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

[mayweatherking]

This post below if from Matt over on his site:

Matt says: "Yeah the asthma was weird. Have had an asthmatic reaction to pet dander for 20 years, but last summer I got some exposure, had the typical couple days of wheezing, and then it just never cleared up like it always did in the past. I didn’t want to do anything about it really, so I fell into the temptation of using some inhalers. Within weeks the asthma became extremely severe, and I was literally dependent on inhalers to survive.

That’s when I was like “**** it,” and started resorting to extreme measures to clear it up. And I have. First with fruit (although I couldn’t eat much of anything with that fruit without flaring up, so I had to quit that), and now a zero vitamin A diet with beef as the centerpiece. 30 days in and I’m 95% asthma free, off the inhalers completely, and doing it all at a dry climate at 7,000 feet of elevation (which always made my asthma worse in the past).

So it’s cool. I miss pizza though, lol.

And yeah, amen on being skeptical of supplements. I’ve been very skeptical of all supplements, and that may have been my saving grace if this vitamin A story proves to be at least partially true."

so he writes a book on health claiming heat cures everything and eating cheeseburgers and pizza and cookies all day and no liquids, then switches to eating potatos and beef and rice only and his proof is a guy said it and there's two adults who have been doing it and it is "working". it seems like lack of thyroid due to whatever reason (food intolerance, not enough sugar, vit D, whatever wahtever) is the real reason for the vitamin A issues?

 

[InChristAlone]

Yeah he's going down that same road of restriction because it's the only thing that works. I'm very surprised. He's like the king of #****diets so he must have been suffering pretty bad.

 

[tca300]

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[jitsmonkey]

Interesting post, and I don't mean to keep banging the same drum, but Peat has said asthma and allergies are part of a vitamin D deficiency. He told me once I raised my vitamin D levels I would probably notice I didn't need to take anti histamines anymore. I think lowering vitamin A is masking a vitamin D deficiency. Id be interested to know if Matt has had any vitamin D blood tests recently to shut me up!

+1
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x1000

 

[inthedark]

I managed to greatly reduce my asthma (which has recurred in adulthood due to an extended period of mold exposure) by taking pregnenolone, purposely getting lots of sunlight every day, and doing standard "Peaty" things WHILE increasing Vitamin A consumption through pretty heavy supplementation.

As has been mentioned here many times, this restriction diet restricts not only A, bit various other potential allergens. Not only that but it seems that avoiding A only serves to make people that do it MORE sensitive to carotene and retinol. So presumably you're on that A deficient diet forever.

Stone is a chronic bandwagon jumper and his blog is full of things he's been excited about, touted as THE answer, then tossed aside or found ineffective.

 

[inthedark]

so he writes a book on health claiming heat cures everything and eating cheeseburgers and pizza and cookies all day and no liquids, then switches to eating potatos and beef and rice only and his proof is a guy said it and there's two adults who have been doing it and it is "working". it seems like lack of thyroid due to whatever reason (food intolerance, not enough sugar, vit D, whatever wahtever) is the real reason for the vitamin A issues?

Yep, I think the issue here is likely intolerance to vitamin A due to a deficit of D or a thyroid/hormonal issue. Restricting A is probably only one lever that acts on these, but this theory presents it as the one most important thing.

 

[EIRE24]

I'd tend to agree with what some have said on here about the vitamin D being too low. Whenever I eat liver or take vitamin A for acne it seemed to get worse. Any sort of sunshine even tanning beds always cleared up my face pretty quickly. The two need to be well balanced.

 

[Suikerbuik]

But before jumping to conclusions/ general agreement regarding vitamin D, I would first like to see their numbers; though even their 'blood numbers' won't shed light on everything as it's all about (local) receptor sensitivity. And vitamin D in that regard is hugely complex matter with a lot unknows and also false assumptions, like 1,25-OH as a metabolite being predominantly preduced in the kidneys, which is possibly not true.

 

[nwo2012]

so he writes a book on health claiming heat cures everything and eating cheeseburgers and pizza and cookies all day and no liquids, then switches to eating potatos and beef and rice only and his proof is a guy said it and there's two adults who have been doing it and it is "working". it seems like lack of thyroid due to whatever reason (food intolerance, not enough sugar, vit D, whatever wahtever) is the real reason for the vitamin A issues?

Yes as RP has replied to this latest fad, elimination diets work well until deficiencies creep in.
Stone ate all the total ***t in the world. Jeez everything with starch. No wonder he has asthma ffs.

 

[Amazoniac]

@raypeatclips

Thanks for the information. I'm looking more for the metabolic explanation of vitamin A vs vitamin D, e.g. cyclical adrenoceptor sensitivity and PPARγ activity, glucocorticoid/HPA maintenance, etc.,.

So if vitamins A&D are antagonistic to each other, could we reliably expect vitamin A to be beneficial in the case of vitamin D excess? Certainly...

View attachment 10397

In these cases it is apparent that an excess of either vitamin is detrimental to proper growth, and that an extreme excess is detrimental to life. Antagonizing the excess appears to partially ameliorate the negative effects. I agree that the ratio is important, but is it more logical to reduce the intake of a potentially toxic substance? Or to increase the intake of a different potentially toxic substance? The most healthy and least pathological specimens were the ones that received no supplementation.

Diokin, that's an interesting find. To be fair they didn't respect raypeatclips' work since their greatest ratio was less than 2:1 for A/D. What if animals became healthier than controls as it was increased?

 

[Such_Saturation]

Been “detoxing vitamin A” (ran out before I could buy more). Got some pimples within 10 days of running out. Pimples at 27 years old

 

[burtlancast]

The theory put forward by Grant Genereux is that vitamin A, a fat soluble vitamin, is stored away in the liver. The liver does NOT have unlimited storage capacity for vitamin A, so when the liver becomes saturated with it, it gets stored as retinoic acid (a nasty, inflammation-inducing substance used for chemotherapy and acid peels and the like) all over the body–where it becomes a trigger for inflammation and a belligerent response from the immune system.

No.

This is only the secondary part of Genereux' theory, which by the way is following orthodox scientific knowledge already established for +70 years ( too much Vitamin A is toxic).

Genereux' main point is: "Viatmin A is not a vitamin, at all'.

'This investigation has now led me to make a rather profound discovery. That discovery is that vitamin A is not a vitamin, at all. Nope; in no way is retinol, nor it’s precursors, a vitamin. That grand theory and the esteemed vitamin label given to this toxic molecule is rooted in nothing more than botched science.

The one problem with this assertion is that DNA has receptors for retinoic acid, called by Genereux a "toxin".

Which means DNA has receptors for toxins.

Which is of course retarded.

To conceal the absurdity, people promoting Genereux will talk only about the problems of retinoic acid toxicity and forget about the assertion of it not being a Vitamin at all.

And then, all you end up with is the orthodox scientific data of retinoic acid being dangerous in excess.

Which means simply arguing for the sake of it.

Why not?

Life can be boring sometimes.

 

[danielbb]

I started eating liver because of the recommendation by Ray Peat. I seem to feel much better the next day after eating it. When you look at the nutrient profile of liver, it is loaded with Vitamin A and also a healthy amount of B12 among other nutrients. I wondered about the high Vitamin A content of liver. Is it because the liver of a cow, for example, needs large amounts of Vitamin A to operate its detox function correctly? Is it because the liver of the cow is detoxing Vitamin A from the cow? I am a newbie here and apologize in advance if these are dumb questions about the liver.

 

[Suikerbuik]

The one problem with this assertion is that DNA has receptors for retinoic acid, called by Genereux a "toxin".

Which means DNA has receptors for toxins.

Which is of course retarded.

What is this assumption based on? PXR is also a xenobiotic sensing nuclear receptor and there are more. I am not saying Grant is right, but the study you cited somewhere as evidence for vitamin A being completely harmless wasn't full proof either, at least I was not intrigued by that one. (The study with lymphatic delivery)

 

[EIRE24]

Been “detoxing vitamin A” (ran out before I could buy more). Got some pimples within 10 days of running out. Pimples at 27 years old

How much do you take? I get pimples when I take it. Strange.

 

[Blossom]

I started eating liver because of the recommendation by Ray Peat. I seem to feel much better the next day after eating it. When you look at the nutrient profile of liver, it is loaded with Vitamin A and also a healthy amount of B12 among other nutrients. I wondered about the high Vitamin A content of liver. Is it because the liver of a cow, for example, needs large amounts of Vitamin A to operate its detox function correctly? Is it because the liver of the cow is detoxing Vitamin A from the cow? I am a newbie here and apologize in advance if these are dumb questions about the liver.

Liver is major storage organ for vitamin A. I would keep eating liver per Ray's recommendation as long as you feel better eating it. This idea being discussed about vitamin A differs from RP's view.

 

[benaoao]

The other topic below about Genereux and vitamin A has a great post by @sunraiser

ADK should be balanced & Exercising always helps incredibly.

 

[burtlancast]

What is this assumption based on? PXR is also a xenobiotic sensing nuclear receptor and there are more.

Genereux' preposterous theory is that DNA has receptors for toxins that will be then incorporated into body structures, stocked in the liver and used as hormones acting on nearly all cells.

The bigger the lie...

 

[Suikerbuik]

Yeah common sense you'd say, but that is still not evidence. Assuming you are talking about RXR as that ' DNA receptor', remind yourself that Ray argues about receptors as proteins not uniquely binding to one thing.
It is humans who called that protein retinoic acid receptor after all. For instance, had it happen they discovered DHA binding and activating that protein first, they could have just named it DHAR, with albumin as its transporting protein and the human brain as its main storage.

 

[Amazoniac]

Not sure:

Spoiler

But what's really odd is that something happened after 25 days or so, up until then it didn't make a difference their ratio on weight of animals. The higher the vitamin A dose, the milder the petrification drop.