- Vitamin A Eczema, respiratory tract infection, blurred vision, ringing in the ears, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, hair loss, joint pain, menstrual irregularities, liver damage.
- Vitamin D Calcium deposition, deafness, nausea, loss of appetite, kidney stones, weak bones, hypertension, high cholesterol
- Vitamin E Breathing trouble, swelling of tongue, hypertension, severe fatigue, breast tenderness, slow wound healing Niacin - Acute flushing, peptic ulcers, liver dysfunction, gout, faintness, tingling of fingertips, arrythmias, hyperglycemia
- Vitamin C Kidney stones, hot flashes, insomnia, tiredness, osteoarthritis
- Vitamin B6 Problems with sense of position and vibration, reduced tendon reflexes, numbness in hands and feet, problems walking, problems with memory, depression, headache and tiredness
- Calcium Depresses nerve function, drowsiness, tiredness, calcium deposits, and kidney stones Iron Damages liver, heart, pancreas
- Zinc Fixed facial expression, difficulty walking, slurred speech, hand tremor, involuntary laughter
- Cobalt Goitre, heart damage
- Selenium Nausea, fatigue, irritability, loss of fingernails.
It’s one of those truisms of modern medicine that have become part of folk wisdom: taking vitamin pills keeps you healthier. But doctors are now concerned about an alarming number of problems related to the unregulated consumption of vitamins—liver and kidney damage, bone growths, tremors, slurred speech, the list is endless. Internationally, doctors and health agencies are already ringing the alarm bells; but in India, we are still popping pills in the dark.
Vitamins can be classified into two groups, water-soluble and fat-soluble. Overdoses of water-soluble vitamins are not so much cause for concern as they are readily flushed out in excretion. But fat-soluble vitamins—vitamins A, E, D and K—can cause problems, for they persist in the body’s fat deposits. An overdose of vitamin A can cause joint pain, insomnia, hair loss; that of vitamins D and E can lead to kidney and liver damage, the early symptoms being as ordinary as nausea, vomiting and exhaustion, making diagnosis tricky. It must be noted, though, that prolonged overdoses of water-soluble vitamins do not help in any way, and could even harm you.
“Vitamin toxicity is a big concern, as lots of people are showing the symptoms of overdoses,” says Ritika Samaddar, a nutritionist. “It’s better to get vitamins and minerals from food rather than pills. Food will never leave an excess that causes harm, but pills will.”
Last year, Nancy University, in Lorraine, France, reported after a six-year study of more than 8,000 subjects that people taking vitamins didn’t in any way reduce their risk of heart disease and cancer in comparison with those taking placebos or dummy pills. The report from an ongoing study from the University of Minnesota, US, which has covered 38,000 cases since 1986, is more frightening: women taking supplements were found running an increased risk of dying.
With malnutrition a major issue in India, attention has always been on macronutrients—carbohydrates, proteins and fats. It’s only recently, and that too among the urban middle- and upper-classes, that there’s awareness about the intake of micronutrients, that is, vitamins and minerals. In the main, the worry is about deficiency: the educated rich overdose on all manner of supplement without realising it, and without knowing the ill-effects of doing so.
Among mineral supplements taken thus, the commonest over-the-counter pills sold are those of calcium. Prolonged overdosing can cause drowsiness, calcium deposits and kidney stones. It can also depress the nervous system. So, if you have been taking calcium pills in the hope of improving your hurting knee, in the long run, you could well be risking hospitalisation for kidney stone. An overdose of iron pills, commonly taken in fear of anaemia, especially by women and girls approaching puberty, can cause damage to the pancreas, heart and liver.
The vitamin most commonly taken singly, rather than in multi-vitamin formulations, is probably Vitamin C, either popped, or sucked on in the form of sour lozenges, the self-medication driven by its overstated reputation for curing and preventing colds and coughs. But experts say there’s no evidence to suggest such powers. A January 2008 article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition linked Vitamin C overdoses to devastation of musculature and consequent loss of endurance. Overdosing can also result in hot flushes, headaches, insomnia, tiredness and kidney stones.
But self-medication isn’t alone to blame. There’s enough poisoning by prescription: doctors often put patients on regimens of vitamins for vague symptoms like tiredness, mild depression, all-overishness. The trouble is, such symptoms are also linked to vitamin overdoses. Complicating matters is the placebo effect prescriptions of vitamins achieve.
A recent trend in India is the liberal dispensing of Vitamin D by orthopaedicians, who prescribe shots for a host of aches—frozen sholder, backache, hurting knees and so on. The vitamin shot does solve the problem if the cause of pain isn’t anatomical, but it can leave in its wake a host of other complications. “We had a patient who showed all signs of a Vitamin D overdose, which he had been given for a bad back. He had to be hospitalised for treatment,” says Dr Rommel Tickoo, a senior consultant in internal medicine at Max Healthcare. “There’s widespread misuse of vitamins.” He also warns that a number of potent combinations of vitamins being sold over the counter are not for most people in average health.
So people must stop popping pills in the belief that, even if it doesn’t help, it won’t harm anyway. A researcher at AIIMS, Delhi, says, “Since there has been no India-centric study as yet, one doesn’t want to sound alarmist by asking people to stop buying over-the-counter vitamin pills. But there’s more than enough data from across the world to suggest that vitamin and supplement use must be regulated.” Dr Tickoo points to another danger, of people taking supplements on the recommendation of friends and family members, not doctors. “For healthy people who may occasionally feel weak, supplements are not the answer,” he says. “People must know if they need it and what the side-effects are. Vitamin supplements are not something you take life-long.”
Not surprisingly, pharmaceutical companies have exploited people’s habit of taking pills they don’t really need. So have makers of breakfast cereals and bread, canned milk, etc, feeding on fear to promote sales. Vitamins A and D are added to milk products, Vitamin E to edible oils, iron to breakfast cereals and bread. The fact is, the human body is incapable of processing such overdoses of supplements over a long period of time. It absorbs what is required mostly from food; the rest is either washed away, or stays in the body’s fat deposits. “People have busy lives, they ignore their diet and think supplements will make up for nutritional deficiencies,” says Sammadar. Vitamins, it could be said, are the too-much-of-a-good-thing habit that many of us must kick.
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