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

[orangebear]

This would unironically make "Ray Peat right again"

I'm fairly new to the forum. What do you personally do? Are you all in on Ray Peat principles, generally against, or do you take some principles that work for you while disagreeing with others? I'm especially curious in the context of hypervitaminosis A. I've been working with a coach who generally follows Ray Peat principles and they were the first to mention being careful with too much liver and VA consumption because hypothyroid people can have issues with VA. Now I'm looking into all of Grant's and Dr. Smith's research and I'm thinking it's quite possible that I have accumulated an extraordinary amount of VA in my body and it's now a roadblock in my energy production. That said, these guys seem to be a bit overboard on almost every mineral and any color in food being a toxin. Like I said, I suspect their super restrictive diets may contribute to their grumpiness, at least according to Ray Peat inspired logic. I want to detox VA if it is indeed messing with me, but I don't want to be as grumpy as these guys. I still want the chill/happy vibes I get on days when I have high energy and feel good.

 

[Blossom]

I have to say for me personally nothing else compares to eating low VA. I’ve replicated the results for myself twice now and even though I’ve had plenty of doubts along the way I keep coming back to how it just simply works best for my body.
Things I was attributing to stress or normal aging are either completely gone or substantially improved in 2 months time. That is virtually unheard of for people my age.
I’m not angry one bit about it either- I’m actually quite thankful. I don’t have the pressure that Grant and Garrett have because I’m not out to convince the world of something so crazy sounding. I respect them both but I’m certain it can wear on a person.
I will never forget that Ray Peat is the person that taught me to perceive, think, act and value my personal experience. I would have never had the courage to experiment with this if I hadn’t learned those things first.

 

[orangebear]

@Blossom Heh. We posted at almost the same time, but pointers on how to get better in terms of detoxing excess VA while not becoming too grumpy is exactly what I'm looking for and it appears that you have achieved such. :)

 

[orangebear]

My current hunch is that Ray Peat never had any problems with keeping VA in balance because his metabolism has always been super fast (he said he ate 10,000 calories as a young man while working a very chill job), so he simply never had to deal with a toxic buildup of it and therefore wouldn't know what to do about it. On the other hand, Grant and Dr. Smith had a much different history and have had to deal with chronic VA toxicity, so they figured out how to deal with it. That doesn't mean they know everything else there is to know about health and how different people react to different things. It's probably not so much that one camp is right and the other is wrong, but these people came from vastly different backgrounds. In such a case it's reasonable to expect that you can learn something useful from both. The question is how to properly combine the lessons learned from both sources?

 

[Blossom]

@Blossom Heh. We posted at almost the same time, but pointers on how to get better in terms of detoxing excess VA while not becoming too grumpy is exactly what I'm looking for and it appears that you have achieved such. :)

I’m sure Ray is too smart to get himself into the type of predicaments most ordinary people listening to mainstream or misguided alternative approaches can easily fall into. I know I took him out of context with regards to myself on numerous occasions.

I’d probably get an attitude myself if I was fighting the same battle of convincing people of that VA is a toxin. I’m just not that invested in convincing anyone else. I’m actually not convinced it is an absolute toxin for everyone anyway.

I’m personally more peaty eating low A because I’m happier, healthier, sleeping better and require far fewer supplements. Peat always stressed eating foods one can tolerate well after all.

 

[artist]

I've seen a lot of debate in this thread about vitamin A and estrogen. I want to add that I do think vitamin A makes me feel very low estrogen. When I was taking big doses of retinol palmitate I had like zero water weight, was really skinny, kind of emotionless, dry skin--and I'm a woman! Most people get these types of effects from vitamin A from what I understand. And even Ray agrees, it's very anti-estrogen. I enjoyed vitamin A's effects because it was the only way I found at the time to control my allergic type symptoms (which do synergize with estrogen, but I don't blame estrogen itself). A lot of women who use retin A for aging report loss of subcutaneous fat/moisture which I also think is a very anti-estrogen effect. Most retin A users get this kind of super-smooth yet gaunt look over time.

 

[tallglass13]

My current hunch is that Ray Peat never had any problems with keeping VA in balance because his metabolism has always been super fast (he said he ate 10,000 calories as a young man while working a very chill job), so he simply never had to deal with a toxic buildup of it and therefore wouldn't know what to do about it. On the other hand, Grant and Dr. Smith had a much different history and have had to deal with chronic VA toxicity, so they figured out how to deal with it. That doesn't mean they know everything else there is to know about health and how different people react to different things. It's probably not so much that one camp is right and the other is wrong, but these people came from vastly different backgrounds. In such a case it's reasonable to expect that you can learn something useful from both. The question is how to properly combine the lessons learned from both sources?

And He also consistently takes Thyroid T3/t4 cynoplus, and thyroid and Vit A carry on the same Protein.
Ray also stated on the Win at Life Podcast Vitamin D, that he Sunburned easily most of his life , all the way up to just about 10 years ago. Until he started supplementing Vitamin D, now he does not sunburn in the car. Well, Vit D helps to balance the effects of Vit A.

 

[orangebear]

I paid for a consultation with Dr. Smith and got access to his paid material. Some of it seems reasonable, but some sounds a bit out there. I'm not an expert to judge for sure though. Trying to listen to a lot of his videos back to back though is hard because he's something of a downer. Grant's books (what I've read so far anyway) seem a bit more solid and reasonable. I'm now second guessing my decision to do the consultation and treatment plan with Dr. Smith. I'm thinking there has to be some saner middle ground between Dr. Smith's seemingly rigid ideas and Ray Peat's freedom to eat many interesting things and not worry too much about things. I feel like Dr. Smith might want me to do things his way or the highway. On the other hand, I've recently been feeling rather cruddy and along with some liver pain I've had anxiety and brain fog. It's hard to make good decisions when you have a hard time thinking clearly and feel like you're in danger.

 

[Blossom]

And He also consistently takes Thyroid T3/t4 cynoplus, and thyroid and Vit A carry on the same Protein.
Ray also stated on the Win at Life Podcast Vitamin D, that he Sunburned easily most of his life , all the way up to just about 10 years ago. Until he started supplementing Vitamin D, now he does not sunburn in the car. Well, Vit D helps to balance the effects of Vit A.

Yes, and he was born in the 1930’s before glyphosate was rolled out. He also never took a bunch of vaccines. He probably had/has a better baseline health considering those two things alone.

 

[orangebear]

Whether VA is required or not, I've certainly been stuffed with much more than necessary growing up, and last year I did the Root Cause Protocol by Morley Robbins for over 6 months, which calls for ridiculous amounts of VA. I still ate a lot of liver until my health coach told me it's a bad idea after doing Ray Peat principles for a while. I was also fairly malnourished and probably hypothyroid for most of my life. So my background is quite VA loaded and I wouldn't be surprised if that's where the current liver pain and other issues I've been experiencing since 2017 are coming from.

 

[Blossom]

I feel like Dr. Smith might want me to do things his way or the highway.

He does often say “this is not a game” so he seems to take things very seriously. I’d just see how it goes since you’ve paid for it. There is a certain value to clinical experience and he certainly has the most out there when it comes to VA issues.

 

[orangebear]

He does often say “this is not a game” so he seems to take things very seriously. I’d just see how it goes since you’ve paid for it. There is a certain value to clinical experience and he certainly has the most out there when it comes to VA issues.

He is booked out for over 2 months. My appt with him is on Aug 1st. So I have a while to overthink about it, I guess.

 

[Blossom]

He is booked out for over 2 months. My appt with him is on Aug 1st. So I have a while to overthink about it, I guess.

 

[Ippodrom47]

Hi! Is it possible to have a bad reaction to retinol and beta-carotene if one's thyroid is deficient in iodine, for instance, or hypothyroid in general?

 

[orangebear]

Hi! Is it possible to have a bad reaction to retinol and beta-carotene if one's thyroid is deficient in iodine, for instance, or hypothyroid in general?

According to my Ray Peat inspired health coach, yes.

 

[orangebear]

@Blossom how much calcium do you eat per day? The low VA guys seem to be low calcium as well whereas Ray Peat is high calcium. What foods are your staples? Do you eat beans? I’m curious how one might meld Ray Peat principles with low VA.

 

[GreekDemiGod]

I don't know if you guys are following Grant's discussion forum(Discussion). I remember hearing him in a podcast about what percentage of members are having success, and the number he gave was not that high. If VA really was a toxin, shouldn't they have overwhelming positive experiences?

 

[orangebear]

If VA really was a toxin, shouldn't they have overwhelming positive experiences?

I’m not sold on the idea that VA is a toxin, full stop. But I can imagine that someone can overload on it fairly easily and cause themselves grief that way. I’m curious about it because I’ve had a rather high VA intake my entire life and I’ve done stupid things like cod liver oil.

 

[orangebear]

@GreekDemiGod I am curious what your opinion on solving VA issues is. I saw a post by you suggesting those who have VA issues might have bad bile. If so, how do you make the bile good, so to speak?

 

[Sefton10]

I don't know if you guys are following Grant's discussion forum(Discussion). I remember hearing him in a podcast about what percentage of members are having success, and the number he gave was not that high. If VA really was a toxin, shouldn't they have overwhelming positive experiences?

I've never looked at that forum before. The first thread I looked at gave me a laugh though...