Long-term use of vitamins in large doses is dangerous to health, specialists say

Vitamins are not as harmless or useful as they might seem at first glance. Vitamin supplements can be taken only as prescribed by a doctor and under his control, and their excess can be harmful to health.

It is necessary to distinguish between the concept of prophylactic intake of vitamins and their therapeutic dosages. The daily rate should be decided exclusively according to the prescription of the attending physician, said Fatima Dzgoyeva, an expert at the research center for endocrinology under Russian ministry.

According to RBC, the risk of intoxication is especially high in the case of taking fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K). These vitamins can accumulate in the body, and since they are consumed slowly, it is difficult to remove them.

Vitamin A accumulates in the liver and can cause damage, even irreversible. Vitamin E in a very large dose reduces blood coagulation, leads to bleeding and complications such as, for example, hemorrhagic stroke, she noted adding that an overdose of vitamin D is dangerous due to an increase in the level of calcium in the blood, which is manifested including nausea, vomiting, acute abdominal pain.

According to her, Vitamin K is the most harmless of them. It is rather low toxic, said the endocrinologist, nutritionist Marina Berkovskaya.

Water-soluble vitamins (group B and vitamin C) are less dangerous, because the body quickly removes their excess. High-dose vitamin C in people with problematic kidneys (with oxaluria or urolithiasis) can contribute to the formation of oxalate stones in the kidneys and even acute damage to the kidneys, Berkovskaya warns.

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