Excessive consumption of supplements has become a huge problem, it leads to serious diseases that can be life-threatening, warns endocrinologist Pavel Suvala and, among other things, talks about a patient who took an animal drug.
- Patients even choose real horse doses - they take drugs for these animals, - Shimon Suvala emphasized in an interview with PAP. An endocrinologist working in the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetology of the University Hospital No. 1 in Bydgoszcz, Dr. Antoni Jurasz, indicated that a supplement, as a rule, is an additional intake of substances (mainly through tablets, capsules or other forms) that we can’t make up for it with diet.
Patients take too much vitamin D.
He emphasized that if something cannot be provided in the diet, then a supplement should provide it, although the best form of taking all the nutrients, elements and micronutrients should be through the diet and should generally be followed. .
- As an endocrinologist, I most often encounter cases of overdose or oversupply, excessive intake of vitamin D. The problem of vitamin deficiency is a problem even throughout the world, and in Poland it is 80-90 percent. The population is deficient in vitamin D, which is why there is so much talk about taking this vitamin. However, we must take vitamin D in reasonable doses, warns Suwalki.
The endocrinologist pointed out that the dose of vitamin D in the prevention of its deficiency, depending on body weight, type of work and many other factors, varies, but more or less results in a dose of 400 to 2000 IU per day, in the case of the elderly - up to 4000 IU per day. Vitamin D is also produced by our own body, the skin, as a result of sufficient exposure to sunlight.
Horse vitamin and internet shit
Suala admitted that in his practice he uses nutritional supplements containing a much higher dose of vitamin D, and moreover, there are people who take drugs that are not intended for humans. One patient who suffered from successfully treated hypothyroidism in the course of Hashimoto’s disease was taking 50,000 vitamin D supplements per tablet per day, which was a horse feed formulation. She did this because she found advice on the internet that she should make sure that her vitamin D levels were high enough.
Endocrinologists note that the level of a vitamin in a person’s blood serum should be in the range of 30-50 ng / ml - while on the Internet you can find opinions that it should be above 80 or 100 ng / ml.
“These are fingerprints that have no scientific reflection. The patient followed the advice of one of her friends to use a specific horse food formula. There were 50 thousand units. vitamin D per day, and additionally in this tablet was vitamin K2MK7. This vitamin was intended to counteract vitamin D overdose and hypercalcemia, elevated calcium levels. She also took other supplements, Suwala said.
After such a “treatment”, the patient turned to the endocrinologist with pain in the abdomen and joints, dizziness, muscle pain and a feeling of weakness and paresthesia (inadequate sensation of stimuli as a result of damage to the peripheral nerves). The woman came to her appointment with test results that showed an increase in calcium levels, and admitted that she had taken vitamin D in such a large dose for several months. Hospital studies have shown an extremely high concentration of vitamin D - 420 ng / ml. Urolithiasis developed as one of the complications of hypercalcemia. Due to the excess calcium levels, the patient also had neurological symptoms and cardiac arrhythmias.
The endocrinologist acknowledged that the treatment was relatively simple, as it included vitamin D withdrawal, hydration, and administration of anti-hypercalcemia drugs. Fortunately, the patient’s story ended happily, but she did not have to, because there could be a hypercalcemic breakthrough - such a high concentration of calcium that it is life-threatening. The doctor noted that a prestigious medical journal described a case of a sick patient taking a “vitamin therapy” recommended by a dietitian, which included 25 different substances, including vitamin D - 150,000. units per day.
Unusually high concentration of vitamins
A man with spinal tuberculosis, meningitis, and a successfully operated acoustic neuroma was hospitalized with complaints of incessant vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, convulsions, tinnitus, dry mouth, increased thirst, and weight loss. The study found, among others, elevated calcium levels, undetectable high vitamin D levels, and acute kidney injury. - The treatment carried out led to the fact that this story was a success, although irreversible changes in the body and even death could occur, - the endocrinologist emphasized.
Suwala also cited the case of a patient who came to him by accident because he could not get to another endocrinologist recommended by a tick-borne encephalitis doctor. The patient went to the office of tick-borne diseases, discovered via the Internet due to malaise and test results indicating Lyme disease.
- In this office, the patient was recommended the controversial ILADS method, which consists in taking antibiotics and antifungals for a very long time, and in addition a whole bunch of herbal supplements and vitamins, incl. D and C in absurd doses. The ILADS method is called a problem in the medical community, because it is a pseudoscientific theory of the treatment of tick-borne diseases, - said the endocrinologist.
Source: Wprost
