Supplement Detective

Summary: You can get too much Vitamin A, although I think you’d have to try hard to do it.  Also, it may be a result of another deficiency, like with Vitamin D which protects against Vitamin A toxicity.  The instances that I’ve seen have either involved over-supplementation or eating some sort of oddball diet.

Q: I know you are a big supporter of taking cod liver oil but don’t you worry about getting too much Vitamin A?

A: I really have no concern personally about getting too much Vitamin A, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

Are you concerned about getting too much Vitamin A?  Although it can happen it takes a tremendous amount of this vitamin to do it.

Safe Vitamin A Levels

First, let’s figure out how much is too much Vitamin A.

The most commonly references Vitamin A levels was set by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences which set the upper limit of Vitamin A at 10,000 IU (international units) a day. While that sounds like an awful lot of Vitamin A let’s try to put it in context.

Think of the hunter-gatherer tribes around the world and from what the fossil records have shown us.  First of all, organ meats contain extremely high amounts of Vitamin A.  Especially kidney, liver and eyeballs.  Incidentally, in the wild most tribes and animals consume organ meats first and foremost.

Why?  They are the most nutrient dense.

So, with that being the case, how can they get away with consuming these massive amounts of Vitamin A?

I would presume two reasons:

1. It is done sporadically.  The tribes and animals don’t have this concentrated food source everyday.  So the amounts consumed are not an everyday occurrence.  Although, they may be considered frequent in some cases.  And, more importantly in my opinion…
2. These organs (and cod liver oil as well) contain other nutrients and vitamins.  Most notably Vitamin D.  Vitamin D has shown the ability to protect against vitamin A toxicity.

So, in my case, while my consumption of Vitamin A is probably higher than the average American it is very tolerable and I experience no side effects.  Which is probably due to a nutritious eating style as well as ample Vitamin D in the Cod Liver Oil I take and the sensible sun exposure I get.

So, my personal advice, is to take the numbers you see on the Internet and from ‘researchers’ with a grain of salt.  Vitamins, minerals and so forth don’t operate in a vacuum.  They interact with each other and are doing a biochemical dance with checks and balances.  That’s why a broad food selection is important as well as variety.

Also, in studies done on Vitamin A toxicity some folks can show signs of toxicity at much lower dose than others.  This is most likely due to the reasons I stated above.

As an aside, it is important for you to know the side effects of too much Vitamin A and how they would present.  The most common symptoms of too much Vitamin A would be:

• Cracked lips
• Dry skin
• Hair loss
• Headaches
• Weak bones/fractures (although, as I mentioned above, Vitamin D helps strengthen bones which is another plus to cod liver oil – it contains both Vitamin A and Vitamin D)