Posted on 07/06/2022 8:15:20 AM PDT by Red Badger
‘Hypervitaminosis D’ is on the rise and linked to a wide range of potentially serious health issues.
Doctors are warning that ‘Overdosing’ on vitamin D supplements is both possible and harmful after they treated a man who needed hospital admission for his excessive vitamin D intake. They reported their concerns in the journal BMJ Case Reports.
They point out that ‘hypervitaminosis D,’ as the condition is formally known, is on the rise and has been linked to a wide variety of potentially serious health conditions.
This particular case concerns a middle-aged man who was referred to the hospital by his family doctor after complaining of recurrent vomiting, nausea, leg cramps, abdominal pain, increased thirst, dry mouth, tinnitus (ringing in the ear), diarrhea, and weight loss (28 lbs or 12.7 kg).
Symptoms of hypervitaminosis D include drowsiness, depression, confusion, anorexia, apathy, psychosis, abdominal pain, stupor, coma, vomiting, peptic ulcers, constipation, pancreatitis, abnormal heart rhythm, high blood pressure, and kidney abnormalities, including renal failure.
These symptoms had been present for almost 3 months and had started around 1 month after he started an intensive vitamin supplement regimen on the advice of a nutritional therapist.
The man had had various underlying health issues, including tuberculosis, bacterial meningitis, an inner ear tumor (left vestibular schwannoma), which had resulted in deafness in that ear, a build-up of fluid in the brain (hydrocephalus), and chronic sinusitis.
He had been taking high doses of more than 20 over-the-counter supplements every day containing: vitamin D 50,000 mg—the daily requirement is 600 mg or 400 IU; vitamin K2 100 mg (daily requirement 100–300 µg); vitamin C, vitamin B9 (folate) 1,000 mg (daily requirement 400 µg); vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B6, omega-3 2,000 mg twice daily (daily requirement 200–500 mg), plus several other vitamin, mineral, nutrient, and probiotic supplements.
Once his symptoms developed, he stopped taking his daily supplement cocktail, but his symptoms didn’t go away.
Blood tests ordered by his family doctor indicated that he had extremely high calcium levels and slightly elevated magnesium levels. And his vitamin D level was seven times higher than what was necessary for sufficiency.
The tests also revealed that his kidneys weren’t working properly (acute kidney injury). The results of various x-rays and scans to check for cancer were normal.
The man stayed in the hospital for 8 days, during which time he was given intravenous fluids to flush out his system and treated with bisphosphonates—drugs that are normally used to strengthen bones or lower excessive levels of calcium in the blood.
Two months after discharge from the hospital, his calcium level had returned to normal, but his vitamin D level was still abnormally high.
“Globally, there is a growing trend of hypervitaminosis D, a clinical condition characterized by elevated serum vitamin D3 levels,” with women, children, and surgical patients most likely to be affected, write the authors.
Vitamin D Sources
Vitman D sources include oily fish, sunlight exposure, and supplements.
Recommended vitamin D levels can be obtained from the diet (eating wild mushrooms and oily fish), skin exposure to sunlight, and supplements.
“Given its slow turnover (half-life of approximately 2 months), during which vitamin D toxicity develops, symptoms can last for several weeks,” warn the authors.
The symptoms of hypervitaminosis D are many and varied, they point out, and are mostly caused by excess calcium in the blood. They include confusion, drowsiness, apathy, psychosis, anorexia, depression, coma, vomiting, abdominal pain, constipation, peptic ulcers, stupor, pancreatitis, abnormal heart rhythm, high blood pressure, and kidney abnormalities, including renal failure.
Other associated features, such as keratopathy (inflammatory eye disease), joint stiffness (arthralgia), and hearing loss or deafness, have also been reported, they add.
This is just one case, and while hypervitaminosis D is on the rise, it is still relatively uncommon, caution the authors.
Nevertheless, complementary therapy, including the use of dietary supplements, is popular, and people may not realize that it’s possible to overdose on vitamin D, or the potential consequences of doing so, they say.
“This case report further highlights the potential toxicity of supplements that are largely considered safe until taken in unsafe amounts or in unsafe combinations,” they conclude.
Reference: “Vitamin D intoxication and severe hypercalcaemia complicating nutritional supplements misuse” 5 July 2022, BMJ Case Reports. DOI: 10.1136/bcr-2022-250553
I can see where this is a real problem and alot of it stems from your own MD testing. They’ve gotten on the band wagon about ‘low’ D but have no clue that you need sufficient magnesium in order to get your D levels up. I’ve known alot of people that keep increasing and increasing because they test low but they don’t supplement with mag (and certainly not the right form) and so they stay perennially low.
Same applies to calcium; your joints, tissues and organs will calcify if you’re low in mag.
Ya. Take the vaccine instead because one guy can’t read directions on a vitamin bottle. Because no doctor will advise on how to properly prevent Covid
Geeze why.
I think the problem is more simple. People take too much vitamin d. Reading the experiments, I concluded that the ideal blood level is 32 ng/ml, but people want to take supplements to get to 50 ng/ml.
Yeah, popping 20 pills a day of anything is a bad idea.
“This case report further highlights the potential toxicity of supplements that are largely considered safe until taken in unsafe amounts or in unsafe combinations,”
That’s true of just about everything that is largely considered safe; isn’t it? Even water and oxygen have to be consumed in moderation.
I take both D3 and Magnesium and potassium................
If you want to exceed RDA for a vitamin, do B or C.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
So does Vitamin D3. Big time!
I’m confident you’re wrong about vitamin k.
The idiot took 83X the RDA of Vitamin D.
Drinking 83X the amount of water you need will kill you, too.
5,000iu is just right.
Drinking parsley juice helps with excess vitamin d.
I've been doing just fine with 2,000 IU of Vitamin D - have taken it daily for 20 years. I also get lots of sunshine and eat plenty of eggs and fatty fish.
There are people who always have to overdo a good thing. I know people who spend a couple hundred dollars a month on all sorts of vitamins and gimmicky supplements.
If you eat well and get some exercise, all you really need for supplements is Vitamin D, C and Zinc.
i think he is a Dr but here you go
https://www.winchesterhospital.org/health-library/article?id=24861
“...supplements every day containing: vitamin D 50,000 mg—the daily requirement is 600 mg or 400 IU...”
The writer apparently didn’t check units of vitamin D at all. 1 microgram is 40 IU, so 50,000 milligrams would be two billion IU. 600 milligrams would be 24 million IU, not 400. Those are pretty high doses indeed.
What Is the right form of
Magnesium to allow Vitamin D3 to work?
My Doc recently added D3
To my regiment.
No Magnesium.
I take 1000 IU’s per day.........................
I’ve been doing just fine with 2,000 IU of Vitamin D - have taken it daily for 20 years.
- - - - - - -
I bet your body deactivates a lot of the vitamin d you take. Having taking it for so long, I bet you have stored enough to not need to take it for years.
avoid oxide at all costs. the best forms are glycinate, malate and taurate. some people like citrate but that is in the middle of the pack re; absorbability.
there are a couple of mag brands that combine all 3 of the good ones. One is DaVinci. One capsule is 75mg and I take 3 caps of that 3-4 x per day.
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