Will eating beef liver give you Vitamin A toxicity?
Starting off the new year with a post addressing one of the most common questions I get: What about Vitamin A toxicity?
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Another common question: Will eating beef liver cause Vitamin A toxicity?
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And another: Won’t too much Vitamin A cause birth defects?
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First and foremost, I want to distinguish that we’re talking about Vitamin A toxicity — not carotenemia.
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Vitamin A is one of the single most important nutrients for our bone health, im^^un3 health, antioxidation, wound healing and eyesight, but for baby’s too. It’s also the nutrient that helps a baby’s body differentiate correctly, meaning it’s critical to PREVENTING birth defects.
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A huge chunk of women are deficient in this nutrient going into pregnancy. And unfortunately, many are discouraged from eating Vitamin A-rich foods.
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It all comes back to a 1995 study that found women who consumed more than 10,000 IU of Vitamin A gave birth to children with a great risk of specific birth defects. But like many studies are, this one was flawed. Much of the Vitamin A was from multivitamins and the researchers did not distinguish between fortified food sources.
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There have also been studies following this one showing exponentially higher Vitamin A intake and either no correlation to or a lowering of birth defects.
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Lily Nichols, R.D. in her book “Real Food for Pregnancy” writes “...old studies linked high-dose synthetic supplemental Vitamin A to birth defects. However, we now know that naturally occurring Vitamin A does not exert this toxicity…”
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This is why real food is king when it comes to optimal nutrition, prepping for baby or not. If you’re getting Vitamin A from food, there’s likely nothing to worry about.
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〰️Beware of synthetically fortified foods (most commonly dairy and cereals)
〰️Beware of how much synthetic Vitamin A your multivitamin or prenatal contains
〰️Grass-fed liver a few times a week is an excellent source of Vitamin A — and it contains other minerals and fat-soluble cofactors
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Not medical advice. Always talk to your healthcare professional before making changes to your healthcare and prenatal regime.
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This is not medical advice. Always consult your healthcare professional before pursuing any changes to your personal healthcare regime.
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References
Fallon, S. Cowan, T.S. (2013, 2015). The Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Child Care. Washington, D.C.: NewTrends Publishing.
Haas, E. M. Levin, B. (2006). Staying Healthy with Nutrition. New York, NY: Ten Speed Press.
Nichols, L. (2018). Real Food for Pregnancy. United States.
Rothman, K.J. Moore, L.L. Singer, M.R. Nguyen, U. Mannino, S. Milunsky, A. (1995). Teratogenicity of High Vitamin A Intake. Retrieved from: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199511233332101.
Wise Traditions. (2020). Food > supplements. Retrieved from: https://www.westonaprice.org/sv/podcast/261-food-supplements/.
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