You've done so much healing that I can't see you not improving on any lingering issues. :)
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Dear Carnivore Dieters, A Muscle Meat Only Diet is Extremely Healing Because it is a Low "vitamin A" Diet. This is Why it Works so Well...
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Low Toxin Diet Grant Genereux's Theory Of Vitamin A Toxicity
Thank you, I sincerely mean that and hope the same for you.
Thank you.
Wow, this thread is 285 pages... Did anyone follow the whole thread and summarised the main points, by any chance? Over the years I have read anecdotes shared by people responding poorly to increasing retinol in the diet (supplements or liver) and I myself have concluded it harms me after years of use so I feel that my original understanding of it based on reading Dr Peat's articles is lacking.
I’ve read it all I believe but I haven’t officially summarized it. There seems to be two main camps- the people who believe it is (or can be) toxic and those that don’t. After it’s all said and done I’m leaning toward the impression that many people in modern times are easily overloaded through supplements, fortified foods and constant access to foods that would have been seasonal before mass transport. It was also mentioned earlier in the thread that our modern lifestyle (sedentary, less sunlight, antibiotics/less infection and modern farming practices ex. glyphosate) could be creating a situation where we don’t need as much or utilize as much and it’s building up to harmful levels in some people. I think it’s not a simple yay or nay on absolute toxicity but will depend on the person and their history, metabolism, hereditary factors, environment and much more... Sorry to be so vague, I hope more people chime in!
Amazoniac
Member
It's logical to expect some sort of desensitization after chronic high exposure to poisonoids, and this is what's supposed to happen, not the opposite as has been suggested throughout the thread. There should be upregulation of degradation pathways up until these are damaged (which must not be the case here); an example would be the chemotherapeutic doses in cancer treatment losing efficacy because of this, it's a challenge in their way. Therefore if you appear to have issues with excess storage, it's probably due to something else, like being a poor oxidizer for a variety of reasons.
After a while the person likely adapts to greater amounts and eventually starts calling for more than usual; it should be supported instead of eliminated altogether. Removing it from diet abruptly is another shock that might signal conservation.
- Human cytochromes P450 in health and disease
- Regulation of a highly specific retinoic acid-4-hydroxylase (CYP26A1) enzyme and all-trans-retinoic acid metabolism in human intestinal, liver, endothelial, and acute promyelocytic leukemia cells
- Predictive factors of all-trans-retinoic acid related complications during induction therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia
Steph's writings can be sensationalistic:
- RoundUp (Glyphosate) Finally Proven Toxic - It Depletes Glycine ('p450' in the second link)
After a while the person likely adapts to greater amounts and eventually starts calling for more than usual; it should be supported instead of eliminated altogether. Removing it from diet abruptly is another shock that might signal conservation.
- Human cytochromes P450 in health and disease
- Regulation of a highly specific retinoic acid-4-hydroxylase (CYP26A1) enzyme and all-trans-retinoic acid metabolism in human intestinal, liver, endothelial, and acute promyelocytic leukemia cells
- Predictive factors of all-trans-retinoic acid related complications during induction therapy for acute promyelocytic leukemia
Steph's writings can be sensationalistic:
- RoundUp (Glyphosate) Finally Proven Toxic - It Depletes Glycine ('p450' in the second link)
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Hey everyone just a little update -
im coming to 10 months on this diet, super strict these last 4 (beef/rice/beans). I'm pretty sure i can get off this diet without issues in maybe a month or two =D
My remaining symptom is some dandruff every once in a while and some mood swings which i'm sure come from the strictness of this diet.
these are the symptoms I no longer have:
Puffy red (blue in some lighting) lips, excess collagen,dry/bleeding knuckles, hair thinning, mental dullness, depression, bloating, sunlight sensitivity, i don't look anemic anymore, scaly skin
im coming to 10 months on this diet, super strict these last 4 (beef/rice/beans). I'm pretty sure i can get off this diet without issues in maybe a month or two =D
My remaining symptom is some dandruff every once in a while and some mood swings which i'm sure come from the strictness of this diet.
these are the symptoms I no longer have:
Puffy red (blue in some lighting) lips, excess collagen,dry/bleeding knuckles, hair thinning, mental dullness, depression, bloating, sunlight sensitivity, i don't look anemic anymore, scaly skin
Amazoniac
Member
I wasn't on my computer and ended up posting the wrong link, this is the one I meant:
- Acute promyelocytic leukemia and differentiation therapy: molecular mechanisms of differentiation, retinoic acid resistance and novel treatments
Amazoniac
Member
Wrong as well. Right one:- Predictive factors for all-trans retinoic acid-related differentiation syndrome in patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia
Now it should make sense if you read them in order.
Amazoniac
Member
"The effects of vitamin A and retinoids on mitochondrial function were well investigated in vitro. However, recently it was demonstrated that intragastric (gavage) vitamin A supplementation at pharmacological doses (from 1,000 to 9,000 IU/kg·day−1) for 3, 7, or 28 days induced redox (Table 1) and bioenergetics (Table 2) impairments in rat brain regions and other tissues of adult male Wistar rats, as discussed below. Additionally, some abnormalities in behavioral tasks were observed, as, for example, in the open field and light-dark box [63–66]."
"Vitamin A supplementation increased mitochondrial superoxide anion radical (O2 −•) production (Table 3) and induced lipid peroxidation, protein carbonylation and nitration, and oxidation of protein thiol groups in mitochondrial membranes isolated from rat cerebral cortex, cerebellum, substantia nigra, striatum, frontal cortex, and hypothalamus [67–69, 76, 78]. In the same rat brain areas, increased complex I–III enzyme activity was observed [67–69, 76, 78]. However, a proportional increase in the following complexes of the mitochondrial electron transfer chain (METC) was not found as expected. For example, vitamin A supplementation induced a decrease in complex IV enzyme activity in rat cerebellum, striatum, and hypothalamus [67, 68, 76]. On the other hand, any change in some complexes activities was not observed as follows: complexes II, II-III and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) (cerebellum) [76]; complex IV (substantia nigra) [67]; complexes II-III and SDH (striatum, hypothalamus) ([67], [68], resp.); complexes II-III, SDH, and complex IV (frontal cortex) [69] (Table 2). Such impairment in electron flux between mitochondrial complexes may favor electron leakage from the electron transfer chain, since the electron flux is higher between some complexes, but the reduction of O2 to water is not occurring at the same rate due to unaltered or even decreased complex IV enzyme activity (Figure 1). Also, more O2 is available to react with electron donors and becomes O2 −• [79, 80]. Furthermore, increased complexes I–III, II-III, and II and SDH and complex IV enzyme activities were also reported in the liver of the animals that receive vitamin A supplementation at clinical doses for 28 days [72]. These findings are different from that observed in brain regions of the animals that received vitamin A for the same period, as described above, since it was demonstrated that complex IV enzyme activity was increased at a very similar rate when compared to complexes I–III in rat liver. However, such increment in the electron flux between the electron transfer chain (ETC) complexes was accompanied by a proportional increase in O2 −• production (Table 3). This result may suggest that O2 −• is being produced by mitochondria isolated from vitamin A-treated rats by a mechanism that is not obligatorily associated with uncoupling of the ETC activity."
"Vitamin A supplementation increased mitochondrial superoxide anion radical (O2 −•) production (Table 3) and induced lipid peroxidation, protein carbonylation and nitration, and oxidation of protein thiol groups in mitochondrial membranes isolated from rat cerebral cortex, cerebellum, substantia nigra, striatum, frontal cortex, and hypothalamus [67–69, 76, 78]. In the same rat brain areas, increased complex I–III enzyme activity was observed [67–69, 76, 78]. However, a proportional increase in the following complexes of the mitochondrial electron transfer chain (METC) was not found as expected. For example, vitamin A supplementation induced a decrease in complex IV enzyme activity in rat cerebellum, striatum, and hypothalamus [67, 68, 76]. On the other hand, any change in some complexes activities was not observed as follows: complexes II, II-III and succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) (cerebellum) [76]; complex IV (substantia nigra) [67]; complexes II-III and SDH (striatum, hypothalamus) ([67], [68], resp.); complexes II-III, SDH, and complex IV (frontal cortex) [69] (Table 2). Such impairment in electron flux between mitochondrial complexes may favor electron leakage from the electron transfer chain, since the electron flux is higher between some complexes, but the reduction of O2 to water is not occurring at the same rate due to unaltered or even decreased complex IV enzyme activity (Figure 1). Also, more O2 is available to react with electron donors and becomes O2 −• [79, 80]. Furthermore, increased complexes I–III, II-III, and II and SDH and complex IV enzyme activities were also reported in the liver of the animals that receive vitamin A supplementation at clinical doses for 28 days [72]. These findings are different from that observed in brain regions of the animals that received vitamin A for the same period, as described above, since it was demonstrated that complex IV enzyme activity was increased at a very similar rate when compared to complexes I–III in rat liver. However, such increment in the electron flux between the electron transfer chain (ETC) complexes was accompanied by a proportional increase in O2 −• production (Table 3). This result may suggest that O2 −• is being produced by mitochondria isolated from vitamin A-treated rats by a mechanism that is not obligatorily associated with uncoupling of the ETC activity."
Amazoniac
Member
That’s wonderful! Thanks for the update.
Amazoniac
Member
From the last link:
- The bioavailability of α- and β-carotene is affected by gut microflora in the rat
- Colonic Mucosal Bacteria Are Associated with Inter-Individual Variability in Serum Carotenoid Concentrations
"Ogston coined the genus Staphylococcus to describe grapelike clusters of bacteria (staphylo means grape in Greek) recovered in pus from surgical abscesses (1). Shortly thereafter, Rosenbach isolated the major human pathogen in pure culture and proposed the species name S. aureus (golden, in Latin) for its characteristic surface pigmentation in comparison with less virulent staphylococci that normally colonize the skin surface (2). Subsequent studies of the S. aureus pigment have unraveled an elaborate biosynthetic pathway that produces a series of carotenoids (3). Similar carotenoids produced in dietary fruits and vegetables are well recognized as potent antioxidants by virtue of their free-radical scavenging properties and exceptional ability to quench singlet oxygen (4, 5)."
"Golden color imparted by carotenoid pigments is the eponymous feature of the human pathogen S. aureus. We have used a molecular genetic analysis pairing mutagenesis and heterologous expression to show that this hallmark phenotype is in fact a virulence factor, serving to protect the bacterium from phagocytic killing through its antioxidant properties. In the present era, effective control of this important disease agent is compromised by rapid evolution of antimicrobial resistance in both community and hospital settings (16, 17). In principle, the inhibition of carotenogenesis may offer a novel therapeutic approach to the treatment of complicated S. aureus infections, effectively rendering the pathogen more susceptible to clearance by normal host innate immune defenses."
"Golden color imparted by carotenoid pigments is the eponymous feature of the human pathogen S. aureus. We have used a molecular genetic analysis pairing mutagenesis and heterologous expression to show that this hallmark phenotype is in fact a virulence factor, serving to protect the bacterium from phagocytic killing through its antioxidant properties. In the present era, effective control of this important disease agent is compromised by rapid evolution of antimicrobial resistance in both community and hospital settings (16, 17). In principle, the inhibition of carotenogenesis may offer a novel therapeutic approach to the treatment of complicated S. aureus infections, effectively rendering the pathogen more susceptible to clearance by normal host innate immune defenses."
- The bioavailability of α- and β-carotene is affected by gut microflora in the rat
- Colonic Mucosal Bacteria Are Associated with Inter-Individual Variability in Serum Carotenoid Concentrations
Amazoniac
Member
- Nothing Boring About Boron
"Boron supplementation was found to increase mean trabecular density and thickness, trabecular bone volume, and cortical bone volume of femurs from rats with retinoic-induced osteoporosis.[39; in 中文]"
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Ihor
Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2018
- Messages
- 216
By the way, I was gutting the history of the topic and came across a blog in which Franco said he would write further about his experience with vitamin A when he left the forum. After all this time, there was no activity on the blog, and only for the first time in a year after his last post here, an update about his affairs appeared there this week. In general, he writes that nothing has changed, he continues the low A diet, he feels good, but when he introduces products with a little more vitamin A, he again gets the known symptoms of toxicity, so he believes that he is still not completely depleted from the vitamin toxicity and continues the diet, something like Grant.
However, although the length of the text of his post is quite large and he has already left a long time, but in the end it was he who once laid the foundation for this topic here, so I will nevertheless leave his full text here, otherwise, if by the rules of the posts its length exceeds the permissible , then moderators can simply delete it and just leave a link.
- Vitamin A Depletion Diet: My 17-Month Update:
"Vitamin A Depletion Diet: My 17-Month Update
September 1, 2019
Sorry for the long radio silence. I’ll spare you the lengthy excuses and just get right to the update.
I have been on the Vitamin A Depletion (VAD) diet since April of 2018, so it’s been about 1 year and 5 months now.
Overall, the results have remained positive and I’m very happy with my health improvements, but my experiment is not over yet because I’m pretty sure I have not yet depleted my body’s Vitamin A (VA) stores — and I’ll explain why I think that later.
The Overall Timeline
I’ll attempt to estimate my overall health, on a scale of 1 to 10, relative to my own health experience, so a 1 is the worst health I’ve had, and a 10 is the best. My mood and energy levels (i.e. lack of depression, chronic fatigue and anxiety) are the most salient indicator for me, and my physical symptoms seem to strongly correlate with them anyway. So the following numbers are my mood/energy/health estimate which are, by definition, the inverse of my levels of depression, chronic fatigue, lethargy, and anxiety.
So my overall mood/energy/health went from a 1 (worst I’d ever felt) before I started the diet, to a 10 (best I’d felt in over a decade) after about two or three months on the VAD diet, then back down to a 7 ( feeling pretty good) after a couple more months, and that’s been my “summer baseline” since then because it went down to a 5-6 over the winter and back up when summer returned.
Of course there have been ups and downs, but those are the average or baseline measurements for the time periods.
The worst I’ve felt on this diet was over the winter and it was maybe a 4 (feeling okay or slightly down), but that’s still so much preferable to how I felt before the diet.
Mind you, this overall health estimate doesn’t mean that all my symptoms are at a 7 out of 10 — many of them are either cured or they do not reoccur as long as I don’t eat a trigger food.
What do I eat now?
I have kept my diet pretty minimal and consistent (except for occasional experiments of trying new foods).
My standard diet as of right now is:
• lean beef (most often it’s 93% lean, 100% grass-fed ground beef)
• white rice (or rice noodles)
• white corn chips or homemade white corn flour tortillas (masa harina)
• coconut oil or high oleic sunflower oil*
• soy sauce or white vinegar
• salt
• “lemonade” with no VA, made with water, citric acid, vitamin C, sugar & salt
* High oleic sunflower oil has a fatty acid profile similar to olive oil, but its clear in color so I think it is very low in carotenoids.
Here is one dietary change worth mentioning that I made within the last few months: I used to eat white bread pretty much every day, but lately I have experimented with cutting out gluten for awhile and then re-introducing it and I found that gluten actually does aggravate my symptoms. So I am now trying out eliminating bread/wheat as well.
As you can see, on my standard diet, my main source (by far) of my VA intake is the VA in beef. The rest are plant foods which probably have only minute amounts of carotenoids, if they have any at all.
Right now, I typically eat about 3/4 lb (340 g) of beef per day, so assuming there is 75 IU in 100g (explained in following section), that’s 255 IUs. So to estimate my typical daily intake, I’ll just round it up and say that my typical daily VA intake is about 300 IUs or less.
The Recommended Daily Amount (RDA) of VA is about 3000 IU’s so I’m at about 10% of the mainstream recommendation — so quite a low VA intake even though it’s not zero. Especially because the RDA of VA was intended to be set at a level which is just above the amount you’d need to consume daily to prevent VA depletion. So according to their own science, if you’re eating significantly below the RDA (and not getting any supplemental or topical or pharmaceutical VA) you should be in a depletion state.
By the way, in the first half of this experiment I ate more like 1.5 lbs of beef per day, and so I was getting major benefits from my low VA diet even though I was probably getting 500-600 IUs per day, mostly from the beef. Probably because I was coming from a daily intake that was more along the lines of 5,000 – 6,000 IUs per day.
A Sidenote on Vitamin A in Meats
The VA content of beef (and meats in general) might be a source of confusion for some. There are some sources that say there is no Vitamin A in beef or in particular cuts of beef (like the USDA database results that are referenced by the top result of google searches for “Vitamin A in [X]”) but if you look at the fine print you’ll sometimes find that this is an assumed or inferred value — in other words, they didn’t always analyze the VA content of every single food or cut of meat.
But there are other sources that say there is anywhere from 50 to 75 IUs of VA in lean beef. There are also studies done for the cattle industry to determine how cattle feed affects Vitamin A levels in the blood, liver and fat — they took fat samples from live cattle and sure enough, the fat always had Vitamin A.
Furthermore, I have looked up many VA values for various meats and there’s VA in almost all fish, poultry and other red meats.
Further still, there has been research done to specifically analyze the Vitamin A content of human tissues and VA is found in essentially all of them, even minute amounts in muscle.
So I think it’s reasonable to assume that all animal fat has at least some vitamin A content. It would make sense, because whether they are a herbivore getting carotenoids or carnivore getting retinoids, every animal is getting at least some VA in the wild. And it would be strange if some animals had VA in their fat, but other, closely related species didn’t.
In fact, having VA in fat tissue seems to be universal to the entire animal kingdom. Of course, they all have their largest VA stores in their livers and they have way less in the fat — but that’s just another reason to assume all animals have a similar enough VA regulation system to assume there is at least some VA in all animal fat.
So my modus operandi assume that fact and to rely on my own reaction to a particular food. And to test one food as accurately as possible, you have to have a consistent diet with consistent symptoms (or no symptoms) and then add one new food for one meal or one day and then wait and see how you react.
Early on, I experimented with going towards a mostly beef diet like the Carnivore Diet people, but I found it made me feel worse. And it makes sense because I was getting more VA. And as the experiment went on and I got more sensitive to VA, I found that I felt best on the leanest beef.
Unfortunately, less fat also tends to be less satiating, but by including a staple white starch (e.g. white rice, white corn masa flour, white potato) at every meal, I have no problems with satiation.
I want to expand on this further in the future because I suspect there are a lot of people who are trying this diet but are getting more VA than they realize, because it’s unlabeled, or mislabeled, or inaccurate, or they are forgetting about foods that could potentially have retinoic acid (RA) even if there’s zero retinol (e.g. there could be RA in processed dairy or in dried meats like jerky or in rendered fats like lard or tallow).
What symptoms have been cured?
In terms of physical / bodily symptoms, pretty much all of my significant health problems of the past are either gone or do not reoccur unless I consume a “trigger food”.
Here are some examples of physical symptoms that are basically cured now on my standard VAD diet (in other words, they only reoccur or worsen if I eat a trigger food):
• insomnia / trouble falling asleep & sleeping through the night*
• shortness of breath / mild sleep apnea*
• constipation / hemorrhoids / intestinal pain
• cold hands & feet (the exception is that I get cold feet if I go too long without eating)
• muscle weakness
• dry/stiff/cracking joints
• hand tremor
• canker sores (mouth ulcers)
• any kind of skin rashes
• severe dust allergy
• seemingly “random” bouts of nasal congestion, sneezing, runny nose
* These were cured so completely I almost forgot about them because I haven’t experienced them in over a year. I have had bouts in the past of not being able to fall asleep or sleep through the night for many days in a row. Also had occasional episodes of waking up gasping for air. I go to sleep later than I’d like but I don’t have any trouble falling asleep or staying asleep or with my breathing while sleeping.
What happens when I reintroduce trigger foods?
As long as I stay consistent to my standard diet, I also have a consistent level of overall mood/energy (7 out of 10) and I don’t get any acute / painful physical symptoms.
But I have tried adding in lots of foods as experiments (and because I do sometimes crave some variety) and I have found that there are definitely “trigger foods” that have some association with VA that cause an acute, allergy-like reaction for me.
For example, I have experimented with: chicken, pork, salmon, sardines, eggs and cheese. And all of those give me an allergy-like reactions (some within 15 minutes, others within a 24 hours).
Nutrient analysis might not say these are quantitatively higher in VA, but I have chosen to just rely on my body’s reactions to these foods, and I have also done some research and come up with theories that explain why the “VA activity” of these foods is different, I’ll save those details for a future post.
My ” VA trigger food” reaction symptoms include some, but not necessarily all, of the following:
• nasal congestion / mucous production (within 30 mins of eating)
• dry eyes and slight stinging pain (within a few hours)
• acne breakouts (overnight)
• dry lips (after a few hours)
• constipation / intestinal pain (within 12-48 hrs)
• waking up with dry mouth (next morning)
• waking up with numbness / tingling in my arms and hands (next morning)
• waking up with dry, sticky or painful eyes (next morning)
• waking up feeling tired, sluggish (next morning)
These are reliable, predictable, repeatable symptoms for me. If I stay consistent with my usual diet, I don’t get them. If I add a trigger food with more VA (or VA in a different form) that’s when I get them.
Many of these symptoms are very obvious — like waking up with numb/tingling hands and arms — and unpleasant — like waking up with eyes so dry they stick to your eyelids and scratch/tear your cornea when you move them. So that gives me all the motivation I need to avoid them as much as possible, even if it requires a “restrictive” or monotonous diet.
Also, in many cases the causal relationship is very clear because I don’t have the symptoms and then I eat something and I get a symptom within 30 mins after eating — symptoms I don’t get if I just stick with beef.
In my opinion, these little dietary changes have served as experiments that have proved to me dozens of times now that VA is the cause of my symptoms. By keeping my baseline diet minimal and consistent, and changing only one variable (well, just one food) at a time, it makes me reasonably confident that something in that food was the cause.
It becomes very obvious: When my only animal food is beef, I wake up fine every day. I try pork or chicken or eggs once, the next day I wake up with dry eyes or numb hands.
In the future, I will share my theories that attempt to explain why these experiments point to the “VA activity” in these foods being the culprit and not one of the other differences between, say, beef and chicken.
What has either gotten worse or stayed the same?
Basically nothing has gotten worse (unless you consider increased sensitivity to VA trigger foods to be a bad thing). I, for one, consider it plausible that it’s not actually a bad thing at all and that’s another theory I plan to expand on in the future.
My acute physical symptoms that reoccur when I consume trigger foods are no worse than before in degree but now they are not chronic (or unexplained).
• My vision seemed like it was improving during my peak health state, but since then it has leveled off — it’s not gotten better or worse. I still have the same myopia as before.
• I had a couple bouts of tooth sensitivity, but those stopped after about 6 months, and I haven’t had them since even in spite of the fact that I am not taking any mineral supplements (or supplements of any kind for that matter). No cavities or dental problems, but I wasn’t prone to those before this diet either.
• In the first couple months I had some bouts of general coldness, and cold hands and feet, and a high stress feeling — but I had also gone cold turkey stopping taking supplemental thyroid so I think it was because I was still in a transition from my thyroid / liver healing enough to take over full thyroid duties on their own. Since then my hypothyroid symptoms are pretty much gone except for feeling cold if I go too long without eating (i.e. skipping a meal) especially when under stress, and so maybe there is still some healing left do do there, but that’s still an improvement over before.
• I had one bout of throat / tonsil pain and inflammation in the first several months, and that could have been VA detox related, but it was a one time thing and never happened again.
• There were periods when I seemed to be losing fat based on visual assessment, but on average my fat levels seem to have remained stable even though I have gained back some muscle strength and endurance without working out. I am probably overweight by maybe 20 lbs though so I’m curious to see if that will change on it’s own over time even without changing my low activity / exercise levels or my moderately high carb intake.
• My eyes seem to have about the same amount of red veins / vascularization so no change there.
Other significant symptoms have at least halted — i.e. they stopped getting progressively worse. Most prominently, these are:
• Male pattern balding has halted (i.e. not gotten worse). So I still have some hair on my head that was seeming like it was on it’s way out, but is still there. Unfortunately for me, I had a relatively rapid hair loss throughout my 20s (which is one of the things that mad me realize something must be going very wrong with my health / diet). I mention this because for my hair loss to halt where it was and say there for a year and half is actually pretty significant compared to the steady year-by-year losses I had previous.
• Early-stage (minor) gynecomastia has halted (not gotten worse) and sensitivity in that region is gone as long as I stick to my standard VAD diet.
Those last two in themselves are a pretty big deal and I intend to post more about that in the future. Suffice it to say for now, I know there are many people out there who are just looking for a way to stop male pattern balding (and all kinds of hair loss) and gynecomastia — if that’s you, give the VAD diet a try, because for me, it seems to have totally halted the progression/worsening of these conditions, and I suspect it could be the root cause.
Plus, the VAD diet is way cheaper and safer and less invasive than all of the extreme or expensive or hormonal or pharmaceutical or surgical treatments that people are trying in order to remedy these conditions. We are still in the early days of the VA experiments, but based on my experience alone, I think it’s possible that VA could be the root cause — and thus, the cure — for male pattern baldness and gynecomastia.
What is my plan for the future?
My plan is to stick with the VAD diet until my body’s VA stores are fully depleted because I expect that to be the way to return to optimal health.
Because of my personal experience, I am more confident in this theory than ever before. The fact that I get immediate reactions from additions of VA trigger foods to my diet, makes it pretty simple for me. So in fact I see my VA sensitivity as a blessing rather than a curse — it tells me when there is “VA activity” in a food more reliably than any label or research.
I will expand on this idea of “VA activity” more in the future, but in short, I’m talking about the observed phenomenon (at least in my experience) where seemingly lower quantities of VA in chicken or pork can actually cause a more severe reaction than greater quantities of VA in beef.
If you’re wishing that you also had this VA sensitivity so that you can experience this direct cause-effect relationship for yourself and really find out whether it is the root of your health problems, I have a suggestion for you: I suspect it is best achieved by eating a very minimal, very consistent, beef-and-starch-based diet.
Instead of choosing your diet from lists of dozens of low VA foods, just build your diet around a base of lean beef and a zero-VA staple starch (e.g. white rice or white corn chips/tortillas or white potato or white bread if you can tolerate it). Aim to build your base diet around eating the same 10 or less foods every day for a couple weeks.
Don’t assume that eggs, dairy, poultry, pork and fish are interchangeable with beef because on paper they have similar or less VA content. In my experience, they are definitely not equivalent to beef in terms of “VA activity.” I’d really like to know among those who are experiencing bad detox symptoms, how many of them are sticking with mostly beef and how many are attempting low VA with eggs, dairy, poultry, pork or fish.
Add a few other foods that you can be very confident are very low in VA. And then you have to stick to that diet long enough for your body to adjust to that as it’s new normal intake, for example, aim for just one month at first. I suspect this sensitivity is induced by giving your body a long enough break from even moderate VA intake. And I suspect that others are not lowering their VA intake as much as they think they are because they are eating too many foods that they don’t realize have VA or “VA activity”.
If you’re worried about this VA sensitivity thing and want to wait for others to report before you jump in, that’s fine. Remember, this is an experiment, and ultimately we are all responsible for our own health. For me, my health problems were bad enough, to take a risk — but honestly, it never felt like that much of a risk.
The “Toxic Vitamin A Theory” might sound off-the-wall at first, but then think of it this way: the recommended diet itself is not crazy at all — in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s literally a “meat and potatoes” diet, an idiom which is shorthand for something plain and ordinary, but also fundamental and substantial. And the phrase could easily be meat and rice, or meat and tortillas, or meat and bread for billions of people around the world.
Millions have probably eaten mostly meat and starch based diets their whole lives without even ever considering it anything but an obvious, ordinary, satisfying diet. Millions have also survived and thrived without eating liver or eggs or dairy, or a copious, year-round supply of cultivated fruits and veggies.
How will I know when my VA stores are depleted?
Well, if this continues for a long time, like another year or two, with no changes, I guess I could just go get a blood test to find out.
But, my theory is that I won’t need that because I’ll be able to tell from my overall health / mood / energy levels because I will begin to feel closer to that 10/10 peak health I felt early on in this experiment.
My theory is that when I felt that 10/10 peak health, that was because of the super low levels of retinol in my blood which were the result of the significant, sustained drop in daily VA intake. I probably went from something like 5000 IUs per day to 500 IUs per day. And I sustained that low intake for weeks.
This low serum retinol state gave my organs and tissues the opportunity to actually release retinol into the bloodstream (rather than accumulate or stay level in VA stores).
My theory is that consistent low VA intake caused low circulating blood retinol which allowed for a releasing (or reduction) of VA in organs / tissues and that’s what caused that dramatic improvement in my health. Essentially, the dramatic change lowered the retinol burden of on the brain, the eyes and all the steroid producing organs and so on, and thus they were able to heal and to begin “firing on all cylinders”, so to speak.
What I theorize happens next is that the body eventually recognizes this low serum VA state as an opportunity to steadily and gradually release (and detox) all the excess stored VA in tissues, thus bringing the serum VA back up to a normal amount in spite of the low VA intake. It would appear like a homeostasis effect at first, but it’s not because raising serum VA is a good thing, it’s because releasing VA from tissues/organs (including the liver) and excreting from the body is a good thing.
But having that normal serum VA level means that the organ/tissue levels of VA are going to be in homeostasis with the levels in the circulating blood, so they are probably not accumulating or reducing their retinol levels as long as the blood retinol stays consistent. But for me, I had such excessive VA levels in my blood (actually measured by a blood test at 81 µg/dL) that my current homeostasis level (which I assume is probably in the normal range by now) is still a big improvement.
By the way, this relationship of blood retinol to VA intake is basically the mainstream, establishment view. They recognize that most people have blood retinol in a normal, relatively constant level unless they have long-term sustained high or low intakes. And they recognize that just the liver alone acts as a reserve of VA, and it releases VA into the bloodstream, so you have to eat a low VA diet for a long time before you’d actually get a low blood retinol level. They just think that low blood retinol is a “deficiency” of a good thing.
So I predict that only when my body stores are fully (or near fully) depleted of VA will my body’s blood (serum) VA drop again to very low levels. And I assume that I will know that has happened because I will again start to move towards that 10 out of 10 peak health state that I felt 2-3 months in. And my hope is that after that point it will be my new baseline.
By the way, I’m not talking about some supernatural state of health here — my 10 out of 10 is on a scale relative to my experience of health — and it’s not supernatural because it’s just what I experienced for several weeks during this experiment so it’s definitely natural and possible.
Another possible way that it might become apparent that my VA stores have been depleted is if my VA sensitivity suddenly goes away on it’s own as a result, but I’m not sure if or when or why that will happen.
I am very interested to find out if I will remain highly sensitive to VA foods even after my VA stores are depleted, and I definitely plan to test in the future. I am also very keen to find out just how long this depletion will take.
In the meantime, it’s not that hard for me to remain patient and to be grateful for the improvements I have already experienced, because all I have to do is remind myself just how lucky I am to have escaped from that hell I was in before I lucked upon Grant Genereux’s work."
However, although the length of the text of his post is quite large and he has already left a long time, but in the end it was he who once laid the foundation for this topic here, so I will nevertheless leave his full text here, otherwise, if by the rules of the posts its length exceeds the permissible , then moderators can simply delete it and just leave a link.
- Vitamin A Depletion Diet: My 17-Month Update:
"Vitamin A Depletion Diet: My 17-Month Update
September 1, 2019
Sorry for the long radio silence. I’ll spare you the lengthy excuses and just get right to the update.
I have been on the Vitamin A Depletion (VAD) diet since April of 2018, so it’s been about 1 year and 5 months now.
Overall, the results have remained positive and I’m very happy with my health improvements, but my experiment is not over yet because I’m pretty sure I have not yet depleted my body’s Vitamin A (VA) stores — and I’ll explain why I think that later.
The Overall Timeline
I’ll attempt to estimate my overall health, on a scale of 1 to 10, relative to my own health experience, so a 1 is the worst health I’ve had, and a 10 is the best. My mood and energy levels (i.e. lack of depression, chronic fatigue and anxiety) are the most salient indicator for me, and my physical symptoms seem to strongly correlate with them anyway. So the following numbers are my mood/energy/health estimate which are, by definition, the inverse of my levels of depression, chronic fatigue, lethargy, and anxiety.
So my overall mood/energy/health went from a 1 (worst I’d ever felt) before I started the diet, to a 10 (best I’d felt in over a decade) after about two or three months on the VAD diet, then back down to a 7 ( feeling pretty good) after a couple more months, and that’s been my “summer baseline” since then because it went down to a 5-6 over the winter and back up when summer returned.
Of course there have been ups and downs, but those are the average or baseline measurements for the time periods.
The worst I’ve felt on this diet was over the winter and it was maybe a 4 (feeling okay or slightly down), but that’s still so much preferable to how I felt before the diet.
Mind you, this overall health estimate doesn’t mean that all my symptoms are at a 7 out of 10 — many of them are either cured or they do not reoccur as long as I don’t eat a trigger food.
What do I eat now?
I have kept my diet pretty minimal and consistent (except for occasional experiments of trying new foods).
My standard diet as of right now is:
• lean beef (most often it’s 93% lean, 100% grass-fed ground beef)
• white rice (or rice noodles)
• white corn chips or homemade white corn flour tortillas (masa harina)
• coconut oil or high oleic sunflower oil*
• soy sauce or white vinegar
• salt
• “lemonade” with no VA, made with water, citric acid, vitamin C, sugar & salt
* High oleic sunflower oil has a fatty acid profile similar to olive oil, but its clear in color so I think it is very low in carotenoids.
Here is one dietary change worth mentioning that I made within the last few months: I used to eat white bread pretty much every day, but lately I have experimented with cutting out gluten for awhile and then re-introducing it and I found that gluten actually does aggravate my symptoms. So I am now trying out eliminating bread/wheat as well.
As you can see, on my standard diet, my main source (by far) of my VA intake is the VA in beef. The rest are plant foods which probably have only minute amounts of carotenoids, if they have any at all.
Right now, I typically eat about 3/4 lb (340 g) of beef per day, so assuming there is 75 IU in 100g (explained in following section), that’s 255 IUs. So to estimate my typical daily intake, I’ll just round it up and say that my typical daily VA intake is about 300 IUs or less.
The Recommended Daily Amount (RDA) of VA is about 3000 IU’s so I’m at about 10% of the mainstream recommendation — so quite a low VA intake even though it’s not zero. Especially because the RDA of VA was intended to be set at a level which is just above the amount you’d need to consume daily to prevent VA depletion. So according to their own science, if you’re eating significantly below the RDA (and not getting any supplemental or topical or pharmaceutical VA) you should be in a depletion state.
By the way, in the first half of this experiment I ate more like 1.5 lbs of beef per day, and so I was getting major benefits from my low VA diet even though I was probably getting 500-600 IUs per day, mostly from the beef. Probably because I was coming from a daily intake that was more along the lines of 5,000 – 6,000 IUs per day.
A Sidenote on Vitamin A in Meats
The VA content of beef (and meats in general) might be a source of confusion for some. There are some sources that say there is no Vitamin A in beef or in particular cuts of beef (like the USDA database results that are referenced by the top result of google searches for “Vitamin A in [X]”) but if you look at the fine print you’ll sometimes find that this is an assumed or inferred value — in other words, they didn’t always analyze the VA content of every single food or cut of meat.
But there are other sources that say there is anywhere from 50 to 75 IUs of VA in lean beef. There are also studies done for the cattle industry to determine how cattle feed affects Vitamin A levels in the blood, liver and fat — they took fat samples from live cattle and sure enough, the fat always had Vitamin A.
Furthermore, I have looked up many VA values for various meats and there’s VA in almost all fish, poultry and other red meats.
Further still, there has been research done to specifically analyze the Vitamin A content of human tissues and VA is found in essentially all of them, even minute amounts in muscle.
So I think it’s reasonable to assume that all animal fat has at least some vitamin A content. It would make sense, because whether they are a herbivore getting carotenoids or carnivore getting retinoids, every animal is getting at least some VA in the wild. And it would be strange if some animals had VA in their fat, but other, closely related species didn’t.
In fact, having VA in fat tissue seems to be universal to the entire animal kingdom. Of course, they all have their largest VA stores in their livers and they have way less in the fat — but that’s just another reason to assume all animals have a similar enough VA regulation system to assume there is at least some VA in all animal fat.
So my modus operandi assume that fact and to rely on my own reaction to a particular food. And to test one food as accurately as possible, you have to have a consistent diet with consistent symptoms (or no symptoms) and then add one new food for one meal or one day and then wait and see how you react.
Early on, I experimented with going towards a mostly beef diet like the Carnivore Diet people, but I found it made me feel worse. And it makes sense because I was getting more VA. And as the experiment went on and I got more sensitive to VA, I found that I felt best on the leanest beef.
Unfortunately, less fat also tends to be less satiating, but by including a staple white starch (e.g. white rice, white corn masa flour, white potato) at every meal, I have no problems with satiation.
I want to expand on this further in the future because I suspect there are a lot of people who are trying this diet but are getting more VA than they realize, because it’s unlabeled, or mislabeled, or inaccurate, or they are forgetting about foods that could potentially have retinoic acid (RA) even if there’s zero retinol (e.g. there could be RA in processed dairy or in dried meats like jerky or in rendered fats like lard or tallow).
What symptoms have been cured?
In terms of physical / bodily symptoms, pretty much all of my significant health problems of the past are either gone or do not reoccur unless I consume a “trigger food”.
Here are some examples of physical symptoms that are basically cured now on my standard VAD diet (in other words, they only reoccur or worsen if I eat a trigger food):
• insomnia / trouble falling asleep & sleeping through the night*
• shortness of breath / mild sleep apnea*
• constipation / hemorrhoids / intestinal pain
• cold hands & feet (the exception is that I get cold feet if I go too long without eating)
• muscle weakness
• dry/stiff/cracking joints
• hand tremor
• canker sores (mouth ulcers)
• any kind of skin rashes
• severe dust allergy
• seemingly “random” bouts of nasal congestion, sneezing, runny nose
* These were cured so completely I almost forgot about them because I haven’t experienced them in over a year. I have had bouts in the past of not being able to fall asleep or sleep through the night for many days in a row. Also had occasional episodes of waking up gasping for air. I go to sleep later than I’d like but I don’t have any trouble falling asleep or staying asleep or with my breathing while sleeping.
What happens when I reintroduce trigger foods?
As long as I stay consistent to my standard diet, I also have a consistent level of overall mood/energy (7 out of 10) and I don’t get any acute / painful physical symptoms.
But I have tried adding in lots of foods as experiments (and because I do sometimes crave some variety) and I have found that there are definitely “trigger foods” that have some association with VA that cause an acute, allergy-like reaction for me.
For example, I have experimented with: chicken, pork, salmon, sardines, eggs and cheese. And all of those give me an allergy-like reactions (some within 15 minutes, others within a 24 hours).
Nutrient analysis might not say these are quantitatively higher in VA, but I have chosen to just rely on my body’s reactions to these foods, and I have also done some research and come up with theories that explain why the “VA activity” of these foods is different, I’ll save those details for a future post.
My ” VA trigger food” reaction symptoms include some, but not necessarily all, of the following:
• nasal congestion / mucous production (within 30 mins of eating)
• dry eyes and slight stinging pain (within a few hours)
• acne breakouts (overnight)
• dry lips (after a few hours)
• constipation / intestinal pain (within 12-48 hrs)
• waking up with dry mouth (next morning)
• waking up with numbness / tingling in my arms and hands (next morning)
• waking up with dry, sticky or painful eyes (next morning)
• waking up feeling tired, sluggish (next morning)
These are reliable, predictable, repeatable symptoms for me. If I stay consistent with my usual diet, I don’t get them. If I add a trigger food with more VA (or VA in a different form) that’s when I get them.
Many of these symptoms are very obvious — like waking up with numb/tingling hands and arms — and unpleasant — like waking up with eyes so dry they stick to your eyelids and scratch/tear your cornea when you move them. So that gives me all the motivation I need to avoid them as much as possible, even if it requires a “restrictive” or monotonous diet.
Also, in many cases the causal relationship is very clear because I don’t have the symptoms and then I eat something and I get a symptom within 30 mins after eating — symptoms I don’t get if I just stick with beef.
In my opinion, these little dietary changes have served as experiments that have proved to me dozens of times now that VA is the cause of my symptoms. By keeping my baseline diet minimal and consistent, and changing only one variable (well, just one food) at a time, it makes me reasonably confident that something in that food was the cause.
It becomes very obvious: When my only animal food is beef, I wake up fine every day. I try pork or chicken or eggs once, the next day I wake up with dry eyes or numb hands.
In the future, I will share my theories that attempt to explain why these experiments point to the “VA activity” in these foods being the culprit and not one of the other differences between, say, beef and chicken.
What has either gotten worse or stayed the same?
Basically nothing has gotten worse (unless you consider increased sensitivity to VA trigger foods to be a bad thing). I, for one, consider it plausible that it’s not actually a bad thing at all and that’s another theory I plan to expand on in the future.
My acute physical symptoms that reoccur when I consume trigger foods are no worse than before in degree but now they are not chronic (or unexplained).
• My vision seemed like it was improving during my peak health state, but since then it has leveled off — it’s not gotten better or worse. I still have the same myopia as before.
• I had a couple bouts of tooth sensitivity, but those stopped after about 6 months, and I haven’t had them since even in spite of the fact that I am not taking any mineral supplements (or supplements of any kind for that matter). No cavities or dental problems, but I wasn’t prone to those before this diet either.
• In the first couple months I had some bouts of general coldness, and cold hands and feet, and a high stress feeling — but I had also gone cold turkey stopping taking supplemental thyroid so I think it was because I was still in a transition from my thyroid / liver healing enough to take over full thyroid duties on their own. Since then my hypothyroid symptoms are pretty much gone except for feeling cold if I go too long without eating (i.e. skipping a meal) especially when under stress, and so maybe there is still some healing left do do there, but that’s still an improvement over before.
• I had one bout of throat / tonsil pain and inflammation in the first several months, and that could have been VA detox related, but it was a one time thing and never happened again.
• There were periods when I seemed to be losing fat based on visual assessment, but on average my fat levels seem to have remained stable even though I have gained back some muscle strength and endurance without working out. I am probably overweight by maybe 20 lbs though so I’m curious to see if that will change on it’s own over time even without changing my low activity / exercise levels or my moderately high carb intake.
• My eyes seem to have about the same amount of red veins / vascularization so no change there.
Other significant symptoms have at least halted — i.e. they stopped getting progressively worse. Most prominently, these are:
• Male pattern balding has halted (i.e. not gotten worse). So I still have some hair on my head that was seeming like it was on it’s way out, but is still there. Unfortunately for me, I had a relatively rapid hair loss throughout my 20s (which is one of the things that mad me realize something must be going very wrong with my health / diet). I mention this because for my hair loss to halt where it was and say there for a year and half is actually pretty significant compared to the steady year-by-year losses I had previous.
• Early-stage (minor) gynecomastia has halted (not gotten worse) and sensitivity in that region is gone as long as I stick to my standard VAD diet.
Those last two in themselves are a pretty big deal and I intend to post more about that in the future. Suffice it to say for now, I know there are many people out there who are just looking for a way to stop male pattern balding (and all kinds of hair loss) and gynecomastia — if that’s you, give the VAD diet a try, because for me, it seems to have totally halted the progression/worsening of these conditions, and I suspect it could be the root cause.
Plus, the VAD diet is way cheaper and safer and less invasive than all of the extreme or expensive or hormonal or pharmaceutical or surgical treatments that people are trying in order to remedy these conditions. We are still in the early days of the VA experiments, but based on my experience alone, I think it’s possible that VA could be the root cause — and thus, the cure — for male pattern baldness and gynecomastia.
What is my plan for the future?
My plan is to stick with the VAD diet until my body’s VA stores are fully depleted because I expect that to be the way to return to optimal health.
Because of my personal experience, I am more confident in this theory than ever before. The fact that I get immediate reactions from additions of VA trigger foods to my diet, makes it pretty simple for me. So in fact I see my VA sensitivity as a blessing rather than a curse — it tells me when there is “VA activity” in a food more reliably than any label or research.
I will expand on this idea of “VA activity” more in the future, but in short, I’m talking about the observed phenomenon (at least in my experience) where seemingly lower quantities of VA in chicken or pork can actually cause a more severe reaction than greater quantities of VA in beef.
If you’re wishing that you also had this VA sensitivity so that you can experience this direct cause-effect relationship for yourself and really find out whether it is the root of your health problems, I have a suggestion for you: I suspect it is best achieved by eating a very minimal, very consistent, beef-and-starch-based diet.
Instead of choosing your diet from lists of dozens of low VA foods, just build your diet around a base of lean beef and a zero-VA staple starch (e.g. white rice or white corn chips/tortillas or white potato or white bread if you can tolerate it). Aim to build your base diet around eating the same 10 or less foods every day for a couple weeks.
Don’t assume that eggs, dairy, poultry, pork and fish are interchangeable with beef because on paper they have similar or less VA content. In my experience, they are definitely not equivalent to beef in terms of “VA activity.” I’d really like to know among those who are experiencing bad detox symptoms, how many of them are sticking with mostly beef and how many are attempting low VA with eggs, dairy, poultry, pork or fish.
Add a few other foods that you can be very confident are very low in VA. And then you have to stick to that diet long enough for your body to adjust to that as it’s new normal intake, for example, aim for just one month at first. I suspect this sensitivity is induced by giving your body a long enough break from even moderate VA intake. And I suspect that others are not lowering their VA intake as much as they think they are because they are eating too many foods that they don’t realize have VA or “VA activity”.
If you’re worried about this VA sensitivity thing and want to wait for others to report before you jump in, that’s fine. Remember, this is an experiment, and ultimately we are all responsible for our own health. For me, my health problems were bad enough, to take a risk — but honestly, it never felt like that much of a risk.
The “Toxic Vitamin A Theory” might sound off-the-wall at first, but then think of it this way: the recommended diet itself is not crazy at all — in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s literally a “meat and potatoes” diet, an idiom which is shorthand for something plain and ordinary, but also fundamental and substantial. And the phrase could easily be meat and rice, or meat and tortillas, or meat and bread for billions of people around the world.
Millions have probably eaten mostly meat and starch based diets their whole lives without even ever considering it anything but an obvious, ordinary, satisfying diet. Millions have also survived and thrived without eating liver or eggs or dairy, or a copious, year-round supply of cultivated fruits and veggies.
How will I know when my VA stores are depleted?
Well, if this continues for a long time, like another year or two, with no changes, I guess I could just go get a blood test to find out.
But, my theory is that I won’t need that because I’ll be able to tell from my overall health / mood / energy levels because I will begin to feel closer to that 10/10 peak health I felt early on in this experiment.
My theory is that when I felt that 10/10 peak health, that was because of the super low levels of retinol in my blood which were the result of the significant, sustained drop in daily VA intake. I probably went from something like 5000 IUs per day to 500 IUs per day. And I sustained that low intake for weeks.
This low serum retinol state gave my organs and tissues the opportunity to actually release retinol into the bloodstream (rather than accumulate or stay level in VA stores).
My theory is that consistent low VA intake caused low circulating blood retinol which allowed for a releasing (or reduction) of VA in organs / tissues and that’s what caused that dramatic improvement in my health. Essentially, the dramatic change lowered the retinol burden of on the brain, the eyes and all the steroid producing organs and so on, and thus they were able to heal and to begin “firing on all cylinders”, so to speak.
What I theorize happens next is that the body eventually recognizes this low serum VA state as an opportunity to steadily and gradually release (and detox) all the excess stored VA in tissues, thus bringing the serum VA back up to a normal amount in spite of the low VA intake. It would appear like a homeostasis effect at first, but it’s not because raising serum VA is a good thing, it’s because releasing VA from tissues/organs (including the liver) and excreting from the body is a good thing.
But having that normal serum VA level means that the organ/tissue levels of VA are going to be in homeostasis with the levels in the circulating blood, so they are probably not accumulating or reducing their retinol levels as long as the blood retinol stays consistent. But for me, I had such excessive VA levels in my blood (actually measured by a blood test at 81 µg/dL) that my current homeostasis level (which I assume is probably in the normal range by now) is still a big improvement.
By the way, this relationship of blood retinol to VA intake is basically the mainstream, establishment view. They recognize that most people have blood retinol in a normal, relatively constant level unless they have long-term sustained high or low intakes. And they recognize that just the liver alone acts as a reserve of VA, and it releases VA into the bloodstream, so you have to eat a low VA diet for a long time before you’d actually get a low blood retinol level. They just think that low blood retinol is a “deficiency” of a good thing.
So I predict that only when my body stores are fully (or near fully) depleted of VA will my body’s blood (serum) VA drop again to very low levels. And I assume that I will know that has happened because I will again start to move towards that 10 out of 10 peak health state that I felt 2-3 months in. And my hope is that after that point it will be my new baseline.
By the way, I’m not talking about some supernatural state of health here — my 10 out of 10 is on a scale relative to my experience of health — and it’s not supernatural because it’s just what I experienced for several weeks during this experiment so it’s definitely natural and possible.
Another possible way that it might become apparent that my VA stores have been depleted is if my VA sensitivity suddenly goes away on it’s own as a result, but I’m not sure if or when or why that will happen.
I am very interested to find out if I will remain highly sensitive to VA foods even after my VA stores are depleted, and I definitely plan to test in the future. I am also very keen to find out just how long this depletion will take.
In the meantime, it’s not that hard for me to remain patient and to be grateful for the improvements I have already experienced, because all I have to do is remind myself just how lucky I am to have escaped from that hell I was in before I lucked upon Grant Genereux’s work."
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Looks like franco has next to 0 copper in their diet.
I can't remember the post, but someone linked a thread a while ago that stated the role of copper in VA transport from the liver. If a person is planning on depleting VA then they should probably include at least some copper from beans or maybe wholegrains.
Again, I'm not advocating the diet but it seems silly to create multiple new deficiencies while eating that way.
I can't remember the post, but someone linked a thread a while ago that stated the role of copper in VA transport from the liver. If a person is planning on depleting VA then they should probably include at least some copper from beans or maybe wholegrains.
Again, I'm not advocating the diet but it seems silly to create multiple new deficiencies while eating that way.
somuch4food
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That's the dangers of an elimination diet. I have the symptom described here, especially when I have too much carotenoids or sugar in my diet.
By avoiding A, he's avoiding the symptom, but he hasn't cured anything yet. Also, the fact that he reacts differently to food with similar VA means it's not the only factor making this diet work.
Sounds like B1 deficiency.
somuch4food
Member
- Joined
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- Messages
- 1,281
Yup, I know. I've seen your posts. I just didn't want to pronounce myself since I haven't completely resolved the problem. I'm currently using a prenatal with some in it that I take twice a day. I'm not willing to play with higher doses while pregnant.
I'm also focusing on adding enough potassium and magnesium in my diet. I was a bit careless on that front lately. They seem to help the fatigue I felt from the prenatal.
I found an interesting theory that sciatica on the right side can be from potassium deficiency and on the left side, sodium. I was dealing with sciatica on my right side in the recent months, so I now eat more fruits and potatoes. It seems to help, but to soon to say if it cures it.
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