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

[dfspcc20]

I plan to read the pdf when I have time, but if it is true, that'd be terrifying considering vitamin A and carotene have always been present in the food supply, past and present. I'm not convinced we're consuming more food-based vitamin A now than we were in the past.
And who's profiting? Big-Liver Lobby?

 

[cyclops]

Oh I see, so Genereux would claim Vitamin A is not actually a vitamin at all then.

 

[Blossom]

I plan to read the pdf when I have time, but if it is true, that'd be terrifying considering vitamin A and carotene have always been present in the food supply, past and present. I'm not convinced we're consuming more food-based vitamin A now than we were in the past.
And who's profiting? Big-Liver Lobby?

I think he feels it's primarily pharmaceutical companies that sell Accutane and such.

 

[ilikecats]

@franko its foolish for me to speak for peat? I just told you what he thinks about vitamin A IN HIS WORDS. He’s seen hundreds of studies on vitamin A and has experimented with it for decades and has personally seen its effects on probably hundreds of people. But no this is gonna be the game changer... some engineer with a blog is going to completely change everything for him. He cured his eczema wow that n=1 is amazing! Did you send this to Ray? I’ll give you his email if you don’t have it. And why are you shilling so aggressively for this guy? Just cause these e books are free doesn’t mean this mans not profiting in some way. Danny roddy started his whole career with giving out free e books (not knocking him)

 

[dfspcc20]

I think he feels it's primarily pharmaceutical companies that sell Accutane and such.

So is this theory a criticism of pharmaceuticals like Accutane and Retin-A and other synthetic vitamin A's? Or is it saying all vitamin A is suspect? I can get behind the former, but reading through this thread, it seems like the latter. (yes, I should read the book)

 

[cyclops]

Or is it saying all vitamin A is suspect?

I haven't read the book, but I gather from this thread he is saying all Vitamin A is suspect and he avoids in his diet. I think he is saying Vitamin A should not be viewed as a vitamin at all but should be reclassified as a toxin. Those who first discovered it as a vitamin were mistaken.

 

[ilikecats]

@Blossom what? Pharm companies selling accutane would do anything and everything to paint vitamin a in a bad light. It basically does the exact same thing in large dosages (get rid of acne) but without all the unbelievably terrible side effects that accutane gives. If everyone knew that no one would ever go on accutane.

 

[ilikecats]

@franko i want to see this. Let’s see rays response. I’ll literally give you 200 dollars if this makes him change his opinion on vitamin A and starts altering his eating/supplementation to eliminate vitamin A from his diet. I mean wow I’m just thinking about all the damage he’s done... he used to supplement 50,000iu daily I feel bad for the guy

 

[Blossom]

So is this theory a criticism of pharmaceuticals like Accutane and Retin-A and other synthetic vitamin A's? Or is it saying all vitamin A is suspect? I can get behind the former, but reading through this thread, it seems like the latter. (yes, I should read the book)

@Blossom what? Pharm companies selling accutane would do anything and everything to paint vitamin a in a bad light. It basically does the exact same thing in large dosages (get rid of acne) but without all the unbelievably terrible side effects that accutane gives. If everyone knew that no one would ever go on accutane.

The impression I get thus far from reading parts of each book is that he sees Vitamin A as something that builds up (usually gradually) to a toxic level when the liver becomes overwhelmed and that is when people start having autoimmune diseases etc.
As for the profit angle my take on what I've read so far is that even though the pharmaceutical industry does paint Vitamin A in a somewhat negative light the fact that it is considered an essential nutrient reinforces the image of their products as benign.

 

[franko]

I plan to read the pdf when I have time, but if it is true, that'd be terrifying considering vitamin A and carotene have always been present in the food supply, past and present. I'm not convinced we're consuming more food-based vitamin A now than we were in the past.
And who's profiting? Big-Liver Lobby?

Well, part of his theory is that our increase in autoimmune disease is a result of the increase in our intake of vitamin A and precursors and derivatives (retinol, caretonoids, synthetic retinyl palmitate, retinoic acid).

What are the sources of this increase? Here are summaries of some of the main sources:

1. The fortification of staple foods with retinyl palmitate. In the US and some parts of the Western world: low-fat milk and dairy products, breakfast cereal, margarine, infant formula, / meal replacement shakes. But also there are fortification programs going on around the world, for example, the "fortification" of sugar in Central and South America.

2. Increased intake of VA supplements (multivitamins, cod liver oil) and maybe also caretenoid supplements (green juices and green drinks).

3. Increased consumption of "healthy" foods like kale and spinach and "healthy alternatives" like sweet potato — all high in caretenoids.

4. Intake of retinoic acid via prescription drugs like Accutane and Retin-a and also from retinol or RA-based skin peels, lotions and sunblock.

And who's profiting? Big-Liver Lobby?

Well, that's a big question. But the real profits being made are not in VA sales, they are in the treatment of the hundreds of millions of people suffering from VA-induced diseases including all the so-called "autoimmune" diseases including:

• eczema
• diabetes
• lupus
• rheumatoid arthritis
• psoriasis
• multiple sclerosis
• Lupus
• Hashimoto's
• Grave's
• Celiac
• Crohn's / IBD
• Alzheimer's
• Parkinson's
• Alopecia areata

And that's not even taking into account the possible causal role of VA in obesity, cancer and heart diseases (all of which Genereux proposes connections).

I'd be curious to know how much money is being made off treatments, surgeries, medications, etc. for all those diseases. I bet it's a big number.

 

[franko]

@franko its foolish for me to speak for peat? I just told you what he thinks about vitamin A IN HIS WORDS. He’s seen hundreds of studies on vitamin A and has experimented with it for decades and has personally seen its effects on probably hundreds of people. But no this is gonna be the game changer... some engineer with a blog is going to completely change everything for him. He cured his eczema wow that n=1 is amazing! Did you send this to Ray? I’ll give you his email if you don’t have it. And why are you shilling so aggressively for this guy? Just cause these e books are free doesn’t mean this mans not profiting in some way. Danny roddy started his whole career with giving out free e books (not knocking him)

@franko i want to see this. Let’s see rays response. I’ll literally give you 200 dollars if this makes him change his opinion on vitamin A and starts altering his eating/supplementation to eliminate vitamin A from his diet. I mean wow I’m just thinking about all the damage he’s done... he used to supplement 50,000iu daily I feel bad for the guy

> "shilling"
How am I shilling if I'm not making any money? (except from you when you lose that bet)

Yeah, it's foolish of you to speak for Peat on Genereux's theory before Peat has read Genereux's theory and published his opinion / analysis of Genereux's theory.

Sweet dude, I could use the $ :)

I would have sent it to Peat myself already if I was in regular communication with him.

 

[ilikecats]

@franko you're serious? you really think rays going to believe this hack's nonsense? Your lack of self awareness is profound. How bout we just make it a bet then? Im actually starting to HOPE you're just a shill. I honestly feel bad for you if you're not getting paid in some way for this.

 

[cyclops]

Did someone send this off to Peat yet for his opinion?

 

[InChristAlone]

That chart also points out of the paradoxes at the core of Genereux's skepticism of the established doctrine:

"both low and high intakes of Vitamin A can cause clinical signs".​

Isn't that odd?

Here's what Genereux says about it:

"But, the one that I found most troubling and perplexing is that the symptoms of vitamin-A deficiency are almost a perfect match with those of vitamin-A toxicity. That seemed so peculiar to me. It would be somewhat like seeing that the documented symptoms of dying from dehydration as being identical to those of dying from drowning. It was just so illogical. Something was just not adding up here with vitamin-A being both a deadly toxin and a critical vitamin at the same time, and with the same symptoms if you get too much, or too little of it. Someone, somewhere just had to have gotten their wires crossed on this one. Another perplexing question I struggled with was why had the human body built such a critical dependency upon a toxic molecule. This dependency was most certainly not impossible, it just seemed strange to me that after millions of years of being perfected by evolution (or by God’s creation if you prefer), that we’d have such a dicey dependency upon this one highly toxic molecule. It was hard to believe that nature (or God) could be this foolish."
- Genereux, PFP, p. 1
​

And whereas the prevailing theory does not have a good explanation for that paradox — Genereux's theory does. His theory explains that the experiments demonstrating "VA deficiency" were unknowingly demonstrating retinoic acid toxicity. And since vitamin A (VA) consumption leads to more retinoic acid (RA) in the body, VA consumption and accumulation in the body eventually leads to the same symptoms as RA toxicity (which they erroneously declared to be VA deficiency).

In other words, his theory is that the basis for the concept of "VA deficiency" was a tragic human error. It was scientists not knowing what they did not know. Is that not plausible?

Vitamin D is also like this though. Too little causes signs, and too much definitely causes signs. (Maybe we should classify A and D as more of a signal than a vitamin)

Also, sunlight helps when consuming a lot of A, I couldn't tell you the mechanism though, maybe @Travis could get it in here.

 

[ilikecats]

@franko ray will answer you (usually within a day) whether you're in regular contact with him or not... you're making excuses. Ray wouldn't even be aware if you were in regular contact with him or not unless he really knows you. Do you realize how many emails he gets a day? And who says this guy is not paying you?

 

[franko]

So is this theory a criticism of pharmaceuticals like Accutane and Retin-A and other synthetic vitamin A's? Or is it saying all vitamin A is suspect? I can get behind the former, but reading through this thread, it seems like the latter. (yes, I should read the book)

No, it's about Vitamin A in general, in all its forms and derivatives, some of which have stronger effects than others.

But unfortunately it's quite a deep subject to understand all the forms and related substances, but here is a condensed version which should serve our purposes:

• precursors or provitamin A: mostly plant-based carotenes, can be converted to retinol [1]
• retinol: the fat soluble substance that the label "vitamin A" mainly refers to
• retinoic acid: an even more toxic derivative of retinol that occurs in the body, but can possibly be found in foods (e.g. lard)
• tretinoin / isotretinoin: these are basically names for pharmaceutical retinoic acid (e.g. Accutane and Retin-a and others)

The "Nutrition Facts" labeling is partly to blame for this confusion because it lumps "precursors" / carotenes and retinol together as Vitamin A on food packages.

---

1. "The carotenes alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, gamma-carotene; and the xanthophyll beta-cryptoxanthin (all of which contain beta-ionone rings), but no other carotenoids, function as provitamin A in herbivores and omnivore animals, which possess the enzyme beta-carotene 15,15'-dioxygenase which cleaves beta-carotene in the intestinal mucosa and converts it to retinol."
Source: Vitamin A - Wikipedia

 

[Ledo]

@franko , Why does the author consider carotenoids in the same toxin class as pre-formed vit A if the body converts them based on need?

Is limiting preformed A and not being so strict with green vegetables enough to eventually drop below a threshold where symptoms (autoimmunity) are no longer present?

edit: just saw your last post above.

 

[inthedark]

I'm 112 pages in, and so far the main thing to stick out -aside from his correlation of all forms of Vitamin A including pharma derivatives and carotene- is that he's convinced that we have a fixed capacity for storing retinoic acid.

I think it's feasible that this capacity could depend on numerous factors familiar to us including estrogen, pufa accumulation, etc and other things that affect overall health and that these might make us less able to handle large amounts of retinoids. This would work with Peats assertion that vitamin A need depends on thyroid health.

 

[franko]

Vitamin D is also like this though. Too little causes signs, and too much definitely causes signs. (Maybe we should classify A and D as more of a signal than a vitamin)

Also, sunlight helps when consuming a lot of A, I couldn't tell you the mechanism though, maybe @Travis could get it in here.

Yeah but isn't "Vitamin D" is essentially a hormone? With hormones its about balance — not too high, not too low.

And it's not just about low and high causing problems — it's about low and high causing the exact same symptoms.

Another analogy would be that starvation and extreme overeating are both bad for you but the problems / symptoms that manifest will look very different.

But again, is just one piece of evidence among many — actually this isn't really even evidence — it's just another hint or clue in the investigation. By debunking this one clue you don't disprove the whole theory.

 

[cyclops]

I think it's feasible that this capacity could depend on numerous factors familiar to us including estrogen, pufa accumulation, etc and other things that affect overall health and that these might make us less able to handle large amounts of retinoids

Yea it makes sense that its an individual thing like many other things. This guy has eczema, I don't. Maybe his body is sick in some way, so he needs less vitamin A. Maybe he's allergic to it or something. Other people might do better with different amounts.