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

[Amazoniac]

There was a discussion a while ago around the following topic, one of the articles referred to this publication:

Commensals Suppress Intestinal Epithelial Cell Retinoic Acid Synthesis to Regulate Interleukin-22 Activity and Prevent Microbial Dysbiosis

Germ-free mice have their production of poisonoic acid in the gut lining enhanced when compared to mice that harbor friendly bacteria [I know (Terma, 2020)], whereas poisonol and poisonyl palmitate levels are decreased.

Spoiler

They narrowed it down to changes in the enzyme that converts poisonol to poisonal.

Spoiler

When mice are treated with antibiotics that promote pathogens, the animals went back to synthesizing more poisonoic acid and having less poisonyl esters in tissues through changes in such enzyme.

Spoiler

Increased levels of poisonoic acid boosts non-specific immunity. In the presence of alarming signals due to pathogens, a state of generalized inflammation can ensue. The exaggerated response can prevent attachment of certain pathogens, but others will take advantage of the disorder and diminished competition, the overall condition could deteriorate.

Losing the enzyme function was protective to the animals, added poisonoic acid reversed this. Instead of eradicating the infection, it's possible to eradicate a branch of immunity to suppress inflammation.

They suggest that the normalization of poison A metabolism might be mediated through short-chain fatty acids production by friendly bacteria.​

 

[Mito]

It would be really neat if we can get Ray to elaborate and explain the positive outcomes with lower VA in the diet by several individuals.

Possibly slowing of immune system metabolism? Based on Grant’s 1300 calorie/day intake and low resting heart rate it seems he has slowed down many of his metabolic pathways which would include pathways of the immune system. Vitamin A and vitamin D are involved with the immune system and he has reported low levels of both vitamins.

 

[tim333]

Can you send me any proof that these symptoms are caused by elevated levels of retinoic acid? All I can say is that since incorporating large amounts of liver again, I've had much more energy, great sleep, smoother and thicker hair and my skin is better, and I also tolerate carbohydrates better.

They are all symptoms of Hypervitaminosis A. Plenty of discussion in this thread and on the Genereux forum about studies explaining these symptoms. Google is your friend for Hypervitaminosis A symptom lists and studies showing these symptoms.
How long since you started eating liver? When you consume liver you are getting a nice dose of B vitamins that can make you feel good temporarily. The megadose of vA is quickly stored in your liver. The more liver you eat and the more vA you store over years the worse you'll feel especially if you stop eating much vA. I hope you don't think it's the vA that is making you feel so good?
When I went low vA I experienced terrible fatigue and a range of symptoms at the start, this was not from VAD! When the body isn't used to a low vA diet and is used to storing vA consistently Im guessing it reacts by over producing retinoic acid similar to the over production of ketone bodies when one fasts for the first time. Also, if ones liver is saturated with vA then you can imagine this effect would be even more accentuated when the biochemical cascade that signals to the liver cells to release vA occurs.

 

[tim333]

What do you consider normal and balanced for diet?

A diet that includes all food groups and is not too dissimilar from the average diet. The quality should be better, more organic food, less artificial additives, pufa etc.

 

[tim333]

https://scholar.google.de/scholar?cluster=12311100989659670150&hl=de&as_sdt=0,5#d=gs_qabs&u=#p=xRX66tXyYy8J

Vitamin A improves the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders and decreases 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT): A pilot study.
M Guo, J Zhu, T Yang, X Lai, X Liu, J Liu, J Chen, T Li
Brain research bulletin 137, 35, 2018
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are complicated neurodevelopmental disorders. Many studies have demonstrated that children with autism have multiple nutritional deficiencies and increased serum 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) levels. In our previous study, 77.9% of autistic children were found to have vitamin A deficiency, and the concentration of vitamin A was negatively associated with the CARS score. In the present study, we sought to test whether vitamin A supplementation could improve autistic symptoms and decrease serum 5-HT levels. The DSM-V criteria and CARS score were used for symptom description and symptom assessment of the patients, respectively, before and after vitamin A supplementation (VAS). Serum retinol and 5-HT levels, mRNA levels of RAR α, β, and γ and TpH 1 expression were detected in autistic children before and after VAS and in normal children. Serum retinol levels in children with ASD were significantly lower than in control children. Serum 5-HT levels in children with ASD were higher than in control children, which were correlated with symptom severity of children with autism. After VA supplementation, the children with ASD exhibited significant improvement in autism symptoms. Serum retinol concentrations of children with ASD were significantly increased, and serum 5-HT levels were decreased. Moreover, statistically significant changes were observed in mRNA expression levels of RAR α, RAR γ and TpH 1 after VAS compared to baseline. This study suggested that VA supplementation may improve symptoms and reduce 5-HT levels in children with ASD, indicating that VA supplementation is a reasonable therapy at least for a subset of children with autism.

Serum retinol levels were lower than controls so they were vA deficient? No. Depressed serum retinol is normally a symptom of zinc or other deficiencies. But if indeed these children were actually vA deficient then of course vA is likely to help. But no autistic children in Western nations have VAD. Nobody is USA, Canada, Australia, NZ, UK has VAD. Ok, maybe one or two homeless alcoholics but that's about it.

 

[tim333]

Carotenes are indeed bad because they are not VA proper, and have putative antagonistic receptor binding on various VA targets, thus disabling correct VA - signalling. I agree on Peat's stance on importance of PTH - control, and lowering of Ca activity by supplying sufficient Ca intake, but i do not believe that the connection with VA is viable or real, insofar as to say that VA is unphysiologic because it can raise PTH. And if Peat takes VA ( Retinol ) for leukoplakia, he consumes large, very high pharmacological amounts of it. That it then causes migraines ( increased cerebral pressure? ) is to be expected.

Excess carotenoids are bad I agree but carotenoids are how many animals get their vA. When retinoic acid is elevated, carotenoids can actually help blunt its effect.

 

[Tarmander]

Episode with Grant is coming out tomorrow. I will post it here.

Will you please also ask him if vitamin A issues (and any fat soluble ones really) more have to do with glucuronidation problems in the liver/ git? This would be my first thought given how important glucuronidation is for excretion and clearly many are struggling with estrogen problems too. If the theory is correct then a low vitamin A diet is comparable to a keto diet for those who have T2D.

I asked him about that and he said he had no idea about glucuronidation so I did not include it in the interview.

 

[Recoen]

Episode with Grant is coming out tomorrow. I will post it here.



I asked him about that and he said he had no idea about glucuronidation so I did not include it in the interview.

He’s talking about vitamin A toxicity but he doesn’t know how fat solubles are excreted?

 

[Lollipop2]

He’s talking about vitamin A toxicity but he doesn’t know how fat solubles are excreted?

Oops...

 

[gaze]

He’s talking about vitamin A toxicity but he doesn’t know how fat solubles are excreted?

could you yourself expand more on that mechanism or point me somewhere if you’ve written about it?

 

[Recoen]

could you yourself expand more on that mechanism or point me somewhere if you’ve written about it?

 

[Recoen]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781322/#!po=0.625000

[URL="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3962900/"]Retinoyl beta-glucuronide: an endogenous compound of human blood - PubMed[/URL]

Formation of beta-glucuronides and of beta-galacturonides of various retinoids catalyzed by induced and noninduced microsomal UDP-glucuronosyltransferases of rat liver - PubMed

Glucuronidation and isomerization of all-trans- and 13-cis-retinoic acid by liver microsomes of phenobarbital- or 3-methylcholanthrene-treated rats - PubMed

9-cis-retinoyl-beta-D-glucuronide is a major metabolite of 9-cis-retinoic acid - PubMed

 

[Tarmander]

He’s talking about vitamin A toxicity but he doesn’t know how fat solubles are excreted?

ehh I got the sense he just knew enough about what it was, but didn't know enough to want to talk about it. Just because you know about something doesn't mean you feel comfortable answering questions on it.

 

[Tarmander]

Here is the interview:

Ep. 69 Interview Grant Genereux: No Vitamin A in Six Years! How is He Even Alive!? - Quax Podcast

If you don't want to listen on soundcloud, you can find the podcast on itunes, spotify, etc...basically anywhere podcasts live on the internet.

 

[Recoen]

ehh I got the sense he just knew enough about what it was, but didn't know enough to want to talk about it. Just because you know about something doesn't mean you feel comfortable answering questions on it.

I agree, however, unless I am mistaken, he’s arguing that vitamin A becomes stored to toxic levels in the body right? In my opinion addressing it’s metabolism and excretion pathways should be the first step in dealing with this issue. Of course lowering your total intake during this time is helpful too. But if the premise is the body isn’t excreting it properly so it’s being stored, then just avoiding it (like avoiding glucose when diabetic) doesn’t solve the problem. And I don’t think this makes you healthy in the long run.

 

[somuch4food]

I agree, however, unless I am mistaken, he’s arguing that vitamin A becomes stored to toxic levels in the body right? In my opinion addressing it’s metabolism and excretion pathways should be the first step in dealing with this issue. Of course lowering your total intake during this time is helpful too. But if the premise is the body isn’t excreting it properly so it’s being stored, then just avoiding it (like avoiding glucose when diabetic) doesn’t solve the problem. And I don’t think this makes you healthy in the long run.

That's what Garrett Smith is doing. He has made some interesting connections on his forum and his paid network. He was all about going really low vitamin A, but has now refined his view to improve excretion rather than remove all sources of vit A.

Grant is on a mission to prove it isn't essential and so he is keeping is restricted diet deliberately, but he isn't pushing his diet unto others. He's also concerned as to why others aren't improving on different low A diets. Nutrient deficiencies are easy to fall into when you start restricting foods.

 

[Tarmander]

I agree, however, unless I am mistaken, he’s arguing that vitamin A becomes stored to toxic levels in the body right? In my opinion addressing it’s metabolism and excretion pathways should be the first step in dealing with this issue. Of course lowering your total intake during this time is helpful too. But if the premise is the body isn’t excreting it properly so it’s being stored, then just avoiding it (like avoiding glucose when diabetic) doesn’t solve the problem. And I don’t think this makes you healthy in the long run.

Yeah like @somuch4food said, I think he cares more about proving VA isnt an actual vitamin then helping people detox from it. Whenever I ask him questions about what people should do or how the diet is affecting other people, he gets really cagey.

 

[gaze]

Here is the interview:

Ep. 69 Interview Grant Genereux: No Vitamin A in Six Years! How is He Even Alive!? - Quax Podcast

If you don't want to listen on soundcloud, you can find the podcast on itunes, spotify, etc...basically anywhere podcasts live on the internet.

I'm excited to see his thyroid and hormone panels soon. Hopefully his blood tests go through. Thanks for sharing and doing the interview. Regardless of the rights/wrongs of the theory (of which there are probably many), I'm glad we get to observe basically a human guinea pig for free. I respect Grant a lot for that, and he seems like a pretty likeable guy as well in general

 

[mmb82]

For anyone interested, Grant posted his lab results for thyroid and testosterone on his discussion forum yesterday. All values are about midway in the provided lab ranges.

Testosterone: 17.8 nmol/L or 513 ng/dL
TSH: 1.95 mUI/L
Free T3: 4.5 pmol/L
Free T4: 15.9 pmol/L

 

[Amazoniac]

He’s talking about vitamin A toxicity but he doesn’t know how fat solubles are excreted?

I guess that there's a bright side to ignorance because it can help in making innovative propositions, designers thrive on it (generalization). When naivety of the class is combined with leisure time, creative ideas are allowed to flourish; perhaps later requiring refinement by others that can make them practical. If designers were engineers, imagination would be braked for knowing the limitations of reality. I digest.

- Lactate vs. CO2 in wounds, sickness, and aging; the other approach to cancer

⬑ Endotoxin inhibits glucuronidation in the liver: An effect mediated by intercellular communication

- Alteration of Hepatic Sulfation by Endotoxin