Raw Liver - Increased Bruising?

[rawliver]

I just started eating raw calf's liver each day about two weeks ago (100g a day, or about 4 ounces), and ever since then I've noticed that I'm bruising more often. I workout with weights, and as you can imagine body parts get bumped, but previously this would never lead to bruises, but now I'm getting them.

Granted, there's not a lot of bruising, just a few here and there.

Has anyone else experienced this with liver consumption, and if so, do you know why? Does it have something to do with the iron content of liver, or perhaps I need more Vitamin C?

[PaleoPhil]

Liver contains the mk4 version of vitamin K2, which is reportedly very bioavailable for humans and which helps the blood to clot, and is therefore widely recognized as potentially thereapeutic for easy bruising. My own past easy bruising disappeared years ago after I cut out gluten and increased my intake of vitamin K. Later when I increased my intake of plant carbs like fruits, a little of the easy bruising returned, and then disappeared again when I cut back on carbs and ate more raw eggs, beef jerky and red meats. So I don't have an explanation for your experience. Perhaps there is another factor you haven't considered?

[RawZi]

I just started eating raw calf's liver each day about two weeks ago (100g a day, or about 4 ounces), and ever since then I've noticed that I'm bruising more often.

    Maybe your liver is frozen.  What else in your life has changed?  Liver doesn't make me bruise.  Do you blend or age it?  Where are the calves from?

[Haai]

    Maybe your liver is frozen.

Are you suggesting that frozen liver is bad for you, or just less good for you than fresh liver?
I'm only asking because I've got a frozen cow liver in the freezer...

[RawZi]

Are you suggesting that frozen liver is bad for you, or just less good for you than fresh liver?
I'm only asking because I've got a frozen cow liver in the freezer...

    Some people may be very sensitive, and not do well with frozen.

[rawliver]

It's frozen, but I'm not sure why that would be much of an issue

[RawZi]

    Do you have to be sure before you try?  Or could you try fresh for two weeks and see if you bruise as much?

[rawliver]

Does my intake of Liver seem excessive?

It basically amounts to slightly less than 2 lbs per week.

[invisible]

try eating less liver. Maybe you only need one to two ounces, too much vitamin A thins skin and makes it fragile. It's a very common side effect of synthetic vitamin A.

[wodgina]

I doubt you are being poisoned. I've eaten excessive amounts of liver in the past and it just passed through me untouched or I stopped craving it for a few months then went back.

Liver is great for sports. Try 100g a day week on week off.

[PaleoPhil]

Rawliver, if you're concerned, you could simply cut back on liver for a while and see what happens. Theoretically, perhaps your liver source is particularly low in vitamin K and high in vitamin A for some reason, or perhaps your gut is damaged and cannot absorb vitamin K well but you are able to absorb vitamin A. I'd be surprised if liver could cause easy bruising over such a short time period without also causing other symptoms, but it doesn't hurt to avoid liver for a little while. I'm not sure why one would need to eat liver every day anyway, unless one was putting small amounts into a mix, like Lex does.

While easy bruising is listed by at least a couple sources as a symptom of extreme hypervitaminosis A, such as from isotretinoin (Accutane) use and extreme doses of vitamin A supplements, it is not listed among the most common symptoms:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000350.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A

Do you have any of those symptoms?

Even one of the sources that acknowledges easy bruising as a symptom of hypervitaminosis A expresses doubt about hypervitaminosis A developing over short time periods from even dog livers (which reportedly contain much higher concentrations of vitamin A than beef livers):

"The symptoms of chronic hypervitaminosis A are well documented. Vitamin A, being fat soluble and stored in the body to some extent, is known to exhibit toxicity at very high dosages taken over long periods of time. However, most reports have been related to the ingestion of large amounts of the vitamin in tablet form over extended periods of time — usually several years rather than weeks. Symptoms have included coarseness and sparseness of hair of the scalp, eyebrows and other parts of the body; dryness of the skin, ulceration, and desquamation; hepatosplenomegaly; anorexia and diarrhoea; cessation of menstruation; haemorrhagic tendency; hyperostosis, bone tenderness or pain, especially of the distal extremities (which may be accompanied by weakness); myalgia; and dizziness, blurred vision, increased intracranial pressure (causing bulging of the fontanelles in infants and severe headache in adults); and irritability and depression.5,6-15

In contrast, most of the evidence for acute vitamin A poisoning remains anecdotal — the assumed acute symptoms of one case used to support the diagnosis of the next."

http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/183_11_051205/car10291_fm.html

I regularly eat some liver myself (though not every day) without any easy bruising symptoms despite my history of easy bruising, though your mileage may vary, of course. Plus, there's the wolf expert and his wife who eat plenty of organs so the wolves he raised will accept them as wolves--including eating amongst them. A rather extreme case, yet they haven't reported any hypervitaminosis A.

[MaximilianKohler]

Are you suggesting that frozen liver is bad for you, or just less good for you than fresh liver?
I'm only asking because I've got a frozen cow liver in the freezer...

Frozen meat is inferior. There is damage and loss to nutrients and maybe enzymes - google it

in-fact it's actually stickied at the top of the threads or directly here: http://www.rawpaleoforum.com/important-info-for-newbies/info-on-toxins-in-cooked-foods/

[Brother]

I get the same thing if I go on a liver binge. It got so bad that I would get bruised from using any workout machine that did not put it's load on my hands. It passes. I did not worry too much about it. I eat liver in cycles. I include it in my diet for a week a month and I don't exceed 100g a day like you. I have a 115kg frame if that makes a difference in trying to work out a dossage that does not cause it, if it has you worried.  

edit to add. I eat beef liver.