The conservative mainstream view is that Vitamin A can be toxic in high dose supplementation. It can affect all parts of the body, severe toxicity can even lead to blindness and can be life threatening. This is absolutely true with high dose supplementation. A few fatalities in children have also been reported. Yet for the majority this toxicity leads to a spontaneous recovery after stopping the supplementation. If that’s not toxicity I don’t know what it is.
Arctic explorers were reported to have vitamin A toxicity, irritability, vomiting, drowsiness with peeling of skin. This was after ingesting millions of units of vitamin A from seal or polar bear liver. The symptoms cleared up after the vitamin A rich food was discontinued.What many researchers and studies fail to mention is that the majority of toxicity cases pertain to synthetic vitamin A. Partly as its not entirely natural and partly as its very difficult to surpass tolerated doses with conventional food alone It’s around 100,000 Iu synthetic vitamin A per day for many months that leads to the supplement toxicity mentioned. Unless you’re eating raw polar or seal liver in the arctic, it’s pretty much impossible to become toxic via food sourced vitamin A foods. This is the only gripe one may have with doctors advising pregnant women to avoid vitamin A altogether. To make up 100,000 Ius of vitamin A with food would require bars of butter or hundreds of egg yolks, 300g of beef liver, 250g of duck liver, even more chicken liver, and around half a bottle or more of cod liver oil. But even the feared synthetic type of vitamin A is not necessarily toxic in one large dose, in impoverished areas studies claim anything from two 200,000 iu doses are given to children within 12 months.
The real victim of this misunderstanding is the pregnant women. Traditional books on pregnant women recommend generous amounts of vitamin A rich foods. Dr Price witnessed pregnant women eating sacred foods like fish eggs and cod liver oil. With this being said this is not medical advice and simply educational. Naturally pregnancy is serious and not the time for extreme experimentation, but some cod liver oil, a reasonable amount of liver, or other sacred foods is a part of a general healthy diet and lifestyle. Please feel free to share you vitamin A experience, knowledge or questions.
How Can I Help You?
It is assumed a nutritionist will force someone on a diet, this could not be further from the truth. Rather we work to change how you perceive and eat food, learning about its many healing properties to lead to long term sustainable positive change in your health and well-being.
- I will assess your overall health including your medical history
- Looking into lifestyle & emotional factors that most practitioners wont
- Individualize the protocol to implement suitable changes for you
- You will be sent a bespoke eating plan
- You will be sent a bespoke therapeutics plan if needed
- Lab testing will be recommended if necessary
- Finally follow up or pay-as-you-go appointments enable you to get the hands on one to one coaching with me throughout the healing journey
