Excess Vitamins

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Message: 10
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 09:50:02 +1000
From: "Phosphor"
Subject: Re: Vitamins - Danger of excess
also entirely meaningless without providing figures of what amounts
constitutes an excessive intake. [or do i misunderstand this, maybe she did
provide these figures?]. eg...

liver damage from vitamin A intake..well somone show me a case where an
amount less than 100,000 units has caused this. [if they can do that, can
they show 100 cases?]

andrew

========

If my memory serves me right, the response from Sheilagh was to question
regarding patient's taking vit supplements.
The whole drug industry and 'health food shop' industry runs on the back of
induced fear that we are not receiving enough vitamins and therefore these
supplements are necessary - then there is the danger of people overcome by
such fears start taking too much of the stuff.

What is an excess amount. How much vitamin A is there in 5 average size
carrots? Can you eat 5 carrots every day?
And then if you take 5 carrots, the stuff is slowly digested giving the
system a chance to deal with it, not a pill and bang an over load of Vitamin
A!
Actually Dr Shahrdar & myself once saw a young lady who was eating so many
carrots that her skin had gone yellow!
(This was an exceptional case - she had stopped all food except carrots,
cucumbers, tomatoes etc.)

In the same way that I check with my patients whether they take aspartame in
any shape or form (see www.dorway.com) I think it is also worthwhile to see
what they are doing regarding supplement.

Do not forget that if someone is not well (say has liver symptoms) and the
poor liver is being over loaded with a variety of vits in sudden excess
doses, then you have SEVERE maintaining cause on your hands.

In terms of reported cases, where does Andrew expect these reports to come
from?
From the same guys who are more motivated by profit than the health of their
fellow human beings?
We have seen them lie and cheat as far as a lot of products are concerned.

Please see the following article from the Guardian 16/05/2000

"Back in 1969 a Harvard graduated medical researcher at Boston by the name
of Kilmer McCully was examining the tissues of a baby who had died at age 2
months. The child had suffered from homocystinuria. Homocysteine
(Homo-Sis-teen) is an aminoacid / protein, so this child had excess of this
protein to the degree that it could be found in its urine.
What he discovered was the arteries of this child were like that of a very
old person - one who had suffered a heart attack or stroke.

He checked on a few other babies suffering from the same problem and his
findings were confirmed.

He realised that perhaps it was the high levels of Homocysteine that was
damaging the arteries and not the fat intake. Homocysteine is made from
another protein -methionine - which comes from animal proteins, i.e. meat,
milk and eggs.
In 'test tube' studies it can be shown that Homocysteine attacks and injures
blood vessel linings, it allows scar tissue to build up and also encourages
blood clots (essential for well being otherwise we would bleed to death in
ourselves, but if the levels are high, then you already know the results).

Even from the autopsies and dissections done by Leonardo da Vinci
atherosclerosis (build up of fat and other deposits in the arteries) could
be seen, especially in the rich of the time - who ate more meat and animal
products.

McCully tried to publish, but as the whole medical thought was on fat and
cholesterol, so they even took his lab away! After all the drug houses had
invested a lot of money on cholesterol reducing drugs and had to get their
money back some how! Ditto the food industry.

30 years on, now the medical profession is re-thinking. The Lancet regards
Homocysteine as the prime cause of heart disease. "
[What has changed? They did the same to Hahnemann about 200 years ago. Have
we progressed?]

Now the good news: The levels of Homocysteine can be naturally controlled by
Vitamins B6 and B12 and also folic acid. [Green vegetables, fruit and whole
foods but take care as these are easily destroyed by processing]

Happy eating. Enjoy your salads and uncooked greens. Get your vitamin
naturally not through supplements.

Good health
Best wishes from
Soroush
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Rochelle Marsden]

I have also had a patient whose palms of his hands were orange because he juiced so many carrots in a day. He stopped doing this and his hands took months to go back to a normal colour. The rest of him just looked tanned!!

Regards
Rochelle



www.rochellemarsden.co.uk
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Shannon Nelson]

IMO it is *always* both silly and risky to be "taking things" without
knowing (a) what you are taking it *for*, and (b) how you will know you when
you are getting enough, and (c) what would be signs of overdose or toxicity,
and (d) when you can expect to stop needing it (if at all). Oh, and (d),
whether there are particular risks or contraindications for certain
individuals or circumstances.

We know why we eat, why we drink. When/if we take "medicines" of any type
we (or our doctor) are supposed to know *all* of that -- what is is, what
it's for, what's the dosage, what signs would mean "call your doctor", and
how long you'll expect to be taking it. To do otherwise is really just
dumb. Whether you're talking about medicine, food, vitamins, h'c remedies,
flower essences, herbs, *anything*.

This common sense is, sadly, being ignored by some folks these days, with
the assumption that "so-and-so says it's good for such-and-such, so I'll
take it;" and, "If some is good, then more must be better." This
(non-)thinking is *the* reason why some remedies and potencies are not OTC,
and why there is worry over even those (friendly, benign) ones that *are*.
Ditto for herbs. And it is also a concern with OTC vitamins.

Information is good, and so is *perspective*!

Shannon
on 3/9/03 4:03 AM, Finrod at finrod@webstar.co.uk wrote:

[Phosphor]

Soroush wrote:
from?
from PubMed of course. where do u get your data on scientific data?


can you specify what green vegetables are a good source of B6, B1, and
folate?
andrew

[Shannon Nelson]

Yup I've seen that too, but from what I understand it is not harmful, just
strange-looking. I think usually it doesn't take that long to go away, tho?
Shannon

on 3/9/03 10:56 AM, Rochelle Marsden at rochelle@ntlworld.com wrote: