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i wonder how many servings of liver i could safely consume per week. This article suggests that toxicity studies on Vit A were done using synthetic forms and not those naturally occurring in food; but still suggest only two servings a week. i currently eat at least 1/2 lb beef liver and 1 lb of chicken liver a week and occassionally some pork liver.

what symptoms would i have if it were too much? could i off-set the storage of Vit A with another food?

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3 Answers

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just digging through my own notes on Vit A.
Yep, excessive Vitamin A is toxic. so therefeore excessive liver is not a good thing.

Please do not eat 30 to 90 grams of polar bear liver at one meal, it is enough to kill a human being. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinol#Retinoid_overdose_.28toxicity.29

Other livers with high Vitamin A levels are seal, walrus, and husky. So go easy on this stuff & the polar bear liver of course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervitaminosis_A#Toxicity_from_eating_liver

For Signs, symptoms & indicators of Vitamin A Toxicity, see here; http://www.digitalnaturopath.com/cond/C385281.html & here http://www.acu-cell.com/acn2.html
The second link also has Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) info.

You can use one of the online nutrition databases to workout how much Vit A you get from your food.

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1 
 another high Vit A liver is Reindeer, honourably mention to Dragonfly for flagging this one. – daz Nov 11 2011 at 2:22
"500 gram (about ½ a pound) of polar bear liver will deliver about 9,000,000 IU to your diet" (anyvitamins.com/vitamin-a-info.htm) – Korion Jan 8 2012 at 15:15
There's a big difference between 1 million IU and 10k IU... I don't think you can have toxicity symptoms if you keep your retinol intake below 50k IU. – Korion Jan 8 2012 at 15:17
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I would wager that the retinol in supplements is largely equivalent to the retinol in liver. However, testing toxicity thresholds in populations who are deficient in several minerals as well as the other fat soluble vitamins is going to be less applicable to us than presented.

The amount that you're eating is not out of the realm of possibility for a HG or pleistocene human.

What you pretty much can't overdose on is beta-carotene, since we're so inefficient at converting to retinol (though you can turn orange).

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i'm not sure i understand your point; sorry, i'm old. because i likely have good stores of minerals and other fat soluble vitamins, they would mitigate over consuption of Vit A? is our capacity to store A D E and K unlimited? and i won't turn orange??? – sage_ Nov 10 2011 at 19:19
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 Definitely not unlimited, but the amount you're eating doesn't sound evolutionarily inconsistent. For the vast majority of people, there's a greater risk of eating too little liver. If one ate it every single day for all of their protein they'd run into trouble, but you're likely fine. – Travis Culp♦ Nov 10 2011 at 19:48
cheers Travis :) thank you – sage_ Nov 10 2011 at 20:09
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From my understanding you can overdose on Synthetic but not natural Vitamin A.

I really need to start writing down where I read all these studies/books from for reference.

I just remember after reading it is when I started taking Vitamin A in the form of Cod Liver Oil.

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 Tell that to the folks who have gotten sick/died from eating polar bear or reindeer liver. – Dragonfly Nov 11 2011 at 0:59
This is totally wrong. – Jay Nov 11 2011 at 1:11
Now I want to know where I read that. Sorry for any confusion. – Ryan H Nov 11 2011 at 1:54

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