VITAMIN A

[Birdie]

Quotes by Ray in an email exchange with my friend:

"Yes, it's definitely hard to get them coordinated when there's an
imbalance in one direction or the other. For several years, when I
had an extremely high metabolic rate, I needed 100,000 units per day
during sunny weather to prevent acne and ingrown whiskers, but when I moved to a cloudy climate, suddenly that much was too much, and suppressed my thyroid. The average person is likely to be
hypothyroid, and to need only 5,000 units per day. Avoiding large
amounts of carotene, and getting plenty of vitamin B12 to be able to
convert any carotene that's in your food, helps to use vitamin A efficiently."

"I generally count on eggs, milk, and cheese, with periodic liver, but
I recently found a supplement that seems to be pure, Nutrisorb, just
retinol in water. The resonant double bonds in vitamin A have effects
analogous to PUFA."

"I think it's that oxidative stress from PUFA in the diet destroys vitamin A, so it's largely wasted. With a mostly saturated diet, it's easier to regulate the nutrients and metabolic rate."

My friend said that the sentence about the double bonds in vit A, was to explain why large amounts of vit A could supress metabolism.