Low Toxin Lifestyle If Vitamin A promotes adiposity...

[Peater]

...then I wonder if the evolutionary mechanism for Vitamin A consumption is to promote weight gain for lean times.

I am reminded of fructose promoting weight gain in bears that raid bees nests for honey. It fattens them up ready for hibernation. Possibly even the Omega 3 in salmon is an issue here too. Although that might be reaching.

There's that famous anecdote of wolves going straight for the liver - wolves don't hibernate, or eat sugar - so maybe this helps fatten them up? Maybe they don't do that every single time.

 

[mosaic01]

I think the mechanism for retinol accumulation is just that carotenes are a plant poison used for defense against animals, and detoxing it effectively conversely helps animals eat more plants without outright dying.

The liver of animals is equipped to deal with a certain amount. Carnivores go for the liver because it's the largest chunk of easy and quickly to devour meat. Animals in the wild don't have the luxury to wait hours to prepare their meals. Animals also do not attend nutrition courses to know how good (or bad) vitamin A is for them.

What happens when the body can't process carotenoids into retinol into retinoic acid into excretion is easy to observe with the toxicity of canthaxanthin and it's accumulation in the body, causing eye disease and liver failure in relatively low doses. There is no effective mechanism the body can use to convert canthaxanthin and detox it, thus it produces disease in lower doses than beta-carotene or retinol.

 

[DanDare]

...then I wonder if the evolutionary mechanism for Vitamin A consumption is to promote weight gain for lean times.

I am reminded of fructose promoting weight gain in bears that raid bees nests for honey. It fattens them up ready for hibernation. Possibly even the Omega 3 in salmon is an issue here too. Although that might be reaching.

There's that famous anecdote of wolves going straight for the liver - wolves don't hibernate, or eat sugar - so maybe this helps fatten them up? Maybe they don't do that every single time.

I have heard the opposite repeated, that they get fat on unsaturated fat, and lean on fructose. Same has been said for squirrels who eat nuts then hibernate. HOWEVER , either way around I find the observation dubious, as much of a squirrels diet is nuts no matter what time if year. And I don't believe bears eat much fructose in the spring.

It's one of those stories people make up to support whatever they like.