Hair Loss, Abdominal Problems, Possible Fatty Liver

[kineticz]

The only things a good liver needs are

- Cortisol + thyroid to boost metabolic rate over time
- Quality source of sugar and lowered triglycerides along with increased fat metabolism (choline, protein, magnesium, taurine, niacin etc).
- High adrenal mitochondrial respiration which equates to high capacity pregnenolone storage.
- Anabolic thyroid conditions.

Optimising all this takes years to learn let alone master.

I agree that a full-on Peat diet needs to be advised against in the beginning. Stress compensation doesn't initiate for no good reason. People get carried away by the prospect of bucking the trend and consuming lots of sugar without a true measurement of their adrenal capacity.

I don't blame you for wanting to give up, especially seeing active hairloss.

From experience I believe hairloss can be caused by:

- Lower pregnenolone and neurotransmitter management resulting in 'stray' hormones
- Adrenaline constriction of nutrients to hair follicles
- Prolactin induced 5-AR DHT response to hypothyroidism/low adrenal respiration.

If you haven't specifically dropped all the diet advice and tried to maximise norephiprene and lower serotonin, you haven't done what can be done to try.

Hairloss is avoided by high pregnenolone in the adrenals (since they are the stress glands) and high metabolism. Simply consuming lots of calories is no where near enough.

Afaik, your problems arose when trying oral preg and DHEA.

 

[kineticz]

And I'm sorry but I stand by my claims that ACTH is the central problematic area of Peat's advice.

He reels off a list of anti-ACTH reasons, but it is a fact that only three signals stimulate pregnenolone enzymes.

ACTH, LH, FSH. Unless sperm and testosterone are your main goals, ACTH is the real mood manager because of T3's role with cortisol, and the risk of prolactin. It stays strong until you die, the testes will degrade with age.

As many on TRT have found, you don't want to be all testosterone, and no adrenals.

 

[BingDing]

I think starting over at square one is a perfectly reasonable move. There is nothing dogmatic about RP so it doesn't break any rules, there are no rules. Acting on one's own determinism is always a positive and I dare say a generative step.

The "refeeding" concept is not RP. A thread got started referring to a different web site and it all seemed to make a lot of sense and entered into the vernacular of the forum. I don't recall if RP has said X number of calories is good, but forcing yourself to eat a certain amount might not be a good idea.

The emphasis on sluggish liver and fatty liver is not RP either, or at least not so much as it might seem on the forum. A search of RPs website got no matches for "sluggish liver" and I can't recall him using the phrase. All I could find was, writing about essential fatty acids (PUFA) in "Unsaturated fatty acids: Nutritionally essential, or toxic?"

One of the standard signs of toxicity is the enlargement of the spleen and liver, and that effect is produced by larger amounts of the EFA.

There has been a huge escalation of "disease" in the last thirty years, RP has written about it. BP of 150/90 in a sixty year old person is almost trivial. There is no word for the opposite of hypochondriac but if there was it would be a good way to describe a healthy approach to being healthy.

Even high blood glucose is not a reason to panic. It is not a disease and might be tolerated for months or years without ever becoming a disease. Exploring ways to get it down without abandoning ship is a good approach, IMO.

No disrespect to haidut but I would take things like "over 80% of people over 30 have some degree of fatty liver" with a couple tablespoons of salt. Small changes in the fat content of a liver can't even be measured and some doc, looking at an xray and saying "fatty liver", is likely as not just disease escalation, IMO.

A big problem, not unique to RP, is that a lot of vitamins and supplements are worthless. Just taking them doesn't mean much, they have to be absorbed and used. Experimenting is the only way to tell, I got a surprising boost from haidut's Energin even though I had been supplementing B vitamins that I thought were good.

Member's n=1 conclusions about hormones aren't likely to be too valuable, there are many feedback control systems in the body with interdependent variables. Every metabolic pathway uses substrates, enzymes and cofactors that in turn depend on macro and micronutrients. Until we know more I think RP's broad advice is the best guide we have.

I didn't quite understand Tom's post but Chris Masterjohn seems to be pretty solid. I think choline does prevent fatty liver because it gets converted to betaine, I posted a link to a thorough review of betaine here, third paragraph. Ignore the methyl donor stuff, it is a separate issue from fatty liver.

Supplementing betaine anhydrous instead of choline avoids the potential negatives of supplementing choline, which RP does not think is a good idea. Betaine cannot convert back to choline, BTW.

My two cents, and as always I might be wrong about some things. Good luck and let us know what happens.

 

[YuraCZ]

Body temp is around 95.8 in the morning, about 96.8F in the afternoon and 96.1F before sleep. If I get extremely active throughout the day and upping my my calories I can be up to 97.9F. That'd be a lucky day for me.

My current approximate food regimen:

morning: Vitamin K supplement + 3 tablespoon cup raw honey + 1/4 cup greek yogurt + 1/4 cup cottage cheese + (sometimes) mexican cocacola + 1/4 cup orange juice (i've been minimizing liquid lately) + 1 duck eggs + 1 tsp coconut oil + some underground vegetables (carrots, onions, cucumbers)

sometime before noon:

Vitamin A, E, D3 supplement (I used to supplement thaurine, aspirin, niacinamide, B1,B5,B6,B12, zinc and others but no more)

Noon:

4oz of meat (now moving to organ meats) + 1 duck egg + underground vegetables + 3 tablespoon raw honey with little sips of orange juice + 1 cup of low fat milk mixed with cacao powder and 1 tbsp of raw honey + 2 tbsp of greek yogurt + 2 tbsp of cottage cheese

Mid afternoon:

occasional snacks of some tbsp of raw honey, cottage cheese and greek yogurt. Also occasional little sips of orange juice and milk to satiate appetite

Evening dinner:

Very similar to my breakfast but with 4 oz of meat.

The rest of the night I have occasional snacks similar to mid afternoon

I sip about 3-5 tablespoons of salt and 1/4 of eggshell powder per day. I also eat a can of oysters and 1 lbs of beef liver once a week.

I don't have blood work and bpm yet. I just purchased bpm wrist a few days ago and I don't know what blood work to get, especially in my current condition (liver included).

lol it's crazy how you mix all these ingredients in one meal! Maybe you should try eat simple meals like one type of each macronutrient in one meal . It is easier for the body digest and use nutrients than this insane mix of everything..

 

[halken]

There is no Ray Peat diet. That's your problem right there.

 

[Such_Saturation]

There is no Ray Peat diet. That's your problem right there.

That's everyone's problem, you will find.

 

[pboy]

I sip about 3-5 tablespoons of salt and 1/4 of eggshell powder per day. I also eat a can of oysters and 1 lbs of beef liver once a week.

.

3-5 tbsp. salt? LOL are you trying to commit suicide? theres probly less painful ways if that is what you are going for (seriously tho that's how people used to commit suicide, taking 1-2oz of salt straight up...you're pushing that there)

no seriously though, that's extremely dangerous...on top of the cottage cheese sodium and other stuff? that will cause TREMENDOUS hyper tonicity in your gut and tension and pressure feelings and probly...if it doesn't all rush out in a liquid fashion, constipation over time cause of all the fluid pressure kinking channels up

peat is right about just about everything, except salt. Humans are major sensitive to salt, its such a huge problem people don't realize. Most people are used to living in a tense adrenalized state, even when sitting alone in their room and theres no immediate problems. Salt is the fundamental culprit of this...the nagging mind, that mind that wont allow stillness, that always is running throwing random fear doubt or hero thoughts, is primarily due to salt hypertension. Humans are so sensitive you really need to go below 1.1 or so total g sodium from food total to notice the difference, and to many it will seem strange, and they might get nervous and think 'if im not all adrenalized and in a battle mode, wont things cave in, people judge me? ect ect' no...you act the same, just in a graceful matter, and with no 'in a warzone' mindset happening.

As for you right now, just stop the supplements, defiantely stop taking in salt or heavily salted foods like canned oysters, and up your vitamin A a little, unless you eating carrots 1 a day or every so often

 

[RPDiciple]

pboy: What do you mean RP is wrong about salt/sodium? he never recommends people to down salt like crazy, he says salt to taste. If you crave salt eat it, if you dont, dont. Very simple.

I cant do salt, but i need a good amount of sodium bicarb for the sodium and it helps with water retention.
Low salt raises aldosterone wich is not good

 

[pboy]

yea good call, its not Peat that ever says to do that...its peeps that follow his advice
but yea whatever, I don't even know why I posted anything, no one gon listen to me anyways, I know how this reel plays

eat up your salt people? it does X and Y!

 

[YuraCZ]

I have in my diet 7000 mg of potassium(2L milk,1LOJ etc..) and without added sea salt only 1300 mg of sodium. So I need compensate that amount of potassium with 20g of sea salt minimum. If not I feel like ***t.I was so long in sodium deficit due to hypothyroidism, overtraining, bad low sodium diet, running on cortisol for years and now my body goes crazy for sodium.. So you suggest take out potassium( so no milk, no OJ) because then I don't need 20g+ of sea salt a day... ? But then again without milk I will not have enough calcium, proper calcium/phosphorus ratio, another vitamins and minerals. Or maybe take out OJ. But then again no vitC flavonoids and another nutrients. I don't know... ******* high potassium...

 

[pboy]

its not the high potatssium that's the problem, its that you're hypotonic fluid wise. Use sugar instead of salt to densify your intake

 

[YuraCZ]

I don't know my body crave salt like crazy and I don't eat anything canned or cheeses or something with high sodium.. So what is "safe" salt intake per day??

 

[Strongbad]

I'll be getting thyroid-liver-kidney test early next week. I've found some clinics very close to where I live. So we'll see what happens.

I thought a lot about this: I think I've been forcing myself to eat so much to fulfill all Peat's recommended food in certain amount of calories all in one sitting. It may have put too much pressure on the entire digestive system to work, hence creating inflammation, stress hormones and accelerated hair loss. When I was in low carb, I only ate when I was hungry. I didn't starve myself and didn't overeat either. So even when I had metabolism issues and thinning hair off low-carb, at least I didn't stress the digestive much that the problems start showing up years of low-carbing later.

For now I'm just going to eat when I'm hungry and stay off supplements (except vitamin D3 on cloudy days). 2500-3000 calories per day will be great, but if my body feels fine below the requirement, that's fine, too. That might even reduce inflammation and stress hormones. Gotta give the digestive system some breaks

 

[pboy]

yea man, a good thing to do when the pressure is too much, is just become your own doctor. Intuitively you'll do a better job. Pretend there was no doctor or other person telling you what to do or with theories. Just do exactly what you want, and in the course of that you'll gain insights and get better. Pay attention to what seems like a chore and what seems like a gift, a joy...and just go with it

 

[Strongbad]

Agreed.

The biggest regret I have is that I should have figured this out 3 months ago. The ultimate damage has been done. The price of losing hair is too much for me, I hope it's reversible that I can regrow it back somehow.

 

[aquaman]

Agreed.

The biggest regret I have is that I should have figured this out 3 months ago. The ultimate damage has been done. The price of losing hair is too much for me, I hope it's reversible that I can regrow it back somehow.

You should read about shedding and growth cycles of hair. Shedding hair in the short term is NOT the same as hair loss.

 

[narouz]

There is no Ray Peat diet. That's your problem right there.

Let's play Spot the Peat Meal!

1. whole wheat rolls with margarine, fries cooked in cottonseed oil, chicken w/ skin on, raw kale
2. eye of newt, frog feet, tripe, raw broccoli florets w/ Duke's mayonaisse dipping sauce
3. Krispy Kreme donuts, pale ale with extra hops, pork with extra skin, lightly wilted turnip greens
with canola oil dressing
4. freshly squeezed orange juice and cottage cheese with curds rinsed of the liquid part
5. seal blubber and Spam
6. Cornbread with margarine, avocados, salmon sauteed in corn oil, pinto beans with bacon
7. 5 egg omelet from caged chicken eggs fed corn and soy, lentils simmered in canola oil, raw collards smothered in margarine, 16oz of water
8. chicken w/ skin on fried in industrial lard, raw dandelion greens drizzled with soy oil, corn muffins with melted margarine, whiskey
9. algae salad with soy oil, tofu fried in soy oil, Morningstar Farms soy sausage fried in corn oil
10. sardines in soy oil, pumpkin seeds fried in avocado oil, yams sprinkled with bacon drippings.

 

[halken]

There is no Ray Peat diet. That's your problem right there.

That's everyone's problem, you will find.

So it seems.

 

[janus]

I have in my diet 7000 mg of potassium(2L milk,1LOJ etc..) and without added sea salt only 1300 mg of sodium. So I need compensate that amount of potassium with 20g of sea salt minimum. If not I feel like s***.I was so long in sodium deficit due to hypothyroidism, overtraining, bad low sodium diet, running on cortisol for years and now my body goes crazy for sodium.. So you suggest take out potassium( so no milk, no OJ) because then I don't need 20g+ of sea salt a day... ? But then again without milk I will not have enough calcium, proper calcium/phosphorus ratio, another vitamins and minerals. Or maybe take out OJ. But then again no vitC flavonoids and another nutrients. I don't know... f***ing high potassium...

FYI I hit over 10,000mg potassium somewhat regularly. The liquids might be more of a problem than the potassium.

 

[YuraCZ]

FYI I hit over 10,000mg potassium somewhat regularly. The liquids might be more of a problem than the potassium.

Summer is coming so I think I will need those liquid. But during the winter I will need reduce my fluid intake for sure.. But right now I need my milk and OJ.. I can't digest meats and other foods properly..