Taking Too Much of This Common Vitamin May Cause Vision Loss and Liver Damage

For many people, nutritional vitamins and dietary supplements are part of our every day well being regimens. In any case, if you’re attempting to dwell an extended, wholesome life, getting the precise vitamins is tremendous necessary. Nonetheless, analysis exhibits that taking an excessive amount of of sure nutritional vitamins, like niacin, may have doubtlessly dangerous uncomfortable side effects.

What’s Niacin?

Niacin is part of the B group of nutritional vitamins, additionally referred to as vitamin B3. It performs a task in nervous system operate and metabolism, serving to us flip the meals we eat into vitality, in addition to serving to our cells operate and develop.

Niacin has additionally been proven to be a robust nutrient for coronary heart well being. In reality, docs will typically prescribe niacin dietary supplements alongside statins to assist folks battling excessive ldl cholesterol. For that purpose, niacin dietary supplements are sometimes touted for having heart-healing advantages, and plenty of select to self-treat with them. Nonetheless, this is probably not such a wise transfer.

Results of Too A lot Niacin

Sadly, it’s attainable to take a lot niacin that the nutrient truly turns into poisonous to your physique. For grownup girls, the beneficial quantity is 14 milligrams (mg) per day. Nonetheless, well-liked dietary supplements will usually comprise as a lot as 500 mg in a single dose.

In a single research, a staff of docs from the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai have been treating a 61-year-old man who got here to them complaining of sudden imaginative and prescient loss. His preliminary eye examination confirmed that he was virtually legally blind. The affected person instructed docs of his medical historical past, together with his excessive ldl cholesterol, however didn’t initially inform them that he was taking self-prescribed niacin to deal with it. As soon as he knowledgeable the docs of the in depth listing of dietary supplements he was taking, the docs have been capable of conclude that the affected person was consuming about three to 6 grams of niacin per day for a number of months, and hypothesized that this was inflicting his eye issues.

The medical staff took photos of the affected person’s retina to substantiate that there was mobile harm attributable to the niacin, they usually have been capable of diagnose a uncommon poisonous response referred to as niacin-induced maculopathy. With this situation, fluid builds up within the macula — the small space within the heart of the retina — and causes swelling within the eye and, consequently, blurry imaginative and prescient. Fortunately, the staff discovered that discontinuing use of the vitamin reversed this impact and restored the affected person’s imaginative and prescient.

Niacin in excessive doses has been linked to different hostile well being penalties, too. Taking 1,000 mg every day of the complement may trigger complications, dizziness, low blood strain, excessive blood sugar, nausea, coronary heart burn, and abdomen ache. Doses greater than this may trigger extra extreme well being issues like muscle harm, abdomen ulcers, and even liver harm.

Since niacin is an important nutrient, you’ll wish to make certain you’re getting sufficient of it, even when you’re not taking a complement. To take action, simply ensure you have meals like poultry, fish, avocados, peanuts, mushrooms, brown rice, and entire wheat merchandise in your weight-reduction plan.

In order one other reminder, whereas dietary supplements aren’t as regulated as common drugs, it’s essential to speak to your physician about any nutritional vitamins that you’re taking. Extra of one thing isn’t all the time higher, and conserving your ranges of sure vitamins inside a secure restrict is simply as necessary as getting sufficient of them.