Many people have wondered whether too many vitamins are bad for their health. That's not surprising. Because the following applies to many things in life: Too much is not good. But does that statement also apply to the intake of a surplus of vitamins?
In this article, we will look at what can happen when you consume too many vitamins. We mainly distinguish between two groups of natural vitamins: fat-soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins.

Getting too many water-soluble vitamins

 

Many Vitamins Harmful1Water-soluble vitamins, as the name suggests, are mainly found in moisture.

In total 9 vitamins are water-soluble. Each vitamin is equally important in ensuring good health – both physically and mentally.
Water-soluble vitamins are characterized by the following types:

  1. Vitamin B1
  2. Vitamin B2
  3. Vitamin B3
  4. Vitamin B5
  5. Vitamin B6
  6. Vitamin B8
  7. Vitamin B11
  8. Vitamin B12
  9. Vitamin C

Your body cannot store water-soluble vitamins properly. However, this does not apply to vitamin B12. Ingesting too many water-soluble vitamins will generally not be harmful to your health. After all, a surplus of these vitamins leaves your body through the urine.
Nevertheless, it is advisable to be careful with high-dose vitamin pills that contain these vitamins. What can happen with too much of these vitamins is that you can suffer from certain health problems that are temporary. For example, if you ingest an excess of vitamin C, you can experience complaints such as abdominal pain, flatulence, and bloating.
Fortunately, these complaints quickly subside if you counteract an excess and arrive at a healthy vitamin level.

Getting an Excess of Fat-Soluble Vitamins

In addition to water-soluble vitamins, there are also fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamins that are soluble in fat are often found in the fat of animal products. In addition, there are vegetable products that contain fat-soluble vitamins.
The vitamins that fall into the fat-soluble group are as follows:

  1. Vitamin A
  2. Vitamin D
  3. Vitamin E
  4. Vitamin K
  5. beta-carotene

Getting too many fat-soluble vitamins is usually more harmful to your health than an excess of water-soluble vitamins. This is because your body stores too much fat-soluble vitamins as a reserve. When the reserve of a fat-soluble vitamin is too high and persisted for too long, it can result in serious health problems.
For example, according to research, too much vitamin A can cause headaches, impaired vision, and red, irritated skin. An excess of vitamin D, on the other hand, leads to health problems such as damage to your heart and blood vessels. Finally, too much vitamin E and vitamin K inhibits blood clotting.
Therefore, never exceed the established acceptable upper limit of vitamins. Especially when it comes to fat-soluble vitamins because they cannot leave the body through your urine.

How can you prevent a surplus?

Many Vitamins Harmful2First of all, it is important to stick to the recommended daily intake of vitamins. By not exceeding the recommended daily amount (RDA), you can easily prevent a vitamin surplus.

You can also get too many vitamins if you eat vitamin-rich foods and take high-dose vitamin pills at the same time. In that case, your body stores certain vitamin surpluses too much, which can result in health problems.
As described above, with fat-soluble vitamins it is important to take extra into account the daily tolerable upper limit. For example, draw up a schedule for yourself, in which you indicate which foods you eat per day and which supplements you use.
In this way, you can quickly gain insight into your vitamin intake and prevent too much of certain types of vitamins. You can logically also do this in consultation with a dietitian.

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