Retinil - Liquid Vitamin A

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haidut

haidut

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How should an adverse reaction to retinyl (2400 iu orally) be interpreted? I experienced numb feet and poor sleep quality with vivid dreams. Up until this I have been supplementing with beta-carotene (25,000 iu) for three of months. I don't have any bad snp's for beta-carotene conversion, hypothyroidism nor orange skin tone. Could my Vitamin A levels be too high or too low?

Hard to say without a test for blood vitamin A levels but poor sleep with vivid dreams suggests GI irritation. I would try topically and see if this changes the effects.
 
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jb116

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Time to report!
It's been 2 weeks now I've been taking Retinil Acetate. My suspicion for myself that I needed even more A, even though I eat liver, is the "fungal" type dandruff. When you scratch your scalp and you get the white clump on under the nails. My scalp is now clearing up! Also, my sleep since about 5 years ago has been overall much, much better but there is still a cycle there of circadian disturbance. The evidence is, after a week or so of good sleep, suddenly, I might still experience 1 or 2 nights where I wake up in the middle of the night, but then revert back to good sleep again for a week or so. Granted, there is protein intake for the day as well as sufficient carbohydrate to consider too. But the quality of sleep I can sense is better having since been on Retinil Acetate. I take it orally, usually 2 drops on ice cream. I am trying now to take it in the morning and then go outside and get sun/sun gaze. Sun light works with A in the eye to set a proper circadian. This is a great A product overall.
 
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haidut

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Time to report!
It's been 2 weeks now I've been taking Retinil Acetate. My suspicion for myself that I needed even more A, even though I eat liver, is the "fungal" type dandruff. When you scratch your scalp and you get the white clump on under the nails. My scalp is now clearing up! Also, my sleep since about 5 years ago has been overall much, much better but there is still a cycle there of circadian disturbance. The evidence is, after a week or so of good sleep, suddenly, I might still experience 1 or 2 nights where I wake up in the middle of the night, but then revert back to good sleep again for a week or so. Granted, there is protein intake for the day as well as sufficient carbohydrate to consider too. But the quality of sleep I can sense is better having since been on Retinil Acetate. I take it orally, usually 2 drops on ice cream. I am trying now to take it in the morning and then go outside and get sun/sun gaze. Sun light works with A in the eye to set a proper circadian. This is a great A product overall.

This is awesome! Thanks for the great feedback! Was there a problem when used at night so you switched to morning use?
 
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jb116

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This is awesome! Thanks for the great feedback! Was there a problem when used at night so you switched to morning use?
You're welcome!
This is a personal idea, so take it with a grain of salt, but I've been testing this notion that whatever you want to introduce to the system for whatever effect, do it as early as possible in the day. I say that because perhaps the process by which said substance goes through to exert its effect and the effect's effect, etc., maybe, that is also a stimulating period of time. I do test everything now this way and Retinil Acetate - at least for me - followed the same "rule." I found it much more effective to take early, get all the sun I need, and in essence start to wind down for night time. YMMV.
 

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Haidut- can you comment on Retinaldehyde vs. Retinil? I am considering a facial product that has the former as its key anti-aging ingredient. I can't seem to find much on retinaldehyde and if that is a superior form of A for skin. If I have Retinil (acetate), can't I just combine that with my facial cream?
 
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Haidut- can you comment on Retinaldehyde vs. Retinil? I am considering a facial product that has the former as its key anti-aging ingredient. I can't seem to find much on retinaldehyde and if that is a superior form of A for skin. If I have Retinil (acetate), can't I just combine that with my facial cream?

Retinaldehyde is a natural metabolite and a precursor of retinol. They interconvert into each other inside the organism, so probably have similar effects when it comes to skin health.
 

Epistrophy

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Took 100,000 IU of retinyl palmitate 1 day ago after reading haidut mention 200,000IU for women and 400,000IU for men regarding acne. Decided to take 4 times less and the next day experienced harder erections while with the lady rat.

Not sure if it is due to increased thyroid function and downstream use of cholesterol or if retinyl palmitate has androgen effects. If anything it was very very very unexpected results.
 
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Took 100,000 IU of retinyl palmitate 1 day ago after reading haidut mention 200,000IU for women and 400,000IU for men regarding acne. Decided to take 4 times less and the next day experienced harder erections while with the lady rat.

Not sure if it is due to increased thyroid function and downstream use of cholesterol or if retinyl palmitate has androgen effects. If anything it was very very very unexpected results.

Nice! Thanks for sharing. I guess you could have had a subclinical deficiency, which is common in spring/summer months, and taking extra vitamin A corrected it. If used our Retinil, it also provided vitamin E which protects from vitamin A toxicity. But if you used another product make sure to take at least 100 IU vitamin E any time you use vitamin A dose in excess of 25,000 IU.
 

Epistrophy

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Nice! Thanks for sharing. I guess you could have had a subclinical deficiency, which is common in spring/summer months, and taking extra vitamin A corrected it. If used our Retinil, it also provided vitamin E which protects from vitamin A toxicity. But if you used another product make sure to take at least 100 IU vitamin E any time you use vitamin A dose in excess of 25,000 IU.

You're welcome! Thanks for the vitamin E tip.

Well, I do live in South Florida which makes sense since we have 6-7 months of summer haha. Honestly, a subclinical deficiency of vitamin A makes total sense. When I started to research Peat's work learning the importance of vitamins/enzymes in mitochondrial health and thyroid function I implemented more liver into my diet and hypothyroid symptoms would disappear.
 
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What would cause this?

I think @DCLOSE already answered it. Thanks!
Peat also mentioned in several articles that his requirements for vitamin A varied strongly with weather/season. When he lived in Mexico in the summer he would often need several hundred thousand IU daily, but when he moved back to the NW Pacific area (Oregon) in the fall/winter that same dose would quickly make him hypothyroid. Various studies in both animals and humans have shown that vitamin E largely protects from the anti-thyroid effects or a large dose vitamin A and when I asked him about it he said it is a good idea for a hypo person to always use a little vitamin E with his/her A doses, especially in months when there is not much sunshine.
 
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@haidut

You think taking 100,000 IU once a week would be fine and not over due Vitamin A?

Human studies with even obese people showed up to 25,000 IU daily was fine, so up to 100,000 IU weekly is probably OK, but I would still take that higher weekly dose with say 200 IU vitamin E.
 
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sweetpeat

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Longer exposure to bright light stimulates respiratory enzymes and keeps stress hormones down. This in return makes the organism have a higher need for precursors to have optimal metabolism.

In this case, vitamin A is an agonist with thyroid to shuttle into the mitochondria.
Thank you and also @haidut . I thought it might have something to do with increased sunshine (and possible vitamin D production) but wanted to be sure I was on the right track
 

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Human studies with even obese people showed 25,000 IU daily was fine, so 100,000 IU weekly is probably OK but I would still take it with say 200 IU vitamin E.
Zeus, how it's dosed is important. That's too much to take at once (or for prolonged periods), especially if it's taken orally. If applied topically, the story might be different, not only because the effective dose is reduced and distribution is altered, but the skin might also metabolize it differently before reaches the circulation, however I amn't familiar with the process.


So I think that going Ortho in conditions that don't call for extreme measures isn't ortho; it's safer to stick to physiological doses.

@DCLOSE
 
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it's safer to stick to physiological doses.

What would those be? I thought those 25,000 IU daily is around the upper limit of the physiological dose and also happens to be the NOAEL demonstrated by multiple human studies. That's why I said I would not take more unless deficiency is strongly suspected.
 

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What would those be? I thought those 25,000 IU daily is around the upper limit of the physiological dose and also happens to be the NOAEL demonstrated by multiple human studies. That's why I said I would not take more unless deficiency is strongly suspected.
I meant that it does matter if a total amount is taken weekly or divided daily. 100,000 IU in a shot is excessive. The first experiment used 50,000 IU doses.
No idea if there's a treshold, in the 3rd link you could probably tell how much each group took just by their fasting circulating levels.
 
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I meant that it does matter if a total amount is taken weekly or divided daily. 100,000 IU in a shot is excessive. The first experiment used 50,000 IU doses.
No idea if there's a treshold, in the 3rd link, you could probably tell how much each group took just by their fasting circulating levels.

Oh yeah, by all means. I did not mean to imply that one should be taking 100,000 IU daily. That's why in said in my other comment up to 25,000 IU or 100,000 IU daily (with vitamin E) is probably OK. The 100,000 IU daily doses are typically done by people with serious issues like leukemia or immune disorders.
 

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