Risk Of Excessive Health Supplement Intake

There is no doubt that vitamin and mineral supplements can indeed help replenish our body and make it stronger to help cope with side effects of aging, improper diet, hectic lifestyle, chronic stress, lack of exercise and inadequate sleep.

Vitamin supplement industry is big business. Singapore has one of the highest populations that spend considerable money on health related products. Multivitamin supplements are hot selling health products and the stock gets replenished quickly due to high demand.

As the saying goes, intake too much of everything is bad for you. Excessive intake of vitamin supplements can be quite harmful and detrimental to your health. Multivitamin supplements are usually laboratory synthesized and chemically processed and unlike those found in natural food, it can accumulate and build up to dangerous level within our body.

Excess vitamin A could cause hair loss, reduce bone density and liver damage. Too much vitamin C may cause stomach upset and diarrhea. Large doses of vitamin E may cause harm to the kidney and heart. Too much vitamin D intake may cause muscle weakness and accumulation of calcium at harmful level in the body.

Excess water-soluble vitamins and minerals such as vitamin B and C can pass out quickly from the body through urine, perspiration and passing of motion. Fat-soluble vitamins such as A and E are more difficult to break down and discharge from the body. As matter of fact, fat soluble vitamins are more likely to accumulate and stay in the body.

Some of the side effects are temporal and goes away when you reduce or stop taking the vitamin health supplements. Some of it are however permanent and caused irreversible damaged to critical organs. Even though FDA does not regulate most health supplements products, one should always take precaution to avoid excessive consumption.

Some consumer thought that they would become healthier if they take high dosage of vitamin supplements regularly. Sad to say this is far from the truth. One relevant and interesting question that is often being put forward and discussed is how often and how much vitamin supplement intake is considered excessive.

Some people strictly follow the dosage recommended by the health supplement manufacturers.
Others think they won’t get to experience the full efficacy of the health supplements if they reduce or cut down intake from the recommended dosage. On the other hand there are also those who take the health supplements so sparingly and infrequently that they never get to finish it throughout the shelf life of the product.

It is worth to note that the recommended dosage is just a rough guideline. Doctors usually advice and recommend using the RDA (recommended dietary allowance) as reference and guideline to determine the amount of health supplements you may safely consume daily.


Always start with lower dosage and increase it gradually by the weeks to allow your body adjust to the health supplement intake . To begin with, take half of that recommended by the drug producers. For instance if the label indicates taking a pill three times daily, you should restrict to one daily or perhaps or once every two days. Drink plenty of water if you take health supplements everyday.

Individual has different response and tolerance level to health supplement intake. Those whose detoxification system are weak such as the elderly, children and the sickly has higher chances of suffering side effects from build up of toxins in the body due to excess dosage of vitamin supplement intake.