Interesting post about Vitamin A deficiency and ETD

https://patient.info/forums/discuss/cured-my-eustachian-tube-dysfunction-498607

I’m not sure whether full bloods include a test for Vitamin A. It’s presence must be pretty important. I recall a news item on regional television recently about a girl of nine years old maybe who had gone blind as a result of Vitamin A deficiency due to an extremely limited diet. The child was autistic and would only consume Marmite sandwiches and one other item which I think was a drink.

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Vitamin A is one of the few vitamins that can cause problems if you eat too much. So anyone thinking of taking a supplement check your diet first.

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Excellent point. Hypervitaminosis A kills pampered pet pussy cats all the time when their doting owners feed them liver every day often because Spoilt Puss won’t eat anything else at all. Liver is packed with the stuff. Humans should only be able to obtain sufficient levels through a balanced diet. IMO nobody should be taking vitamin supplements unless they have had tests to prove they are really needed anyway.

Makes sense for some, not for others I think. After a stressful day or intense exercise I’ve felt somewhat revived after a B-multivitamin. Why should I get a lab test each time before popping a multi-B pill? Seems unnecessary. They are generally safe and whatever you don’t use is just urinated out. But yeah not all vitamins and supplements are the same.

Another point is dosage. If you are taking a vitamin A supplement that only give an extra 50% of recommended daily allowance, that seems fairly reasonable or safe. I mean, you don’t take a test before you eat a bunch of carrots, acorn squash, and yams, right? But I agree if you are doing like 1000% you should be careful.

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Perhaps I should have included the words ‘Willy-nilly’ in my statement. I admit to being unaware people might take an occasional vitamin tablet in such circumstances as you do. I was referring to people taking high doses of vitamins regularly over long periods or even indefinitely and without doctors advice. I’m no medic but from everything I read it’s virtually impossible to ‘overdose’ on any of them by natural means ie by consuming them in food as part of a balanced diet unlike the cats above who were eating liver to the exclusion of all else. Virtually every article one reads on the subject states that.

As @Jools so rightly states Vitamin A in excess is well known to be dangerous. I have posted elsewhere on here an article by Tim Spector about the dangers of excess Vitamin D. I know very little about B complex. If you say any excess is passed through urine I’m sure you are correct. That mechanism doesn’t apply to all vitamins as far as I am aware so I do think it best people are aware that swallowing vitamin supplementation is not necessarily guaranteed to be harmless. Neither is it any more ‘natural’, as some tend to think, than taking prescription medication. Hence my original comment,

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This only means that unbalance diet will result to lack or over intake of nutrients. And this will lead to illnesses.

So watch out for the food you eat.

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