Such thing as too much vitamins?

jtboner

If you look at my diary, especially for vitamin a and c I'm usually way beyond 100%is there such thing add too much vitamins? I also forget to log my vitamin pill everyday but I do eat one everyday. Any health effect?

freak4iron

jtboner wrote: »

If you look at my diary, especially for vitamin a and c I'm usually way beyond 100%is there such thing add too much vitamins? I also forget to log my vitamin pill everyday but I do eat one everyday. Any health effect?

It depends Som you'll justpee out the excess, such as A and C, Ones like potassium and iron though you can die from. Iron overdose kills a lot kids.

kerenelly

Iron and potassium are minerals, and there are negative health effects associated with having too many of a given mineral in your system. But to the best of my knowledge vitamins just don't get absorbed, and you excrete out the excess in your urine.

For example some people who have problems with Vitamin C absorption, their pee can be a very strong yellow colour.

labohn91

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/foodnut/09315.html

kendradawn1985

You need to do some research. Fat soluble vitamins such as a, d,,e, and k could be toxic if consumed too much. Unless you're taking a million multivitamins, you're very unlikely to get too much by diet. fat soluble vitamins are very slow to be excreted by the body and they're store often in fatty cells of the liver. Water soluble vitamins get voided out when in excess. As someone already pointed out, if you get too much c, you're urine will turn a bright yellow. Minerals are different again like iron, potassium, magnesium etc. They can be very dangerous if out of balance in the body. Then there's the fact that you need vitamin d to absorb calcium. If you don't get enough d, your calcium is as good as not taken. The good news, vitamin d comes best from sunshine. It is added into milk to help with the calcium absorption but your body benefits from more vitamin d. Vitamin d deficiency is linked to a huge number of diseases. They think thisis why iv's, Chron's, cancer etc are higher the further away from the sun you go. Confused yet? You should be, proper nutrition information is confusing and best explained by a dietician. The bottom line is if your body is working properly and you don't consume excess of vitamin/mineral pills and or meal suppliments, your body will take care of the excess.

Kexessa

I was reading an article the other day on vitamin C and it essentially said you can't overdose on it since you excrete any extra your body can't use at that time. That taking too much had no harmful side effects. I have no idea about the rest of them.

Is too much calcium causing kidney stones a myth? I've heard it, but no idea if there is any truth.

abatonfan

It depends on which vitamins.

Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. Any excess of these vitamins is stored within fat cells, which puts a person at a higher risk of toxicity. Personally, I'm only concerned about toxicity if I am eating a ton of liver (liver contains a ton of retinol, which is active vitamin A. The beta-carotene from fruits and veggies is inactive vitamin A, which makes it a lot more difficult to get vitamin A toxicity from it).

The other vitamins are water-soluble. The body takes up what it needs and then excretes any excess as urine. This is why some people say that buying mega-dose supplements is only creating expensive pee. The body doesn't care if you're taking 5000% RDA of vitamin C; it's only going to take what it needs and excretes everything else out. Toxicity is very rare, if not impossible, with water-soluble vitamins, but a person is more likely to become deficient in these vitamins.

Kalikel

Some vitamins don't have Upper Limit recommendations because nobody has ever seen a case where harmful effects have occurred. Other vitamins, Heck Yeah, too much is too much and can be dangerous. A and C are both cases where you can take in too much. It is unlikely that you'll overdose on either A or C by eating food. Toxicity is generally encountered after purposefully swallowing mega-doses by way of supplements.

C is usually overdone by people who think it's a cure-all. It's been touted as the cure for just about everything by people who have no idea what they're talking about, so people take massive doses to lose weight or end a cold or who knows what. Vitamin A is usually overdone by teens who think it will cure their acne (which is not true, by the way.)

The recommended amounts for A and C are 900 and 90 respectively for males and 700 and 75 for females. The Upper Limits (which are set below the number where it's actually dangerous) for A and C are 3000 (A) and 2000 (C) for all adults.

Numbers are different for different people who have unique needs, like illness, deficiency or pregnancy.

You should visit your doctor and get a referral to a dietitian to find the right diet for you.

ninerbuff

freak4iron wrote: »

jtboner wrote: »

If you look at my diary, especially for vitamin a and c I'm usually way beyond 100%is there such thing add too much vitamins? I also forget to log my vitamin pill everyday but I do eat one everyday. Any health effect?

It depends Som you'll justpee out the excess, such as A and C, Ones like potassium and iron though you can die from. Iron overdose kills a lot kids.

Actually you can overdose on A and C. Vitamin A toxic poisoning is legit, but rare. Vitamin C would usually be a long term and over 2,000 mg daily.

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Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

Vitamin A toxicity is more of a problem with taking too many supplements containing Vitamin A over a short period of time (or if you eat a lot of seal/walrus/polar bear liver - which you probably don't). If you're getting it from the foods that you eat, it shouldn't be a problem. Supplements and liver contain preformed Vitamin A; plant-based sources of Vitamin A, such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and red bell peppers, contain pigments which our body converts into Vitamin A in the liver, and the body will generally not make more than it needs from these pigments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A#Sources_of_toxicity

Vitamin C is not easy to OD on, as @ninerbuff said. The excess is mostly excreted in the urine.