Excessive vitamin D intake, such as the 920% of the Recommended Intake (RI) per serving in Daily Greens, may pose potential health risks
Hypervitaminosis D
Symptoms of vitamin D toxicity appear several months after excessive doses of vitamin D are administered.
An excess of vitamin D causes abnormally high blood concentrations of calcium, which can cause overcalcification of the bones, soft tissues, heart and kidneys. In addition, hypertension can result. Symptoms of vitamin D toxicity may include the following:
Taking too many vitamin D supplements over a long period of time can cause too much calcium to build up in the body (hypercalcaemia). This can weaken the bones and damage the kidneys and the heart.
If you choose to take vitamin D supplements, 10 micrograms a day will be enough for most people.
Do not take more than 100 micrograms (4,000 IU) of vitamin D a day as it could be harmful. This applies to adults, including pregnant and breastfeeding women and the elderly, and children aged 11 to 17 years.
It’s very easy to find supplements containing 100ug of D3 on the high street.
The vitamin D content of Daily Greens is high, and exceeds the daily reference intake for vitamin D (how much we need to consume) as indicated on the back of pack. However, the tolerable upper intake limit (the maximum safe dosage) for vitamin D is 100ug. Daily Greens contains less than half this amount, so doesn’t come close to the intake levels we’d need to reach for toxicity to become a risk.
Thank you, Amy. Your response was most appreciated. There is another question that needs to be addressed: what would happen to a person who takes vitamin D every day, for years, in an amount that is not high enough to be toxic, but still nine times more than what is normally recommended? How would this affect their health in the long run?
There’s a lot of documented research on the bioaccumulation of Vit D in the body and it depends on a lot of variables like age, body mass etc - the only long term potential risks of hypercalcemia appear to be for people with sarcoidosis, tuberculosis, lyme disease, lymphoma or kidney diseases.
NRV is 5mcg, but 10mcg is ‘normally recommended’ (eg NHS: ‘adults need 10 micrograms of vitamin D a day’), so DG is only 4.6 times more than normally recommended, not nine times more.
Yes it’d be interesting to know. We all should have at least 10mcg but not more than 100mcg each day. Has anyone ever been adversely affected by a daily intake of 46mcg?
I would doubt it, else Huel wouldn’t have set the DG level at 46. I’m assuming they know what they’re doing.
“Only take a higher (than 10µg) strength vitamin if you have been advised to do so by your doctor. Taking more than 10 to 12.5 micrograms (mcg or µg) or 400IU to 500IU per day is not necessary and high doses could be harmful in the long-term.”
This suggests that those who adhere to the NHS advice should not consume more than one serving of Huel Daily Greens every four or five days, except if their doctor recommends otherwise.
Note that ‘The US has its own version of the NRVs called the Daily Value (DV). Different criteria were used to define NRVs and DVs, which is why you will see a difference between the NRVs and US DVs. For example, the NRV for vitamin D is 5mcg, whereas in the US the DV is 20mcg.’ DRV vs RDA vs NRV vs RNI: nutrition reference intakes explained (healthspan.co.uk)
Incidentally, I’m not sure that Huel’s use of ‘RI’ on the label isn’t confusing. DG has 920% of the UK NRV (5mcg), not the RI (10mcg). Happy to be corrected but looks that way to me…
I see DG as having approx 4x the UK recommended daily minimum, and 2x the US amount.
I have a question on this. While the upper limit is 100mg, I’m planning to take a bag with me on a trip to Asia. With UV light and this on top, how does that change things? I think I recall seeing the body can generally only make 10,000iu via sunlight. But let’s suppose you get sun exposure and a serving of this a day, what’s the view then? I know they say you can’t get toxicity from sun synthesised vit d itself, but given DG is quite high, I’m now intrigued…
Probably the healthiest approach is to eat your greens and stay out of the sun. A good dose of vitamin D is guaranteed and your risks of skin cancer are diminished. Also you’ll stay younger-looking for longer as the damage that UV light causes to your skin will be reduced.
