Hypervitaminosis A

What Are the Common Causes and Risk Factors?

Understanding hypervitaminosis A vitamin toxicity seniors prevention is important for seniors and their caregivers. vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that is stored in the liver. Many foods contain vitamin A, including:

• Meat, fish, and egg yolks
• Dairy products
• Some fruits and vegetables

Some dietary supplements also contain vitamin A.

Taking too many supplements is the most common cause of vitamin A toxicity. It only rarely occurs just from eating vitamin A-rich foods.

Too much vitamin A can make you sick. Taking large doses during pregnancy can cause birth defects.

• Acute vitamin A poisoning occurs quickly. It can happen when an adult takes several hundred thousand international units (IUs) of vitamin A.
• 
  Chronic

  vitamin A poisoning may occur over time in adults who regularly take more than 50,000 IUs a day.

• Babies and children are more sensitive to vitamin A. They can become sick after taking smaller doses of it (20,000 IUs a day for children). Swallowing products that contain vitamin A, such as skin cream with retinol in it, can also cause vitamin A poisoning.

What Are the Symptoms and Warning Signs?

Symptoms may include:

• Abnormal softening of the skull bone (in infants and children)
• 
  Blurred vision

• 
  Bone pain

  or

  swelling

• Bulging of the soft spot in an infant’s skull (

  fontanelle

  )

• Changes in alertness or consciousness
• 
  Decreased appetite

• 
  Dizziness

• Double vision (in young children)
• 
  Drowsiness

• Hair changes, such as hair loss and oily hair
• 
  Headache

• Irritability
• Liver damage
• 
  Nausea and vomiting

• Poor weight gain (in infants and children)
• Skin changes, such as cracking at corners of the mouth, higher sensitivity to sunlight, oily skin, peeling, itching, and yellow color to the skin
• Vision changes