By Staff
Our firstborn, Stephen, had been a normal, healthy infant.
But at his 6-month medical checkup, our physician found that he had iron deficiency anemia.
I was angry and outraged.
I worked in the laboratory of the hospital where he was delivered.
My full-time employment included testing patient bloods for hemoglobin, the iron-containing protein.
I took Stephen's deficiency anemia as an insult to my fatherhood and parental care. When the physician prescribed a liquid iron supplement to be added to Stephen's formula, I was glad that there was a remedy.
But I was anxious for him to get well in a hurry.
So, at my insistence, we doubled the recommended dosage and Stephen became sick. It is not unusual for infants to be anemic at 6 months of age if there is no supplemental iron added to their diet.
Their body weight is usually increasing rapidly during that first six months and milk is not a good source of iron. For infants 7-12 months of age the National Institute of Health lists 40 mg of iron as the upper recommended level of tolerance.
With 15 mg as a therapeutic dose, doubling and multiple doses per day put our son at hazard.
Children have died from an iron overdose intake of 200 mg.
We backed off and Stephen survived infancy.
Essential iron is toxic in overdose quantities.
Would you expect water to be harmful?
When Silas came in to see his physician, we found that we were seeing a man who had made himself sick.
He had nausea and had vomited. He had a severe headache, complained of extreme fatigue and was irritable.
Silas had become convinced he must wash out the "toxins" from his body.
He told us that he drank 50 glasses of water during the previous 24 hours.
When we took a sample of his blood and measured its concentration of sodium, we found he had washed out sodium to much less than its normal blood level.
Silas survived that episode and learned not to overdose on water.
Many of us do not drink enough water to support body functions well.
But a water binge is not a good choice, either.
You would not expect oxygen to be toxic would you? When an infant is prematurely born, its lungs may not be developed enough to function well in delivering oxygen to the bloodstream.
One of the remedies used for that situation is to place the infant in an atmosphere of enriched oxygen.
It is estimated that in the United States 3,500 infants each year who are treated in this manner suffer damage to the retinas of their eyes.
It is further estimated that of that number, 350-500 suffer blindness.
Oxygen supplied to the organs of the body is essential to health, but an overdose may inflict a life-long handicap. The deleterious results of vitamin deficiencies have been studied and published for many decades.
Therefore, vitamin supplements are available over-the-counter even in high dosage concentrations.
But can the intake of too much vitamin supplement injure your health? Vitamin A in overdose concentrations may cause liver damage, hair loss, blurred vision and headache. An overdose of Vitamin B6, known also as pyridoxine, may cause numbness in the mouth and hands and difficulty in walking.
Vitamin D in overdose concentrations does not occur from exposure to the sun, but may occur from taking oral supplements. It is recommended that Vitamin D supplements not exceed 2,000 International Units per day. Overdosing of Vitamin D may result in kidney stones, nausea, vomiting and deposition of calcium in the soft tissues (including heart muscle and kidneys). Whether iron supplements, water, oxygen or vitamins, let's realize that more is not necessarily better.