Most likely, no one has ever heard of vitamin D overdose, until people started to use vitamin D supplements to avoid the lack of this vitamin in their bodies. That said, I do not mean to point out that vitamin D supplements are bad for your health. Everything is good, when taken properly and under proper medical supervision. This is the direct way of avoiding the overdose of this or any other vitamin.
But, how can one get too much of it? Can you get overdosed with vitamin D through sun rays exposure or through vitamin D rich foods? And what are some of the symptoms and consequences of overdosing of vitamin D? Let’s try to answer all these questions.
- So, is vitamin D overdose possible?
It certainly is. If you take too much of it in your food supplement or if you get exposed to it through some work accident.
Keep in mind, that there are several vitamin D supplements available and there are different forms of them. Some vitamin D supplements offer you plant food vitamin D, which is called vitamin D2. This vitamin is not produced from cholesterol. When your body tries to process vitamin D2, it breaks it down into several elements, capable of stimulating cancer development. So, the only vitamin D, you should take in supplements, is the one that comes from animal products.
Besides, you can get water based or oil based vitamin D supplements. With water based supplements, overdosing vitamin D is hardly possible, as your body can easily wash off the excess of it. Oil based vitamin D supplements are easier to overdose, as they get stored up in your body. So, water based vitamin D supplements are safer.
- Can you get too much of it through food or sun?
The fact is that you cannot get overdosed with vitamin D from sun exposure or from food. You body has perfect mechanism to block such natural vitamin D intake and overdosing.
Now, according to IOM recommendations, safe intake dose of vitamin D for adults comes up to 4 000 IU per day and is around 1 000 IU for smallest kids. However, some studies showed that even as much as 10 000 IU per day was safe for healthy people and showed no side effects of such extreme vitamin D intake.
- What are some of the vitamin D excess symptoms?
The biggest danger comes from increasing the level of calcium in blood. It may also lead to various digestion problems, heart rhythms problems and even kidney health problems.
So, as you may see, vitamin D overdose is possible, but pretty rarely dealt with.