Vitamin A Toxic?

[InChristAlone]

I don't have an opinion on the Vit A debate.

However, when you quote RP (Perceive. Think. Act.) in the path of advocating for n=1 over "science" . . . I think you've fundamentally misunderstood "Perceive" as well as "Think".

An (apparent) inability to interpret scientific work does not justify discarding reason. This doesn't mean that n=1 is inherently invalid. Quite the opposite. But, alone, that reasoning is so incomplete as to be worthless.

No I do not have an inability to interpret science lol. I am just getting tired of cherry picking science. You can find what you are looking for if you really want to. you can find a study showing saturated fat is good for the heart, you can find a study saying saturated fat is bad for the the heart. You can find studies showing moderate alcohol consumption promotes longevity, you can find quite a lot showing alcohol is a toxin. You can find studies showing fructose is bad, and you can find the opposite. Do I need to go on? I am not anti science, however, I just do not use it as an authority like many people do. The whole 'look! this study says this, that means absolutely 100% its a FACT!'

 

[LeeLemonoil]

You’re righg with that @sugarbabe, I’m very aware of the shortcomings of institutional research and publication-picking and biases.

The problem was that you deducted from n=1 or 2 anecdotes that Vit A is not helpful in acneous conditions.
That’s wrong, plain and simple. There are many forms and causes of / for acne pathologies, and many people have been helped with Vit A and derivates. Others not. The „perceive think act“ - conclusion is that VitA/derivates help attenuate some underlying causes but not all.
Yours was that it doesn’t help any and additionally claimed in a context that VitA is generally toxic. There is no feasible base for that. If we apply what you say about the availability of pro- and con-publications and interpretations for virtually any standpoint on Vitamin A‘s properties then this whole „Poison A“-Duscussion is just an overblown example of just that.

There are many fundamental ways in which retinol functions within the human organism. Hormesis exists, Vit A is subject to that principle. It’s neither a toxin nor a panacea.

 

[managing]

No I do not have an inability to interpret science lol. I am just getting tired of cherry picking science. You can find what you are looking for if you really want to. you can find a study showing saturated fat is good for the heart, you can find a study saying saturated fat is bad for the the heart. You can find studies showing moderate alcohol consumption promotes longevity, you can find quite a lot showing alcohol is a toxin. You can find studies showing fructose is bad, and you can find the opposite. Do I need to go on? I am not anti science, however, I just do not use it as an authority like many people do. The whole 'look! this study says this, that means absolutely 100% its a FACT!'

Yes, but that's my point. Perceive. Think. Act. is about being a critical consumer of science. This means avoiding confirmation bias. It means doing more than reading conclusions and assuming fact, because Authority.

Being anti-authoritarian (a common theme of RP's) is not about throwing out the products of authority. Its about throwing out "authoritativeness". Its about being a critical consumer of things, regardless of their source. Ray all the time juxtaposes good and bad studies and explains why they are good/bad. The hallmarks of "authority" are impossible to avoid, but they don't have to be internalized. For example, both studies will have been published in a journal, by authors (probably) employed by universities or privat research institutes, holding degrees from universities, etc. You can't just say "whelp, authority, ergo bad results." In your previous post you then jump to "so Ray says to trust my n=1 to tell me everything I need to know (paraphrasing)". No, no he doesn't.

But you just seem to say "comes from authority figure = bad, discard". That is categorically not what Ray advocates. In all of your examples above, you only focus on conclusions. The real meat is in the methods and materials.

 

[InChristAlone]

You’re righg with that @sugarbabe, I’m very aware of the shortcomings of institutional research and publication-picking and biases.

The problem was that you deducted from n=1 or 2 anecdotes that Vit A is not helpful in acneous conditions.
That’s wrong, plain and simple. There are many forms and causes of / for acne pathologies, and many people have been helped with Vit A and derivates. Others not. The „perceive think act“ - conclusion is that VitA/derivates help attenuate some underlying causes but not all.
Yours was that it doesn’t help any and additionally claimed in a context that VitA is generally toxic. There is no feasible base for that. If we apply what you say about the availability of pro- and con-publications and interpretations for virtually any standpoint on Vitamin A‘s properties then this whole „Poison A“-Duscussion is just an overblown example of just that.

There are many fundamental ways in which retinol functions within the human organism. Hormesis exists, Vit A is subject to that principle. It’s neither a toxin nor a panacea.

Vitamin A DOES help some skin issues in the short term. What are the long term ramifications of using higher doses of it? Does the condition come back? Do other health markers get worse? Does the patient become suicidal? On and on. Fix one thing and cause another. Unfortunately that's not holistic. I refuse to take anything that can build up over time for short term benefits. The only one I take in smallish doses is vitamin E only because it's in the progesterone I use. So this is what I meant when I said misguided.

 

[InChristAlone]

Yes, but that's my point. Perceive. Think. Act. is about being a critical consumer of science. This means avoiding confirmation bias. It means doing more than reading conclusions and assuming fact, because Authority.

Being anti-authoritarian (a common theme of RP's) is not about throwing out the products of authority. Its about throwing out "authoritativeness". Its about being a critical consumer of things, regardless of their source. Ray all the time juxtaposes good and bad studies and explains why they are good/bad. The hallmarks of "authority" are impossible to avoid, but they don't have to be internalized. For example, both studies will have been published in a journal, by authors (probably) employed by universities or privat research institutes, holding degrees from universities, etc. You can't just say "whelp, authority, ergo bad results." In your previous post you then jump to "so Ray says to trust my n=1 to tell me everything I need to know (paraphrasing)". No, no he doesn't.

But you just seem to say "comes from authority figure = bad, discard". That is categorically not what Ray advocates. In all of your examples above, you only focus on conclusions. The real meat is in the methods and materials.

I get what you are saying. If you analyze the data yourself you can come up with a different conclusion than the researcher, I have done this many times, but we only have so much time in a day to pick apart each study. I am not against authority figures, I still look to them to see what they think, and I do have role models for the great research they have done. Obviously one of them is Ray Peat.

 

[postman]

All the classic experiments have been posted before and discussed on Grant's thread, including that review and even the case report of massive mobilization in a short period.

"All eight of Sauberlich's volunteers developed clear signs of vitamin A deficiency after ∼13 mo of consuming the depleted diet, compared with 3 of 17 subjects in the study of Hume and Krebs within about the same time. This difference reveals the well-known great variability in vitamin A reserves in the population, although one wonders why the Sauberlich volunteers all appeared to have lower reserves than most of those in Sheffield."​

They were eating casein and were thus all getting plenty of retinoic acid. Crappy study.

 

[Amazoniac]

They were eating casein and were thus all getting plenty of retinoic acid. Crappy study.

Criticizing that the diet was semi-purified for a long time and lacked (actual) nutrients (that could explain the appearance of symptoms) would have been more pertinent. I wouldn't call it crappy, it was quite detailed and took a decent effort from researchers, unlikely to be recreated these days.

By the way, they have to return tests on prisoners with the risk involved increasing with the severity of crime. It would have the torment bias, but it's human nevertheless. It's not more immoral than testing on innocent animals, although their existence is thanks to the experiment. Yet, the principle of producing a fetus not giving you ownership over it applies.