Medical Questions » Hands Questions » Question No. 475
| Question: | The palms of my hands and the soles of my feet have turned yellow. My husband says I eat too many paw paws. Could this be the cause? |
| Answer: | Carotenaemia, also known as hypervitaminosis A, is a relatively common condition amongst health food freaks and others who overindulge in vitamin A supplements and yellow coloured foods such as pawpaw, pumpkin and carrot. The kidneys and liver are unable to remove the excess levels of carotene (the yellow pigment that gives these foods their colour) from the blood stream, and it deposits in the thick-skinned areas of the soles and palms. Eventually die whole body may become yellow, and this condition may be confused with hepatitis. The liver is also damaged in this process. The only treatment is avoidance of the offending vitamins and foods. Over several months, the body' s waste removal system recovers sufficiently to remove the deposits and your colour returns ro normal.
Diets should never concentrate on one type of food product, and just because a small vitamin supplement is good for you, it does not mean that large amounts of vitamins are better.
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