Toxic Supplements #3 Beta Carotene and the risk of cancer

Orange may be the new black, but beta carotene is definitely not the new retinol

From Beta Carotene to Retinol

Beta Carotene is a provitamin, a plant based kind of precursor to true Vitamin A. It is an antioxidant which is present in orange and some green plant foods. It can be converted into true Vitamin A, which is called Retinol, in the body.

Retinol is fat soluble and is the active form of Vitamin A. It’s found in oily fish, cod liver oil, liver from animals and eggs as well as many other animal foods. It’s needed for a healthy immune system, healthy thyroid and most people associate this vitamin with healthy eyesight.

In fact Vitamin A was probably the first to be identified in a nutritional deficiency. The ancient Egyptians applied ‘liver juice’ to the eye for night blindness.

For Retinol, think of the word ‘Retina’ and you can ‘see’ the link between the two. Vitamin A is directly used in the conversion of light photons at the back wall of the eye (called the retina) into signals that send messages about vision to the brain, in particular with night vision. Vitamin A deficiency is a major preventable cause of blindness globally.

Photo by Amanda Dalbjörn on Unsplash

Beta Carotene SNPs

The gene that converts Beta Carotene to Vitamin A is called BCM01. Up to 45% of the population have a polymorphism (mutation) on this gene that slows down that conversion. It’s very common to see people with these SNPs (polymorphisms) in clinic when we run their DNA labs. What is really concerning though is the reduction in efficiency of that conversion in these people which has been shown to be between 32% to 69%.

This means that for people with the BCM01 mutation, they couldn’t possibly eat anywhere near enough green and orange vegetables in a day to be able to convert to the amount of active Retinol Vitamin A that their body needs.

Imagine what this means for people on a vegan diet, with a heavy BCM01 mutation who supplement Beta Carotene (with the best intentions), because a supplement manufacturer told them this was ‘Vegan Vitamin A’….

Statements like this one from Vegan Health “It’s easy for most vegans to get enough β-carotene through common, whole foods such as carrots” could mislead people to believe that if they can only eat more carrots, they will be able to make all the vitamin A that they need. This particularly concerns me for the health of infants and children of vegans who are made to have the same diet as the parents.

There is just too much at stake, long term, to play around with our and our kid’s health and diets in this way. We have good enough data now to know that beta carotene is at best inadequate for almost half the population.

An increased risk of Cancer & other dangers from supplementation of beta carotene …