Low Toxin Lifestyle Does Dr. Garrett Smith Have it Wrong, Is Anhydroretinol the Real Problem with vitamin A?

[mosaic01]

So someone who was speaking with Meri before she was about to post this video, Meri sent them this:

"The other discovery is VA has a first pass metabolism. It gets absorbed from GIT to lymph to blood then goes to cells before going to the liver. This is how the body wants to get VA, but first pass can get broken for various reasons. If its broken we go to second pass - this is the liver releasing retinol in RBP4 - RBP4 is associated with insulin resistance, high NO, inflammation etc. If the retinol cant be made to RA there is no off switch and we get high retinol and RBP as the liver keeps churning it out. This is what causes the issues with 'detox'. Its not detox its the body desperately trying to supply the cells with RA."

"this is why people get high retinol with low VA. Because if you dont eat VA you definitely dont get first pass"

This doesn't make much sense to me. According to the mainstream view that sees retinol as essential, the liver stores retinol precisely to liberate it in times of need. So if she thinks retinol is needed, it does not make sense that liberating it from storage is problematic.

She's completely lost in theories and concepts that don't apply to anything.

This is probably the paper that she read about the lymph metabolism etc: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042718/

If the body "wants" the vA via lymphatic uptake, then why does the liver clear 60-80% of the circulating retinol and puts it out of circulation into storage. The only way to get toxic vA out of storage is via reducing dietary intake.

Does the body also "want" all the other fat-soluble toxins that get taken up by the lymphatic system? Probably not. Does the body "want" to die when the retinol intake is increased too much and it does not decrease the intestinal uptake? Probably not.

High RBP4 is associated with problems because it indicates a high retinol storage and spilling over of the liver into the rest of the body.

Retinol is not a vitamin. The liver has sufficient retinol stored even on a diet that has virtually no vitamin A. If you don't go to great lengths to avoid literally any trace of retinol, you will always have enough in your liver (>20mcg/g), per the mainstream standards. Retinol is a mostly toxic signalling substance that does things we don't understand yet because no one has ever looked into it from that perspective.

 

[Blossom]

Here’s another related video she did 11 hours ago.

View: https://youtube.com/watch?v=kcww9TDo4JA&si=ZKGG2xsOUzJFpsse

 

[Jabuger]

Also, all vitamin A starts as carotenoids. Animals turn carotenoids into retinol and all the rest. She said that carotenoids can enter and directly kill mitochondria. If this is the case then I still highly doubt any of it is necessary. There's no way it's deadly in the initial form, but needed in a downstream form.

Ray actually talks about the toxicity of carotenoids quite a lot. He mentioned somewhere that the carotene molecule blocks the retinol from getting into the cell among various other things.

 

[lilrawhoney]

I wonder if this is why myself, and many others have seen lots of benefits eating raw meat.

Also, one thing I could never wrap my head around regarding the RPF was how people didn’t differentiate between grassfed raw milk and pasteurized store bought milk. Anyone who’s had both should be able to see that there is such a huge difference. I personally don’t know if I can believe that milk is inherently toxic, but I 100% believe store bought milk is toxic. Many people with autoimmune disease cannot tolerate store bought milk at all, but can drink grassfed raw milk just fine. @mosaic01

 

[Blossom]

Here’s a perspective from a member on Grant’s site who gave me permission to share it here:

“I've been quietly observing this forum for the past couple of years. It's been a while since I last shared an update here, but I intend to do so soon. However, I feel compelled to chime in now.

A significant portion of the commentary in the video relies on mechanistic studies, "Vitamin" science, and methylation science, which essentially constitute a large-scale psychological operation (psyop) orchestrated and sustained by pharmaceutical giants like Merck. The fact that Big Pharma often sponsors such research and promotes substances like methylfolate and "Vitamin" B6 serves as a clear indicator of their inherent toxicity. Folate, in all its forms (not limited to folic acid), is a potent neurotoxin. For example, the concept of a "folate trap" is unfounded; rather, B12 acts as an antidote to folate's toxicity. Years ago, I was prescribed Deplin, the pharmaceutical form of methylfolate, by my psychiatrist to address treatment-resistant depression. However, this decision led to unfortunate consequences.

Many individuals attempt to make folate effective, but it's futile. The majority of methylation research is a large-scale deception orchestrated by some of the most influential pharmaceutical entities in the game. It's true, methylation is a vital part of Vitamin A metabolism, but the foundational principles of methylation that people adhere to are fundamentally flawed and needlessly complex.

The simplest solution to virtually all methylation challenges? Incorporate a pound of meat into your daily diet to ensure an ample supply of methionine and cysteine, along with supplementing with TMG, Creatine, Choline, and Niacin. Problem solved. No need to obsess about the endless intermediary methylation products or mourning a polymorphism that a huge swath of the population carries. The methylation aspect must be addressed as it directly intersects with several concepts covered in the YouTube video.

The ONLY health benefit eggs have going for them is their phospholipid and choline content, but that doesn't mean you should eat them. Phosphatidylcholine can enhance the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, including Vitamin A and essentially all lipid based molecules, by forming micelles in the gut. These micelles facilitate the transport of Vitamin A across the intestinal mucosa, improving its bioavailability (think similar to liposomal delivery). In my opinion, this could be the reason why eggs are among the most potentially allergenic foods for individuals. One egg doesn't have notably high levels of Vitamin A, much like how liposomal Vitamin C supplements often contain a lower dose of Vitamin C compared to standalone Ascorbic Acid supplements.

Dr. Garrett Smith claims choline shoves Vitamin A into the liver (lol) because Phosphatidylcholine is involved in the formation of lipid droplets, where Vitamin A can be stored in the form of retinyl esters. These lipid droplets serve as reservoirs of Vitamin A, particularly in tissues like the liver. This mechanism is protective and beneficial as it provides ample raw material to mitigate toxicity while the body detoxifies. One only needs to research the destiny and life cycle of phospholipids throughout time to understand this does not delay detox. The body intentionally binds problematic molecules to fat and lipid-based substrates for storage. However, this doesn't imply that using such potent carrier molecules like Phosphatidylcholine as a delivery mechanism for additional Vitamin A, such as through eggs, is advisable. That being said, Choline is definitely beneficial, not only for aiding in Vitamin A detoxification but also for supporting methylation processes. For someone like me who has no excess fat, Choline was and is a game changer.

The notion of "fresh" retinol is absurd and can only be entertained due to a plethora of lamentable in vitro cell mechanistic studies that provide little to no practical application and are typically peddled by those with the pallor and robustness of a cadaver (think your typical Ivy League researcher). It is pure intellectual masturbation. The solution is typically easy, straightforward, and intuitive.

Pay attention to your body and trust your intuition. Your setbacks in Vitamin A detox aren't caused by some rigmarole by-product molecule hogging a receptor, with the solution being to ingest more toxins to kick-start things or double down on adding more, more, more. The most powerful solutions aligned with cosmological design typically include subtraction, not addition. Much love!”

@mosaic01, It’s very simple yet elegant perspective that reminds me of you.

 

[mosaic01]

This "quantum chemistry" paper is quoted: Quantum chemistry rules retinoid biology - Communications Biology

The dietitian calls it a "study". No, it's merely a long succession of speculations, a paper proposing an idea.

The author, Ulrich Hammerling, seems to be the only source for the idea that retinol is needed for Protein Kinase C in energy metabolism, and that anhydroretinol impairs this process.

I generally do not use Chat GPT or any other AI garbage, but I for this I asked it to tell me whether there is anyone else besides Hammerling who thinks retinol is involved with PKC. All Chat GPT came up with was more papers from Hammerling.

Chat GPT told me, after I confronted it with dodging my questions: "Based on the information available to me, I do not have specific examples of other researchers who have worked on the direct connection between vitamin A and PKC function, apart from Ulrich Hammerling. "

Also: "While Anhydroretinol (AR) has been studied in human B lymphocytes and insect cell lines, and it’s known to induce oxidative stress and cell death, comprehensive human studies beyond in vitro and isolated cell studies are not readily available based on the current information. "

Here’s a perspective from a member on Grant’s site who gave me permission to share it here:

Great post. Just need to add glycine to the methylation stack, because it mops up excessive methyl groups from the TMG. People make this needlessly complicated, most do it just because they need to make money selling complex ideas, and then they start believing it themselves.

Most "methylation proponents" are entirely lost in complicated biochemical pathways and think methylation is some kind of wizardry where you have to find just the right combination of obscure chemicals for each person.

While in reality choline and creatine already take care of the methylation requirements, and adding TMG and glycine will make things even smoother. And niacin is good for lots of things, even though as a supplement it is not strictly necessary for methylation. A good diet has sufficient amounts of b-vitamins.

In practice, beef, beans, egg yolks (choline), wheat (betaine), gelatinous meat, beef (creatine, methionine) can be used if one doesn't want to supplement, but a good diet has more than enough choline to make egg yolks unnecessary, at least for meeting choline requirements.

But I think supplementing TMG is always good when using niacin, in a 1:1 ratio.

This dietitian can't see the forest for the trees. Her thinking leads to the old idea that you need to take countless Pharma-produced chemicals to be healthy (vitamin c, e, b-vitamins, glutathione, etc. etc.) because the body is viewed as a complicated and dumb biochemical machine where every step is broken and needs to be fixed with chemicals.

She speaks with authority about things that no one has ever studied. She came up with a problem that likely does not exist (Anhydroretinol) and then, confidently, says that you need to take countless supplements to remedy the problem. Can't take her seriously at all.

Many people with autoimmune disease cannot tolerate store bought milk at all, but can drink grassfed raw milk just fine. @mosaic01

It's a pretty complicated topic. I think the WAPF people have shown that worshipping raw milk does not lead to vibrant health. But it's probably true that raw organic milk is something completely different than all the other versions people can buy. The problem is that commercial milk, no matter how it is treated, still looks the same as the raw product, it's always a white liquid. With meat for example, it is very easy to see the differences in quality between grass-fed organic, and cheap feedlot meat.

That Peat endorsed the worst milk, fortified and homogenized, led to this attitude in the Ray Peat community that it's fine to not care about quality, be it orange juice or milk. Even though sometimes Peat talked about the importance of high quality products. But he said the cheapest orange juice and milk is still better than no orange juice and milk, which is clearly wrong.

Everything except raw and pasteurized organic/grass-fed has nothing to do with food anymore. I even think that A1 cow's milk itself is a problem nowadays, because they have turned an animal into a milk-producing machine. These cows are so sick, it shows in the milk.

I tried some grass-fed pasteurized sheep milk from a local farm, and the quality is just on another level.

But milk is still milk and just contains way too many growth factors and calcium for an adult.

 

[Blossom]

@mosaic01, Thank you, I greatly appreciate your input.

 

[lilrawhoney]

I definitely agree that it’s easy to overdo it on milk. Even my two year old reached a point where he was drinking too much and lost his appetite for other foods. I was afraid to cut the milk for fear I was cutting his nutrition, since he wouldn’t eat much, but as soon as I cut him back to one cup per day he started eating again and eating a lot. Since I’ve had him on low A, he’s eating 3 big meals a day and snacks. My one year old doesn’t seem to have a taste for milk like he did. (They both still breastfeed as well) This week I cut our raw milk herdshare from 3 gallons a week to 1.

I forgot to mention the A1 milk protein, but yes I feel that’s a huge issue too. It also just goes to show how truly awful infant formula is. Ultra pasteurized A1 conventional milk powder, with extra PUFA, and plenty of added retinol.

 

[cremes]

My one year old doesn’t seem to have a taste for milk like he did. (They both still breastfeed as well) This week I cut our raw milk herdshare from 3 gallons a week to 1.

Keep up the breast feeding. It hardly contains any vitamin A poison. Maybe bank a bunch in advance so they don’t have to drink commercial milk.

Vitamin A content in mature breast milk and its adequacy to the nutritional recommendations for infants - PubMed

Vitamin A content was not enough to satisfy the recommendations in half of the cases.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[lilrawhoney]

Keep up the breast feeding. It hardly contains any vitamin A poison. Maybe bank a bunch in advance so they don’t have to drink commercial milk.

Vitamin A content in mature breast milk and its adequacy to the nutritional recommendations for infants - PubMed

Vitamin A content was not enough to satisfy the recommendations in half of the cases.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

My youngest are 1 and 2 years old so technically don’t need any milk at this point. I’ve breastfed all 4 of my kids long term. My 2 year old did drink a lot of grassfed raw cows milk though on top of breastfeeding, but I only allow him one cup per day now.

I find it interesting that breastmilk is so low in vitamin A, D, and iron, which of course modern medicine tells us is essential to health I know many breastfeeding mothers guilted into supplementing their breastfed babies with vitamin D and iron by ignorant pediatricians.

 

[Blossom]

Another video by Meri on retinol and beta carotene in meat. This one really surprised me.

View: https://youtu.be/G2NWkZ_bsco?si=rA2uyDGjk8cTnM4E

 

[Peater]

Another video by Meri on retinol and beta carotene in meat. This one really surprised me.

View: https://youtu.be/G2NWkZ_bsco?si=rA2uyDGjk8cTnM4E

Very interesting!

 

[mosaic01]

Another video by Meri on retinol and beta carotene in meat. This one really surprised me.

She cites this study:

β-carotene and retinol contents in the meat of herbivorous ungulates with a special reference to their public health importance

I hope there's something wrong with their data, because 15mcg/g of retinol in muscle meat of grass-fed cattle means eating 300g of meat would give 4,500mcg of retinol. The paper does not give out exact amounts and it has to be deducted from the graphs.

It's strange that the total carotenoid content of grass-fed muscle tissue is measured lower than beta-carotene content alone.

The beta-carotene content of grass-fed meat in their study makes sense, and seems to be in the range of 0.5mcg, which is supported by another study A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef - Nutrition Journal

Meaning a 300g piece of grass-fed muscle meat (not low-fat) has +-135 mcg of beta-carotene. It's not a large amount on a low A diet but it can be relatively significant, and it is very low in general when compared to beta-carotene rich foods.

Other studies looking at the retinol content of muscle meat:

- Fallow deer in Poland fed retinol supplements of 150mg/kg feed - has 2.4 mcg retinol per g (300g serving = 720mcg retinol). But on a diet without retinol supplements (only hay and oats) the retinol content was only 0.08 mcg/g, which translates to 24 mcg retinol per 300g muscle meat. When deer is poisoned with retinol supplements, their muscle meat will also reach "poisonous" levels of retinol. (Source)

- Retinol content of beef in Finnland, study from 1987. "The all-trans-retinol content of beef ranged from 0.03 mcg/g (beef top round) to 0.22 mcg/g (beef brisket). The total B-carotene content was 0.22-0.34 mcg/g." 0.03 to 0.22 translates to 9-66 mcg per 300g serving. (Source)

We see again that the beta-carotene roughly matches. But not the retinol content.

The more fat, the more retinol. It's only in the fat:

These studies generally support the beta-carotene content discovered in the Japanese/Egyptian study, but not the retinol content of muscle meat in cattle.

When deer is fed pellets with 150 mg of retinol per kilogram feed, they accumulate more retinol in their muscles, but not remotely as much as in the Japanese study. Only around 15% or so. 2.4 mcg vs 15 mcg.

The amount of retinol that can be expected from eating a diet rich in beef (favoring lower fat meat) will probably be between 10-30 mcg per 300g. In other words, relatively lean muscle meat can be neglected as a relevant source of retinol.

There must be something wrong with the Japanese/Egyptian paper. There can be a language barrier issue here, as the paper likely got translated to english. The study result of 15mcg/g is wrong by a factor of 100. The actual content measured was probably 0.15 mcg/g.

But what becomes clear by now is that retinol is in literally everything. Even meat, when not chosen carefully, will give a person up to 100 IU per day. Impossible to get "deficient" by normal means.

 

[PopSocket]

Another video by Meri on retinol and beta carotene in meat. This one really surprised me.

View: https://youtu.be/G2NWkZ_bsco?si=rA2uyDGjk8cTnM4E

I actually like this girl as she has a different take on things and it makes sense !

Noticed Rats have the highest retinol content in their liver than all animals from the graph she showed. Which reminds me of the story in Poisoning for profits about rats being able to live a long time on grains only. Might be an explanation.

 

[PopSocket]

There must be something wrong with the Japanese/Egyptian paper. There can be a language barrier issue here, as the paper likely got translated to english.

Yeah seems the numbers in this study do not match many other sources of info.

 

[valzim]

There must be something wrong with the Japanese/Egyptian paper. There can be a language barrier issue here, as the paper likely got translated to english.

In addition to something being wrong with the Egyptian study, have you read the steps to measure retinol? Attached is a couple of screen grabs. Ascorbic acid, ethanol, nitrogen, potassium hydroxide, hexane, sodium chloride, propanol.
It's not like they can just mash the meat and filter out the retinoids. But not sure who developed this procedure and how accurate is it?
Based on the Egyptian study, Meri says there's tons of retinol in muscle meat. If we didn't have Grant, Garrett, and others at basically zero retinol on blood test with a heavy muscle meat diet, maybe I'd believe it. If true, Grant would not be at zero retinol. But he is. And he cured his kidney disease and all his other illnesses.

 

[Blossom]

Grant would not be at zero retinol. But he is. And he cured his kidney disease and all his other illnesses.

I thought about that as well.

@mosaic01, thanks for your in-depth analysis. No matter how you look at it muscle meat is still lower than many foods.

 

[Blossom]

I actually like this girl as she has a different take on things and it makes sense !

Noticed Rats have the highest retinol content in their liver than all animals from the graph she showed. Which reminds me of the story in Poisoning for profits about rats being able to live a long time on grains only. Might be an explanation.

I like her too. She seems very sincere and to be just genuinely seeking the truth to help her family and others.
I’m unsure about basing things on one relatively obscure study though.

 

[PopSocket]

I like her too. She seems very sincere and to be just genuinely seeking the truth to help her family and others.
I’m unsure about basing things on one relatively obscure study though.

My thoughts too.

 

[ddjd]

Vitamin A "toxicity" is just vitamin K deficiency. Garrett Smith has overblown the whole thing