Massively Over RDI% Vitamins

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NowyTends
NowyTends Posts: 110 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi all

Until recently, I was using a multivitamin and it was putting me between 100%-500% over my daily RDI for vitamins (that are tracked by MFP). Although I have stopped using a multivitamin, my new much cleaner eating habits still have me going (in some cases) upwards of 100%-300% over RDI. I understand that consistenly exceeding the RDI can be dangerous as it can be stored in fat (aka fat soluable) so my possibly silly question is:

"If I am going over the totals, but it is from food and not from vitamin supplements, can this still be harmful long term?"

If this question is better suited to a medical professional, please let me know. Otherwise I am curious to know what you guys think. Thanks in advance!!!

Replies

  • Missjulesdid
    Missjulesdid Posts: 1,444 Member
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    http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Listing_of_vitamins.htm Just try not to go consistently over the upper limit if one has been established.. If an upper limit has not been established then don't worry about it unless you have a medical reason to avoid certain nutrients.
  • lyttlewon
    lyttlewon Posts: 1,118 Member
    edited December 2014
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    Not all vitamins are fat soluble. Vitamin C and B are water soluble, so you will pee out any excess. Vitamin A, D, E, and K are fat soluble. Too much of those four can be toxic. Excessive Vitamin A is what they warn you about in pregnancy so I am most familiar with that.

    This might help
    nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002400.htm
    nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000350.htm

  • PeterSedesse
    PeterSedesse Posts: 124
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    You only have to worry about the four fat solubles, and even then it is pretty much moot

    Vitamin K, while fat soluble, doesn´t get stored in the body well and won´t build up. Your liver and kidneys take care of it.

    Vitamin A - Two things save you. First is that most of us get our Vitamin A in the form of Beta Carotene from veggies, which is water soluble and you will urinate excess, same as water soluble vitamins. Second, if you get your Vitamin A from meat sources, before you get sick, you will have orange skin telling you that you are about to get sick. Think of it as an early warning system. Also you would have to eat huge amounts of meat to get to dangerous levels of Vitamin A.

    Vitamin E - The liver removes excess amounts. Not as quickly as water soluble vitamins, but quick enough that you won´t have health problems. Also, Vitamin E is fairly difficult to get outside of supplements, so you would have to be eating a huge amount of calories to get to the point of having issues with Vitamin E

    Vitamin D - Is similar to Vitamin E in that you will will need to eat huge amounts of calories in order to get excess amounts of Vitamin D. Also your body basically shuts down the sunlight production of Vitamin D based on your current levels.

    There are a lot of things that can go wrong with overdoses of vitamins, mainly vomiting and digestive symptoms, but if you are not taking supplements, IMHO, there is almost no chance of developing long term complications from excess vitamins.
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,160 Member
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    PeterSedesse wrote: »
    You only have to worry about the four fat solubles, and even then it is pretty much moot

    Vitamin K, while fat soluble, doesn´t get stored in the body well and won´t build up. Your liver and kidneys take care of it.

    Vitamin A - Two things save you. First is that most of us get our Vitamin A in the form of Beta Carotene from veggies, which is water soluble and you will urinate excess, same as water soluble vitamins. Second, if you get your Vitamin A from meat sources, before you get sick, you will have orange skin telling you that you are about to get sick. Think of it as an early warning system. Also you would have to eat huge amounts of meat to get to dangerous levels of Vitamin A.

    Vitamin E - The liver removes excess amounts. Not as quickly as water soluble vitamins, but quick enough that you won´t have health problems. Also, Vitamin E is fairly difficult to get outside of supplements, so you would have to be eating a huge amount of calories to get to the point of having issues with Vitamin E

    Vitamin D - Is similar to Vitamin E in that you will will need to eat huge amounts of calories in order to get excess amounts of Vitamin D. Also your body basically shuts down the sunlight production of Vitamin D based on your current levels.

    There are a lot of things that can go wrong with overdoses of vitamins, mainly vomiting and digestive symptoms, but if you are not taking supplements, IMHO, there is almost no chance of developing long term complications from excess vitamins.

    Thanks for this summary.

  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    You'd have to work very hard at it to eat enough vitamins to cause you problems, assuming that you're otherwise healthy. It is unlikely that you'll have toxic amounts of Vitamin D from drinking milk.

    Of course, all health questions are best answered by your doctor and you should take his advice over ours.

    My body doesn't take care of calcium like most bodies do, so I take massive amounts of it every day. It could become an issue, but hasn't yet. For whatever that's worth. :)
  • Slasher09
    Slasher09 Posts: 316 Member
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    You can always have your doctor run blood levels on some vitamins like vitamin D...but I will say this, I worked as a family practice nurse for 2 years, and in that 2 years I've only ONCE ever had to call someone and say "you need to stop taking in any source of vitamin D because your levels are too high!" For most people we were prescribing vitamin D supplements (500-5000iu, with some people needing a once weekly megadose) and we still had trouble getting their levels into an acceptable range. I think our lab had optimal levels at 28-100, and the majority of people we tested were 12-30.

    Everything else I agree with the summary Peter wrote
  • NowyTends
    NowyTends Posts: 110 Member
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    Thank you all for your replies and links. Very helpful and straightforward answers.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
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    Oversimplification here, but for MOST people, there's no need to worry about excess vitamins or nutrients from food sources.

    Excess from overuse of supplements can be a problem. But if you're not taking any, there's no problem there either.
  • NowyTends
    NowyTends Posts: 110 Member
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  • TheDevastator
    TheDevastator Posts: 1,626 Member
    edited December 2014
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    You can get hypervitaminosis A from the liver of certain animals — including the polar bear, bearded seal, walrus, moose, and husky.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A
  • GeeWillickers
    GeeWillickers Posts: 85 Member
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    TheDevastator wrote: »
    You can get hypervitaminosis A from the liver of certain animals — including the polar bear, bearded seal, walrus, moose, and husky.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A

    I'm going to go out on a limb not having ready the OP's diary and say the odds of any of those items being in the OP's diet is slim. Kudo's on the randomness though as it made my day.
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
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    Off to eat some raw polar bear liver.... :)

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