Ray Peat on vitamin A
"Thyroid hormone and Vitamin A promote protein metabolism and antagonize some of estrogens effects. In fact, hyperthyroidism is known to be able to cause estrogen levels to fall below normal."
- Nutrition For Women
0 upvotes"Zinc and vitamin A may also act through the blood sugar. It is well known that an emotional upset, spending too much time in the sun, working too long without eating, etc., can bring on an attack of herpes (cold sores, for example): low blood sugar probably precipitates the eruption."
- Nutrition For Women
0 upvotes"Many women with abnormal Pap smears, even with a biopsy showing the so-called carcinoma in situ, have returned to normal in just two months with a diet including the following: 90 grams of protein, 500 mg. of magnesium as the chloride, 100,000 units of vitamin A, 400 units of vitamin E, 5 mg. of folic acid, 100 mg. of pantothenic acid, 100 mg. of B6, 100 mg. of niacinamide, and 500 mg. of vitamin C, with thyroid and progesterone as needed. Liver should be eaten twice a week. Some of the women apply vitamin A directly to the cervix."
- Nutrition For Women
0 upvotes"Low blood sugar usually causes an intense craving for something sweet. It is known that a vitamin A deficiency causes increased hunger — I suspect this acts through the mechanism of blood sugar."
- Nutrition For Women
0 upvotes"If acne or dandruff occur, a vitamin A deficiency is suggested."
- Nutrition For Women
0 upvotes"In animals, cholesterol is the basic sterol molecule, which is massively converted into other substances, including the steroid hormones. Thyroid hormone and vitamin A are required for this conversion."
- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life
0 upvotes"Vitamin C in excess can contribute to the toxicity of iron, but in the right amount, vitamin C is metabolically linked with vitamin E in protecting against the toxic free radicals produced by iron. Vitamin A also functions as an anti-oxidant, when the amount of oxygen present is very low--which is when iron toxicity is at its worst."
- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life
0 upvotes"Often, a small physiological dose of natural hydrocortisone can help the patient meet the stress, without causing harmful side-effects. While treating the symptoms with cortisone for a short time, it is important to try to learn the basic cause of the problem, by checking for hypothyroidism, vitamin A deficiency, protein deficiency, a lack of sunlight, etc."
- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life
0 upvotes"The antagonism between estrogen and vitamin A in controlling epithelial proliferation (and possibly other cell types: Boettger-Tong and Stancel, 1995) is clear wherever it has been tested; vitamin A restrains epithelial proliferation."
- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Thyroid supplementation, adequate animal protein, trace minerals, and vitamin A are the first things to consider in the prevention of prostate hypertrophy and cancer. Nutritional and endocrine support can be combined with rational anticancer treatments, since there is really no sharp line between different approaches that are aimed at achieving endocrine and immunological balance, without harming anything."
- 1998 - May Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Vitamin A regulates Iysosomes, and so a deficiency might promote the accumulation of intracellular debris. It is an antioxidant, and so a deficiency might tend to induce the stress-hypoxia proteins, and it is used massively in the synthesis of steroids (for example, progesterone supplementation spares vitamin A). But possibly most important is the de-differentiation that occurs in many cells in a vitamin A deficiency. In the skin and mucous membranes, a vitamin A deficiency acts like an excess of estrogen, to promote the formation of keratin."
- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"In size and over-all structure, keratin filaments are similar to the scrapie particles, and to the filaments that accumulate in Alzheimers disease. I think of keratin as a protein made by a cell which has lost the energy to make more functional proteins. Normally, keratinized cells are formed by rapid cell division at a body surface, where little energy is available. In chronic vitamin A deficiency, the keratin-forming cells divide more rapdily than normal."
- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"The supplementation of pregnenolone, etc., will allow dietary vitamin A to be spared for other purposes, including regulation of mitosis, differentation, and oxidation."
- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"We found that many people with acne, bladder or kidney infections, periodontitis and sinusitis seemed to be deficient in both thyroid and vitamin A even when they were taking supplements"
- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"If thyroid and vitamin A can’t be used efficiently to form steroids, a steroid imbalance is likely."
- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Although one of the important functions of vitamin A is its involvement in the formation of the steroids pregnenolone and progesterone (both of which moderate the effects of cortisol), it also has some hormone like actions directly on the cells of the immune system, and it stimulates production of interleukin-2 and both inhibits generation of specific suppressor cells and limits the intensity of activation of suppressor cells."
- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"The possibility of Vitamin A toxicity is reduced by using the thyroid hormones and vitamin E."
- 1989 - November - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Every winter since | moved to Oregon, I developed areas on the inside of my cheeks where they met my teeth, that became spongy and white, and tended to be imprinted with the shape of my teeth, bulging in a way that caused me to bite my cheek frequently. When I learned that vitamin A would control my dandruff and acne, I then noticed that it also normalized my mouth membranes."
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"to a very great extent, progesterone could substitute for vitamin A, meaning that a very large fraction of the vitamin A used by the body is used up in making progesterone, from which the other steroid hormones are made."
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"While the thyroid hormone promotes the elimination of estrogen, it happens to be essential for the production of progesterone. Vitamin A (with cholesterol) is consumed at a high rate by the corpus luteum, when there is adequate thyroid hormone."
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"carotene seems to compete with vitamin A for the active synthetic sites, with the result that too much carotene is toxic to the corpus luteum, and is a fairly common cause of failure to have menstrual cycles."
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Both vitamin A and carotene, like any unsaturated oil, will tend to inhibit the thyroid, so it is important to balance supplements of vitamin A and thyroid; a sluggish thyroid will more easily be suppressed by large doses of vitamin A, but a high level of thyroid activity causes vitamin A to be used more quickly. It is an interesting expression of this biological relationship that one blood protein carries both vitamin A and thyroid hormone."
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes"Vitamin E causes vitamin A to be used more efficiently,"
- 1988 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter
0 upvotes