Two out of five people are popping vitamins daily according to the CDC.
Believe it or don’t, there are vitamin ADDICTS. Hypervitaminosa is a term referring to people misusing and taking often terrifying amounts of vitamins they do not actually need. Our doctors all advise us to take more vitamins. Our real life doctors, our favorite TV doctors, and bloggers on medical forums pretending to be doctors, all advise more vitamins, so what gives?
Those seemingly harmless vitamins have a plethora of horrifying side effects.
1. Vitamin D3 Has the Same Main Ingredient As Rat Poison
They tell us we need to take our vitamins. We think that all vitamins are safe. However, vitamin D3 contains a chemical called Cholecalciferol which is the main ingredient in rat poison. See for yourself:
But that’s only D3 right? Actually, “Vitamin D” is an umbrella term referring to either Vitamin D2 or D3. Our skin is very handy in absorbing D3 from the sun. In supplement form, Vitamin D3 is literal rodanticide.
Vitamin D also causes an array of other detrimental side effects known as Hypercalcemia. Hypercalcemia is a term referring to Vitamin D Toxicity.
Wouldn’t it be easier just to get it from the SUN?
"The symptoms of hypercalcemia include:
feeling sick or being sick poor appetite or loss of appetite feeling very thirsty passing urine often constipation or diarrhea abdominal pain muscle weakness or pain feeling confused feeling tired"
Source: Vitamin D Council
2. Vitamin A Causes Hypervitaminosis and Cancer
"This condition may be acute or chronic. Acute toxicity occurs after consuming large amounts of vitamin A over a short period of time, typically within a few hours or days. Chronic toxicity occurs when large amounts of vitamin A build up in the body over a long period of time.
Symptoms include visual changes, bone pain, and skin changes. Chronic toxicity can lead to liver damage and increased pressure on the brain."
Source: Healthline
And the messed up part?
Vitamin A, which is supposed to have cancer fighting properties is actually proven to make your cancer worse. The American Cancer Institute even conducted a study of that proved smokers who regularly took this vitamin, were actually more likely toGET cancer.
High doses of vitamin A are toxic, and long-term use of high-dose beta carotene supplements may increase the risk of lung cancer among current and former smokers.
Source: Cancer.org
3. VITAMIN E Causes Prostate Cancer
Although it is frequently recommended to patients for cancer prevention, studies on Vitamin E prove that it actually CAUSES prostate cancer.
"Studies done in the 1980s and 1990s suggested that vitamin E and selenium each somehow provided protection against prostate cancer. The Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) was started in 2001 to see if that was true. The 36,000 healthy, middle-aged volunteers were divided into four groups. Each man took two pills a day: 400 international units (IU) of vitamin E plus 200 micrograms of selenium; vitamin E plus a placebo; selenium plus a placebo; or two placebos. Neither the men nor their doctors knew who was taking what.
Although SELECT was supposed to last until 2011, it was stopped three years early because neither vitamin E nor selenium were showing any benefit—and there were hazy warning signs they might be doing some harm.
A new report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute clarifies the picture. A team of researchers from across the U.S. looked specifically at almost 5,000 of the SELECT volunteers who sent in toenail clippings when they joined the trial. Toenail clippings are a great way to measure how much selenium is in a man’s (or woman’s) body. The new study showed that:
Taking vitamin E alone boosted the risk of developing high-grade prostate cancer, but only in men who started the study with low selenium levels.
Taking selenium, either alone or in combination with vitamin E, increased the risk of high-grade prostate cancer in men who started the study with high selenium levels, but not in those with low selenium levels.
Among men who didn’t take either vitamin E or selenium, those who started the study with high selenium levels were no more likely to have developed prostate cancer than men who started it with low selenium levels. (This means the culprit is added selenium from supplements, not selenium from food.)"
Source: Harvard Medical School
4. NIACIN
(Vitamin B3)
Vitamin B3 is an organic compound developed to improve cardiovascular health by lowering cholesterol. It also promises to increase brain function and promote healthy metabolism.
Niacin, a water-soluble B vitamin, plays a part in maintaining your energy level and brain function as well as helping to prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease.
Too bad the side effects include:
"Severe skin flushing combined with dizziness. Rapid heartbeat. Itching. Nausea and vomiting. Abdominal pain. Diarrhea. Severe liver damage (hepatoxicity)"
Source: Mayo Clinic
5. Vitamin B6 Supplements Cause Neuropathy
Many people can take this drug sporadically and suffer no side effects. But a recent study finds that long term B6 intake can actually lead to nerve damage.
"People almost never get too much vitamin B6 from food. But taking high levels of vitamin B6 from supplements for a year or longer can cause severe nerve damage, leading people to lose control of their bodily movements."
Source: ODS
B6 is a supplement, but it can also be found naturally in many foods such as Garbanzo beans, poultry, beef, and pork.
But what’s this neuropathy business all about?
"Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) causes neuropathy at intakes of 1000 mg per day or more, which is about 800 times the daily intake from foods. There have also been occasional reports of toxicity at intakes of 100-300 mg per day. The US authorities set the no-observed-adverse-effect-level at 200 mg per day and the safe upper limit at 100 mg per day. A report of neurotoxicity in 2 patients who had taken 24 mg and 40 mg of vitamin B6 per day respectively, may be coincidence rather than a true toxic effect of such relatively low doses. However, physicians need to remain alert to high intakes of vitamin B6 as a cause of unexplained neuropathy."
Source: NCBI
6. Oh… your multivitamin can kill you too
"In multivariable adjusted proportional hazards regression models, the use of multivitamins (hazard ratio, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.02-1.10; absolute risk increase, 2.4%), vitamin B6 (1.10; 1.01-1.21; 4.1%), folic acid (1.15; 1.00-1.32; 5.9%), iron (1.10; 1.03-1.17; 3.9%), magnesium (1.08; 1.01-1.15; 3.6%), zinc (1.08; 1.01-1.15; 3.0%), and copper (1.45; 1.20-1.75; 18.0%) were associated with increased risk of total mortality when compared with corresponding nonuse. Use of calcium was inversely related (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.88-0.94; absolute risk reduction, 3.8%). Findings for iron and calcium were replicated in separate, shorter-term analyses (10-year, 6-year, and 4-year follow-up), each with approximately 15% of the original participants having died, starting in 1986, 1997, and 2004."
Source: JAMA
7. VITAMIN C
Just kidding. You’re cool. We pee you out before you can do any damage. However, there exists an enormous misconception of Vitamin C’s efficacy in cold prevention.
"Large doses of vitamin C may help reduce the duration of a cold, but they do not appear to protect against one in the first place, even after exposure to a cold virus."
Source: Ncbi
It’s weird though, C. Everyone thinks that you cure and prevent colds, but really, Vitamin C only reduces the duration of a cold you already have.
SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
As I’ve alluded to earlier, you can find all of these vitamins in natural sources.
Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, advises Harvard Medical School. By consuming at least 2 cups of brightly colored fresh fruit and vegetables and 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice, you’ll obtain a host of necessary vitamins, minerals and antioxidants necessary for good health. Add berries to your breakfast cereal, a large salad alongside your lunch sandwich, an extra serving of veggies at dinner and fresh fruit for snacks or dessert.
The bad news is, you actually have to eat your vegetables after all.
