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I'm 5' 6". I have a coworker who got me into DEXA scans who is of similar height and weight and has a BMC of 6. He also has the best jawline in the office while I have crowded teeth and other issues I'm trying to solve. I summarized some of my bone issues throughout this thread but I could list things all day.
I was just curious because apparently sometimes shorter people get falsely flagged as having low bone density because they are compared to average height people similar to what is done with other lab values being based on averages. I’ve also read that the wrist might be a better place to measure for people below average height. I supposedly have osteoporosis in my femoral neck per dexa scan in early 2020 but I’m only 5’1 so I’m not sure if it was accurate. I did get an affordable biometric scale in September to help track any changes in my bones and it says my bone mass is above average. I didn’t get the biometric scale until almost 3 years after the dexa scan so either the dexa scan was wrong, the biometric scale is wrong or I actually have made some progress with my bones in the time period between the two measurements. I used to have crowded teeth as well before extensive orthodontia so I completely understand your concerns.
The biometric scales are generally very imprecise. DEXA scans are much more accurate as they get a full image of your body composition while those scales just run a weak electric current through your feet and measure resistance. It's still possible that you have improved over the years as well, which I certainly hope you did and hope the things I'm doing will help me improve with time as well. :)
Thanks. I’ve considered getting another dexa scan for comparison but my husband and I made a pact earlier this year to avoid conventional medicine so I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing to help my bones. I just wanted to follow the trend over time with the scale anyway. I also continue to use egg shell calcium, keep my D in range and supplement vitamin k just in case. I sure hope things improve for you as well!
Kind of like how vegans can have high cholesterol despite not eating any...
Posting it here too, for those interested.
Have you read Grant Generoux's books? I don't know about that ratio, but I did try to get most of my protein from dairy and and also have ample gelatin while doing Ray Peat foods. It didn't seem to outweigh the VA toxicity for me. I think there's a lot of recent research to suggest dietary antioxidants don't do much good, and in some cases may even do harm. Oxidation is how we produce energy and part of the detox process as well. We don't need to eliminate oxidation from the body. We just need it to occur in the right places and not in the wrong ones. Kinda like how we need combustion in the engines of our cars for them to move, but we don't want combustion happening in other parts of the car.
Anti-oxidants do not eliminate 'cellular oxidation', they neutralize 'oxidants', which are damaging free radicals. It is a myth that anti-oxidants are useless. You don't see people who take anti-oxidants lined up at the hospital waiting to get in. If all the components for the ETC and other cellular machinery to produce energy is there, anti-oxidants will not stop the process, but they will mop up the free radicals caused by the oxidation process. Our body produces anti-oxidants, for the aforementioned reasons, they are important: Therapeutic potentials of superoxide dismutase.
I'm not disputing the use of endogenous antioxidants. I said there's a debate as to whether dietary antioxidants are useful or not. Not all antioxidants are the same either, so when discussing their potential efficacy or harm, we might come to different conclusions about different ones. Our immune system actually produces hydrogen peroxide and other free radicals to combat pathogens. This is one area in which some dietary antioxidants may interfere with the body's intended functions. It's a complex topic and I don't know Ray Peat's opinion on it, but the point about oxidation being used in killing pathogens and removing certain toxins is a prevalent one in the low VA sphere, which this thread is about. Dr. Garret Smith in particular talks about it fairly often though unfortunately he doesn't go into the chemistry in detail.
Okay, I gottcha. I get all their theories, but I wonder how they can verify that we don't have enough h2o2 because of vitamin A, etc., and it is a balancing act, what if too little vitamin A causes more H2O2 than we need? I look at nature, most 'all' foods contain some form of vitamin A, everything from fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, eggs, fish, etc., etc. If it was that bad, it would not be in every food. In most cases, the people with vitamin A problems are people who have either overdone it by diet or supplements, or have taken Accutane. Just the opposite, vitamin D is not found in most foods, and I do not believe people should consume large amounts through diet and supplements. Nature has designed us to make our own through UVB light {sun}, not from food, since most food has very little in it, this is nature's wisdom. And testing of D is ludicrous, testing a fat soluble hormone that resides in adipose tissue by testing the 'blood', and then saying you are deficient or toxic {like testing the fuel line in your car to see how much gas you have in the tank}.
The immune system creates free radicals on an as needed basis. The problem with vitamin A isn't that it decreases this response, but it actually can stimulate an immune response. In this framework then, vitamin A can be one of the causes of oxidative damage by acting like a pathogen and stimulating an immune response all over the body. Reducing vitamin A should then reduce the immune response in the same way as removing a pathogen does. That is, it doesn't force the immune system to be less active than it should be, but rather it removes the reason for the immune system to kick into high gear. Interestingly enough, vitamin A or retinoic acid can also shut down macrophage activity even in the presence of a pathogen in cases such as eczema. I don't know if it has to do with the concentration or that it affects different parts of the immune system differently. While I like understanding the theory, my main goal is to get better, so I can only explain it so well. It would be helpful to read the books to understand the context rather than going off my half-baked understanding of parts of it.
You're probably right and healthy people should be able to handle reasonable amounts of VA with no problems. That said, foods these days are fortified and we are told to eat more liver, greens, etc. that are higher in VA than the average food. Doing that or using supplements can damage the body. Once the damage has been done, the tolerance for VA appears do go down considerably for a lot of people. In my case I grew up eating liver and other so-called superfoods, but I was kind of sickly for most of my life. I developed arthritis in my early twenties. When my digestion went south in 2017, I tried keto and carnivore, which allows toxins (like excess VA but others as well) to build up in the liver due to a lack of fiber intake. This worked only until 2020 when my health crashed even worse. Then I tried the Root Cause Protocol which calls for liver and tons of cod liver oil. My Ray Peat inspired health coach suggested I might be overdoing VA, which according to RP is a vital nutrient, but too much can interfere with thyroid function. However, even when I stopped CLO and beef liver, with all the OJ, dairy, and tropical fruits I was eating, I was easily getting around 40k IU of VA per day, which is many times the RDA. Would it be at all surprising that lowering my VA and upping my fiber intake has made me feel a bit better?
Interesting, and I think it just occurs to me that dose might make the poison here. I will openly admit I don't know much about this thread and anti-vitamin A theory, but like I said, VA is in almost all foods, perhaps moderation {which goes for any of this stuff} is warranted, rather than making it out to be a poison. to tell someone to eat no VA is like telling them they might as well eat cardboard, and I bet that may have some in it, lol. I think there is more to this story than just VA being bad, something else is part of the jig saw puzzle here, in my opinion. Thanks for your input.
What were you eating? Isotretinoin-enriched guavas? 40,000 units of vitamin A is equivalent to
I could have sworn it was somewhere around there before Cronometer switched from IU to mcg, but looking at the log it was around 2000-2500mcg, which by most calculations is under 10k IU. Perhaps I mixed something up or Cronometer was showing me some funky data. That's why it's always good to have records of things to look back on. :) Here's what I ate on a day I had 2100mcg VA:
Funnily enough, isotretinoin is far worse than retinol but isn't counted as vitamin A, so if your food happens to contain it, the nutritional label won't count it and neither will Cronometer.
Yeah. VA is in most foods. I just generally keep the foods that I eat a lot of low in VA. I average around 100mcg VA per day. The idea is to eat less than the body can get rid of in a day, but it's pretty much impossible to eat zero. You still need to eat enough to produce enough energy to get through the day, let the body do detox and repairs, and get everything done that you need to in the day. Even then, that is something of a simplification. Like you said, there is more to the entire equation than just VA. VA is a good starting point, but there's more to it.
No, you're right. I forgot they switched those units. It would be around 5 ounces of beef liver daily, which is still a lot. My Cronometer from a few weeks ago - the last time I used it - shows 497 micrograms. 390 of these are derived from one egg yolk, two ounces of cheese, a few oranges and two ounces of cooked greens. I'm suspicious of this nutrient tracker however, which shows the net content of the foods rather than an estimated absorption (look at the iron!)
