Taking Too Many Vitamins? Side Effects of Vitamin Overdosing

Nowadays, all the things from bottled water to orange juice appears to have souped-up ranges of nutritional vitamins and minerals in it. That could sound like a manner to assist cowl your dietary bases, particularly in case your weight loss program is lower than stellar. But routinely getting an overload of nutritional vitamins and minerals can damage you.

Too a lot vitamin C or zinc may trigger nausea, diarrhea, and abdomen cramps. Too a lot selenium may result in hair loss, gastrointestinal upset, fatigue, and delicate nerve injury.

While most individuals do not get megadoses, in case you eat a fortified cereal at breakfast, seize an power bar between meals, have enriched pasta for dinner, and take a every day complement, you might simply be over the really helpful every day consumption of a number of vitamins.

Here’s what it’s essential know to keep away from overdoing it.

“There’s no real advantage to taking more than the recommended amounts of vitamins and minerals.” — Johanna Dwyer, RD

Supplements: Check the Dose

Chances are, the unfortified meals you eat aren’t an issue. “It’s fairly onerous to overdo it from meals alone,” says Johanna Dwyer, RD, a senior analysis scientist with the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements.

So you will need to take into consideration the dietary supplements you’re taking and fortified meals or drinks.

“Most individuals do not realize there is no actual benefit to taking greater than the really helpful quantities of nutritional vitamins and minerals, and so they do not acknowledge there could also be disadvantages,” Dwyer says.

“If you are taking a complement, stick to 1 that is not more than the every day worth,” Dwyer says. (Daily worth is the quantity of a vitamin or nutrient that an individual ought to get for optimum well being.)

Talk together with your physician about any dietary supplements you are taking, together with nutritional vitamins and minerals, and the dose you are taking, too. That manner, your physician may also help you retain doses in a secure vary.

“If you are taking a fundamental multivitamin, there is no must worry taking an excessive amount of,” says Andrew Shao, PhD, senior vp of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a commerce group for the dietary supplements business.

“Most multivitamins have such a large margin of security that even once you’re combining them with fortified meals, it is nonetheless not going to trigger you to keel over,” Shao says.

Subtle Signs You’re Getting Too Much

“I’ve not seen somebody off the road who was taking a poisonous degree of vitamin A or D — these are very uncommon,” says David Katz, MD, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center in New Haven, CT, whose medical follow focuses on vitamin. “What I’m extra prone to see is an individual with a dosing degree of dietary supplements that is greater than optimum.”

Scientists do not but know if routinely getting a bit bit an excessive amount of of a vitamin or mineral (versus a megadose) is an issue, Katz says.

“There may be hints of concern, however they’d be very delicate indicators,” he says.

These pretty delicate signs could embrace problem sleeping or concentrating, nerve issues resembling numbness or tingling, or feeling extra irritable — relying on the nutrient that is going overboard.

The larger concern, Katz says, is that we’re “garnishing the meals provide with overfortification.”

He says producers have shifted their focus from what they’ve taken out of meals — resembling its fats, sugar, or salt — to what they’re placing in, whether or not it is vitamin D, probiotics, or omega-3 fat — no matter nutrient is in vogue.

“When increasingly meals are enhanced, it turns into unimaginable for shoppers to know what dose they’re getting over the course of a day,” Katz says. “Clinicians have to appreciate we may be introducing new dietary imbalances due to this follow.”

Three Nutrients to Watch

Dwyer says vitamin D, calcium, and folic acid are three vitamins you might get an excessive amount of of, particularly by dietary supplements.

Adults who recurrently far exceed the 4,000 worldwide items (IUs) every day secure higher restrict for vitamin D would possibly could find yourself with severe coronary heart issues.

Folic acid is added to enriched grain merchandise — white flours, pasta, rice, breads, and cereals — to assist forestall beginning defects in infants resulting from folic acid deficiency in pregnant ladies. While folic acid fortification has minimize the variety of beginning defects by 25% to 50%, it might need created different well being issues in individuals getting an excessive amount of.

It’s not onerous to get greater than 1,000 micrograms of folic acid a day (the secure higher restrict for adults) from fortified meals and dietary supplements frequently. Doing so would possibly disguise the indicators of a vitamin B12 deficiency in older adults. Vitamin B12 deficiency can typically result in everlasting nerve injury if left untreated.

There’s no want to fret about meals which are naturally wealthy in folate.

“Most individuals can now get sufficient folic acid with out having to depend on dietary supplements,” Dwyer says.

In reality, she says, “most individuals haven’t any drawback [with getting too much vitamins or minerals] if they begin with meals, which is the healthiest and most secure solution to get them.”