteroferrin, it serves to transport a water-insoluble nutrient from the maternal uterine endometrium to the conceptus.​

 

[franko]

By the way, I assumed that this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway:

Don't take my word for anything, nor Grant's, nor Ray's — nor anyone else.

Do your own research. Verify the claims for yourself. As best as you can.

I don't know everything, I'm just trying to help.

Also:

Don't try the VA Elimination diet experiment casually. This uncharted territory here.
If you're going to experiment, there's going to be some risk involved.
IMO, I think it's safe to try (but what do I know?)

Read the books. Do your research. Be careful.

I'm not saying this because I believe it is dangerous to eliminate VA for a short period — I think it is a safe diet to try for a short period of time (but you'll have to verify that for yourself), but it does come with one hazard I can warn you about:

If you do go low VA for awhile it seems common to experience higher sensitivity to VA foods. My own speculative explanation being that your body is using this as an opportunity to deplete your stored VA and so a surprise high VA intake will set it over the top and cause flareups or a return of symptoms.

There are not a lot of VAE reports out there yet, but fortunately, we can learn from the people experimenting with and reporting on Carnivore diets — which, in many cases, are inadvertent VA minimal or VA deplete diets (especially if they eliminate eggs and dairy and don't eat liver). There are lots of people reporting about their experiences on a carnivore diet.

One common observation (that I can attest to) is that the body seems to become more sensitive when they've been on the diet for awhile you've been on this diet awhile. Carnivore diet people (including Jordan Peterson and his daughter) report this too.

I got mocked for my pizza anecdote — but that's not an insignificant detail. There seems to be something to this increasing sensitivity observation. Jordan Peterson talked on Joe Rogan's show about how one apple cider knocked him out for a month and he experienced worse anxiety and depression from that before he went on the carnivore diet.

So be careful when you are depleting your body's VA and then reintroducing high VA foods (purposely or accidentally), because it may aggravate your symptoms even worse than the norm before you started the VAE diet.

So you'll want to be sure that you're paying attention to what you are eating and what the VA content of that food is. (And to make matters worse, some foods may have zero VA on the label, but possibly have retinoic acid in them because of the processing of that food — e.g. my theory about why nonfat greek yogurt gave me an extreme dry eye episode). I don't know how to predict what foods might have hidden RA in them, other than to be wary of foods that would normally have retinol in their raw form (like dairy) but are somehow labeled as having zero (like nonfat dairy) in a processed or cooked for. Likely suspects for this kind of thing are canned and pre-cooked meats, and processed dairy.

So anyway, my experience has been that I became more sensitive to VA in foods after being on the VAE diet for a couple months and so little things like pizza and nonfat yogurt and watermelon — had a big negative effect.

So yeah, just a warning about that.

 

[nwo2012]

Or maybe its a sign of deficiency of a vital nutrient.

 

[Travis]

I recently stumbled across the blog of Grant Genereux, an engineer from Canada, wherein he recounts his story of how he cured himself of severe eczema as well as chronic fatigue and brain fog with an elimination diet.

But that's just the beginning of it, because he has also done what I consider to be a genius work of health / nutritional investigation and he puts forth a compelling theory that Vitamin A is the root cause of the autoimmune diseases (eczema, diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto's, Celiac, Crohn's / IBD, etc.) and is also likely to be a major contributor to depression, chronic fatigue, cancer and obesity.

He presents the case that Vitamin A (i.e. retinol) has been misunderstood since it's initial discovery due to botched experiments by the original scientists and that this misunderstanding has essentially become entrenched in nutritional science because subsequent researchers either repeated the original mistake or dismissed their contrary findings to support the original conclusion.

In short, his theory is that "Vitamin A" is not a vitamin at all, and is actually a toxin and that our bodies are equipped to safely store and utilize the substance in appropriate amounts, but when the body exceeds its storage capacity for the substance (which is primarily stored in the liver) the body has to store it in other organs and tissues (because its fat-soluble and cannot be easily excreted) and that's when it wreaks havoc on the organs and tissues and slowly destroys your body from the inside out (which we observe as "autoimmune diseases").

Vitamin A is recognized by mainstream medicine to be toxic in excess (see: Hypervitaminosis A) but part of Grant's theory is that it is way more damaging than they realize because it accumulates over time, and we can reach toxic levels the substance over time just by consuming more of it than the body can safely store / utilize.

The theory sounds preposterous at first — but if you think about it, that's only because we assume that the scientists were smart people who did good research and any substance identified as a "vitamin" must surely be so — but if you read his research, I think you'll find that he presents a small mountain of evidence to back up his theory and that the mainstream theory has giant holes in it that most people are not aware of.

Here is a link to the post where he introduces his theory: Ending the Mystery of Autoimmune

Also, I know that my personal anecdote does not prove anything, per se, but I will add that I found this theory very compelling and so I gave it a try, and I could give much more detail, but the short version of my experience is: I completely dropped my previous Peat-inspired diet and went on a minimal vitamin A diet and within about 3 and a half months it has essentially cured my chronic fatigue and depression as well as improved or eliminated a myriad of other symptoms. I'm not saying I'm feeling perfect but it has been a dramatic reversal. I feel like my health was taking a dive for a decade — going into a steeper nosedive with each passing year — and it wasn't until trying this elimination diet that I've been able to "pull up" and start gaining altitude, to start genuinely healing.

I have been experimenting with diet and supplements and hormones for almost a decade now, trying to reverse my declining health, and I have never had a dramatic healing experience like this. And the amazing part is, I didn't add anything, I only subtracted things. I stopped taking thyroid, stopped any hormones, pretty much stopped all supplements (except for some infrequent B and K vitamins and some minerals).

All I did was stop everything else and just eat a vitamin A elimination diet — which in practice for me mostly meant: no more orange juice, no more dairy, no eggs, no pork. I mostly just ate beef and rice / bread / potatoes and coconut oil and some apple juice — and some other minimal vitamin A flavorings like onions, garlic, olive oil vinaigrettes, etc. Also less often I ate other low-retinol meats like chicken and tilapia.

I may write up my personal experience in more detail later, but for now I'm just trying to urge people to read Genereux's material and I am hoping to get some discussion going on his research and his vitamin A toxicity theory. Thanks for reading.

ADDENDUM:

If you want to skip the introduction linked above and download his books on the subject directly, here are the links. Here is a quote from Genereux about them:

"I am publishing this in a free eBook ... I’ve put this information into an eBook form because it is now just way too long to include in a blog post. The book is entirely free. There are no hooks or catches to it. There is no advertising, or any monetary gain in this book for me, or anyone else. The only cost to you is your time in reading it. This book is intended for the people who have these diseases, and for their families."

Extinguishing the Fires of Hell (2015)
https://ggenereux.blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/extinguishing-the-fires-of-hell2.pdf

Poisoning For Profits (2017)
https://ggenereux.blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/poisoningforprofits.pdf

I had started reading the e-book and I am not crazy about his tone. However, I do think he is right about not going blind. I had read the older George Wald studies on photoconduction, and it appears to me that retinal in the eye serves merely as a 'sunshade.' The classic molecular explanation for vision is impossible, and what must really occur—there are many proofs for this—is that photons travel down the centre of microtubules as Förster resonance energy. Retinal undergoes cis–trans isomerization upon photic stimulation, yet instead of this serving as part of the visual process I believe that it merely attenuates all subsequent incoming light. The body has molecular mechanisms to attach retinal on rhodopsin, so do I believe it has a function, yet I don't believe that this is necessary for vision. I would actually expect a quicker adaptation to light on a vitamin A deficient diet, yet perhaps at the increased risk of damage.

Just imagine for once looking at a bright light after being in the dark for hours. This could be painful simply because the retinal molecules hadn't yet time to isomerize into its trans configuration, thereby allowing too much light down the optic nerve.

The role of retinal in vision could then be analogous to a Venetian blind, having nothing at all to do with photoconduction.

 

[InChristAlone]

I had started reading the e-book and I am not crazy about his tone. However, I do think he is right about not going blind. I had read the older George Wald studies on photoconduction, and it appears to me that retinal in the eye serves merely as a 'sunshade.' The classic molecular explanation for vision is impossible, and what must really occur—there are many proofs for this—is that photons travel down the centre of microtubules as Förster resonance energy. Retinal undergoes cis–trans isomerization upon photic stimulation, yet instead of this serving as part of the visual process I believe that it merely attenuates all subsequent incoming light. The body has molecular mechanisms to attach retinal on rhodopsin, so do I believe it has a function, yet I don't believe that this is necessary for vision. I would actually expect a quicker adaptation to light on a vitamin A deficient diet, yet perhaps at the increased risk of damage.

Just imagine for once looking at a bright light after being in the dark for hours. This could be painful simply because the retinal molecules hadn't yet time to isomerize into its trans configuration, thereby allowing too much light down the optic nerve.

The role of retinal in vision could then be analogous to a Venetian blind, having nothing at all to do with photoconduction.

I'm confused, you say there isn't a risk of going blind with a VA deficient diet yet you say there is a risk of damage. What kind of damage do you expect?

 

[dbh25]

I got mocked for my pizza anecdote —

Franko was mocked for more than 1 ridiculous claim. And the JP interview you reference, he speculates that sulfites in apple cider may be an issue. Your example was a Little Caesars pizza. I looked for the ingredients in this pizza, unfortunately there is only this-
Manufacturer declined to disclose the ingredients in this product; it may or may not contain allergens.

So I will pick something close, (unlike the wild associations you choose) so we can compare like for like.
Di Giorno Pepperoni Deep Dish Pizza-
Water, Wheat Flour Enriched (Wheat Flour, Niacin Vitamin B3,Iron Reduced, Thiamine Mononitrate Vitamin B1,Riboflavin Vitamin B2, Folic Acid Vitamin B9 ), Cheese Mozzarella Low Moisture Part Skim, Shredded( Milk Part Skim, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Milk Pasteurized, Cheese Culture, Salt,Enzymes ), Cheese Mozzarella Low Moisture Part Skim, Shredded( Milk Part Skim, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Milk Pasteurized, Cheese Culture, Salt,Enzymes ), Tomatoes Paste,Pepperoni ( Pork, Beef, Salt,Spices, Dextrose, Lactate Acid Starter Culture, Oleoresin of Paprika, Flavoring, Sodium Ascorbate Vitamin C, Flavors Natural Smoke, Sodium Nitrate Nitrite, BHA, BHT, Citric Acid ),Canola Oil, Palm Kernel Partially Hydrogenated, and, Soybeans Oil, Contains 2% or less of the Following: (, Yeast, Wheat Flour Bleached, Soybeans Oil, Palm Oil,Sugar, Whey, Corn Oil, Salt, Food Starch Modified, Phytosterol Ester, Milk Nonfat, Spices, Guar Gum, Mono and Diglycerides,Flavors, Wheat Flour, Garlic Dried,L Glutamic Acid, Konjac Gum,Citric Acid, Soy Lecithin, L Cysteine, Sucralose, Flavors Artificial, Enzymes, Annatto(Colors), Beta Carotene (Colors),Sodium Citrate

And how much is gmo? Organic?

Must be Vit. A

 

[raypeatclips]

Franko was mocked for more than 1 ridiculous claim. And the JP interview you reference, he speculates that sulfites in apple cider may be an issue. Your example was a Little Caesars pizza. I looked for the ingredients in this pizza, unfortunately there is only this-
Manufacturer declined to disclose the ingredients in this product; it may or may not contain allergens.

So I will pick something close, (unlike the wild associations you choose) so we can compare like for like.
Di Giorno Pepperoni Deep Dish Pizza-
Water, Wheat Flour Enriched (Wheat Flour, Niacin Vitamin B3,Iron Reduced, Thiamine Mononitrate Vitamin B1,Riboflavin Vitamin B2, Folic Acid Vitamin B9 ), Cheese Mozzarella Low Moisture Part Skim, Shredded( Milk Part Skim, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Milk Pasteurized, Cheese Culture, Salt,Enzymes ), Cheese Mozzarella Low Moisture Part Skim, Shredded( Milk Part Skim, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Milk Pasteurized, Cheese Culture, Salt,Enzymes ), Tomatoes Paste,Pepperoni ( Pork, Beef, Salt,Spices, Dextrose, Lactate Acid Starter Culture, Oleoresin of Paprika, Flavoring, Sodium Ascorbate Vitamin C, Flavors Natural Smoke, Sodium Nitrate Nitrite, BHA, BHT, Citric Acid ),Canola Oil, Palm Kernel Partially Hydrogenated, and, Soybeans Oil, Contains 2% or less of the Following: (, Yeast, Wheat Flour Bleached, Soybeans Oil, Palm Oil,Sugar, Whey, Corn Oil, Salt, Food Starch Modified, Phytosterol Ester, Milk Nonfat, Spices, Guar Gum, Mono and Diglycerides,Flavors, Wheat Flour, Garlic Dried,L Glutamic Acid, Konjac Gum,Citric Acid, Soy Lecithin, L Cysteine, Sucralose, Flavors Artificial, Enzymes, Annatto(Colors), Beta Carotene (Colors),Sodium Citrate

And how much is gmo? Organic?

Must be Vit. A

+1

 

[franko]

I would actually expect a quicker adaptation to light on a vitamin A deficient diet, yet perhaps at the increased risk of damage.

Just imagine for once looking at a bright light after being in the dark for hours. This could be painful simply because the retinal molecules hadn't yet time to isomerize into its trans configuration, thereby allowing too much light down the optic nerve.

The role of retinal in vision could then be analogous to a Venetian blind, having nothing at all to do with photoconduction.

On this VA depletion diet, since about 2-3 months in, I've noticed that when I go outside for the first time upon waking, from a dark room into the bright outdoors:

• my eyes adapt to the bright light much quicker than in the past
• there is less eye strain, and the eye strain does not last as long
• once my eyes adjust, I have no eye strain at all

I didn't realize it before, but I now realize I must have had a dull strain at all times when I was out on a bright sunny day — because now, I can go without sunglasses or a hat to shade my eyes and it feels completely pain-free, no strain or discomfort at all. That must developed so gradually that I didn't even notice a change — but I've only noticed now that it's gone. It feels like how I remember it used to feel when I was younger, no discomfort at all in my eyes on even the brightest sunny day and with no shade or sunglasses.

So this is another common symptom — increased sensitivity to sunlight — associated with (i.e falsely blamed on) aging that may actually just be caused by a life-long process of accumulating retinol in the body tissues as a result of excessive VA intake.

Retinal undergoes cis–trans isomerization upon photic stimulation, yet instead of this serving as part of the visual process I believe that it merely attenuates all subsequent incoming light.

This fits the observation that carotenes are plant pigments.

"Carotenes are photosynthetic pigments important for photosynthesis." - Wikipedia

And what does pigmentation also do in the skin of animals?
Block / attenuate / absorb sunlight.

 

[Travis]

I'm confused, you say there isn't a risk of going blind with a VA deficient diet yet you say there is a risk of damage. What kind of damage do you expect?

Increased light intensity admitted could perhaps damage of the lumen of microtubules, at the very tip, especially at tryptophan. There are a few amino acid side chains that will absorb photons, and this appears to be a prerequisite for vision.

Baugher, J. F. "Photolysis mechanism of aqueous tryptophan." The Journal of Physical Chemistry (1977)

'Tryptophan (Trp) is a major chromophore in most proteins and has been the subject of numerous investigations of its electronic and photochemical properties.' ―Baugher

'Previous flash photolysis studies have shown that the initial products when aqueous Trp is irradiated in the 280-nm band are the triplet state ³Trp (λ = 460 nm), the neutral radical oxidation product Tṙp (λ = 510 nm), and the radical cation Trp⁺ (λ = 580 nm).' ―Baugher​

I don't think this would present too much difficulty, as microtubule tips renewed at night. Microtubules are constructed of alternating α-tubulin and β-tubulin units, and they fit well-enough together to form tubes in vitro. All that is needed to create microtubules in vitro from a solution of the smaller tubulin subunits—rectangular cuboid proteins—are GTP and EDTA, to latter used to chelate the inhibitory Ca²⁺ ions. There are dozens of published articles detailing this, and microtubules even has its' eponymous journal.

Bergen, L.G. "Head-to-tail polymerization of microtubules in vitro. Electron microscope analysis of seeded assembly." The Journal of cell biology (1980)​

Microtubules are found in the center of all nerves surrounded by myelin. They have been detected histologically as running down the optic nerve.

 

[franko]

But it must be true jb116! Even Matt Stone might be jumping on the bandwagon as his latetst e-mail states

I meant to respond to this earlier.

I posted about Grant's work a couple months ago in the comments of Matt's blog. We had some discussion in the comments and I was happy to see that Matt has since posted a several comments on Grant's blog. Here is Matt's first comment on Grant's blog on May 27:

"Hi Grant! Someone came to my blog recently, urging me to check out your work. Really fascinating stuff! I’m about halfway through your 2nd book, and hope to read your first book next (although I hate reading on a screen). I’m excited to become your next guinea pig"
​

It is a great credit to Matt Stone that he had the willingness and open-mindedness to hear out this wild-sounding new theory and evaluate it for himself.

He has mentioned in Grant's comment section that he's going to do a blog post about it. I'm very much looking forward to hearing Matt's thoughts on the subject and to seeing what happens when he brings more attention to it.

 

[Suikerbuik]

What a small world it is.

I wonder why Matt is so interested in this.. (The theory could be true to some extent; it was accutane that deteroriated my personal health years ago and for some reason I don't feel attracted to vitamin A supplements, though if I haven't eaten liver for some time it most always gets me on fire.) But I thought Matt is/was in good health? With his talk on about how bad restrictions are, I wonder why he'd try a 'vitamin A deficient diet'..? Apparantly, thanks to you Franko for pointing this out some pages earlier, the 'blogosphere' is not to be trusted much and is fond of parroting.
Or he wants to take some of the credits, or something to sustain his writing carreer?

Either way thank you Franko for raising my consciousness on this subject.
The best thing, as others underline frequently here on the RPF, for your health and recovery is to go out, follow/develop your gut feeling, set goals and spent little time on the internet, even the RPF.

 

[postman]

Apparantly, thanks to you Franko for pointing this out some pages earlier, the 'blogosphere' is not to be trusted much and is fond of parroting.

That article is laughable and the so called report it's referring to is absolute garbage. FCLO is bad and unhealthy but it's not worse than any other cod liver oil. Obviously it's a pufa bomb, like other cod liver oil. Cod liver oil has tons of retinal too so if you believe in Grants' theory it's obviously incredibly toxic.

 

[Blossom]

Yeah exactly what I said. It was mentioned several times on this thread that beef is okay on the diet, but I pointed out that just because cronometer doesn't report A in the fat doesn't mean it isn't there. So anybody attempting the diet and only using cronometer as their proof will be misled. Beef fat will have carotenes if they had eaten grass.

I think a Peater could reduce vitamin A safely if they have a legitimate toxicity by using collagen/gelatin, eggshell powder, eating plenty of carbs and coffee alongside the red meat. There are some low vitamin A fruits, white sugar and honey that one could eat so it seems like you could mitigate some of those issues from a meat/rice or meat only diet using what we've learned from Peat yet still lower vitamin A substantially. Maybe someone should tell Grant about Peat's work?

 

[Travis]

Retinol recursor β-carotene has a built-in safety measure called carotene-9,10-monooxygenase, or simply 'the carotene cleavage enzyme.' The expression of this enzyme is under negative feedback control via retinoic acid, meaning that the more vitamin A you have are the less retinol is created. Ingesting preformed retinol bypasses the natural safety mechanism shared among herbivores & frugivores, the reason why a person can have carotenemia without accompanying hypervitaminosis A.

Bachmann, Heinrich. "Feedback regulation of β, β-carotene 15, 15′-monooxygenase by retinoic acid in rats and chickens." The Journal of nutrition (2002)

 

[InChristAlone]

And yet Peat is still not a fan of high carotene foods. Could be a reason for low thyroid. I don't get a lot of them in my diet and my thyroid is fine. 98.7 90 pulse, that is without caffeine. With it goes even higher.

 

[postman]

His theory about the Canadian cod fisheries is absolutely rediculous. Even if you had a fillet of atlantic cod (over 200g) every single day that's still only like 90 IUs of Vitamin A per. A single cup of Candian milk has 5 times that amount.

 

[InChristAlone]

His theory about the Canadian cod fisheries is absolutely rediculous. Even if you had a fillet of atlantic cod (over 200g) every single day that's still only like 90 IUs of Vitamin A per. A single cup of Candian milk has 5 times that amount.

Yeah I brought that up and Franko said maybe they were eating the livers and other foods.

 

[jb116]

hmm that reminds me, cod for dinner tonight!

 

[Brother John]

Thank you. And thank you to all the people who've been supportive and open-minded. Sorry if I haven't replied to you personally — it's true when they say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" — and so with limited time I have (perhaps foolishly) prioritized responding to criticism rather than support.

Franko, I very seldom dream as you did before reducing your VA levels. Yesterday I ate only raisins and drank some Coke and some water. Last night I had a good, long, dream. Why don't you include raisins in your VA elimination diet? By the way I read both of the books..
Thanks,
Brother John