Too good is also bad
Scientists have told about the dangers of overdose with fish oil
The advice of an amateur of "alternative medicine" and an unsuccessful trip to the sea almost took the life of a 54-year-old Canadian whose kidneys failed due to an excess of vitamin D in his body. This story is told by medical professionals in the journal CMAJ (Auguste et al., Use of vitamin D drops leading to kidney failure in a 54-year-old man).
"Vitamin D poisoning is extremely rare, given the huge gap between the minimum effective and dangerous dose. On the other hand, various drugs based on it are now freely sold in any pharmacy and store, and they can pose a threat to the health of ignorant people," notes Bourne Auguste from the University of Toronto (in a press release Too much of a good thing? High doses of vitamin D can lead to kidney failure – VM).
Fish oil and vitamin D, as studies in recent years show, have many useful properties, in addition to strengthening bones and teeth, which scientists had not previously suspected. For example, over the past three years, they have found that vitamin D reduces the likelihood of death from a heart attack, slows down the development of multiple sclerosis and protects the brain of alcoholics from further damage.
Recently, American molecular biologists have found out that vitamin D can play a key role in protecting the body's cells from aging and its consequences, including the development of cancer, by observing the life of worms, which they fed with "killer" doses of this vitamin. In addition, fish oil can protect people from developing diabetes and a number of other diseases.
August and his colleagues discovered an extremely unusual example of how not to take vitamin D, studying the medical history of an elderly Canadian who sought help from doctors because of kidney problems.
According to him, his health problems began a few days after he returned from a trip to Southeast Asia, where he spent a lot of time on the beach. On the advice of the family doctor, he stopped taking diuretics and medications for gout, trying to restore the balance of fluids in the body.
Despite this, just a month later, his tests began to indicate that his kidneys were rapidly failing, after which the elderly Canadian turned to nephrologists for help. His examination brought a lot of amazing discoveries.
On the one hand, the doctors did not find any obvious problems with the functioning of his urinary systems, apart from a small malignant tumor in the bladder, removed immediately after its discovery. The patient's kidneys looked normal and had a normal structure. Urine tests also did not contain anything that indicated their destruction.
Puzzled nephrologists were forced to conduct a comprehensive examination of his body, which led them to the first really important anomaly – the proportion of calcium and parathyrin, a hormone that promotes its withdrawal from the blood, was record high.
Something similar, as scientists recalled, can occur when taking large amounts of vitamin D, as it promotes the absorption of phosphorus and calcium from food. Guided by this idea, they asked the patient if he had consumed fish oil and in what quantities.
It turned out that this was indeed the case – the 54-year-old outdoor enthusiast took huge doses of vitamin D for the last three years of his life. At the same time, he did not experience problems with the lack of this substance, but did so on the advice of a so-called "naturopath", a supporter of one of the concepts of alternative medicine.
He recommended that the patient take about eight drops of vitamin D a day to improve health and maintain normal body weight, which was about five times higher than normal. In addition, the Canadian himself made a mistake by buying the wrong version of the vitamin, which increased the dose of fish oil by another two times.
The situation worsened after a trip to Indochina for the reason that his body began to receive even more vitamin D during trips to the beach. As a result, a chain of reactions began, which led to serious health problems and the destruction of his kidneys.
The doctors managed to save the patient's life by transferring him to a special diet with a minimum amount of calcium, as well as with the help of hydroxychloroquine, a drug for malaria. This substance contributes to the inactivation of vitamin D and its removal from the body, but is potentially dangerous for human eyes. After about six months, the Canadian was able to get out of the crisis, and a year later his health returned to normal, except that now he has developed a chronic kidney disease of the third stage. This story, according to doctors, should be a warning for all fans of self-medication with vitamins and a reason to think about how to control the turnover of such drugs.
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