Is the “A” in Airborne Unsafe?
March 5, 2008 by Dawn
Another blogger who originally wrote one of the articles covering the Airborne concerns pointed out that a major issue is that “Airborne contained potentially harmful levels of Vitamin A.” Again, it seems to me some context is needed.
First, here’s the issue:
According to the article from CPSI, one Airborne tablet contains 5,000 IU and recommended 3 tablets daily. Whether this was in every formulation of Airborne, or just the original one is not made clear. The current formula we use, Airborne Nightime, has 3,000 IU and the recommended dosage is 1 tablet prior to going to bed.
At 3 per day a user would get 15,000 IU - current accepted recommendations here in the US have established that the UL (Upper Safe Limit as determined by the RDA) for Vitamin A for an adult 25 yr old male is 15,0000 IU. Wikipedia has a nice chart of RDAs in their dietary reference intake entry.
Now for women IT IS LESS (and this is quoted from an excellent article from the Journal of Nutrition if you want to really dive into Vitamin A toxicity) “For women of childbearing age the UL is based on concern about the risk of teratogenicity.” This means concerns about creating congenital birth defects.
“High dose vitamin A supplements can cause teratogenic effects especially if consumed shortly before conception or during the first trimester of pregnancy. Both the Institute of Medicine and the American Teratology Society recommend a daily upper limit of 3 mg (10,000 IU) of preformed vitamin A for women of reproductive age (30
). This is probably a rather conservative estimate.“
Now lets put this in context:
The International Food Information Council writes “A UL is the highest amount of a nutrient that can be safely eaten on a continual basis and will not cause an adverse effect for most healthy people. The adverse health effect used to determine a UL will vary from nutrient to nutrient. For instance, the adverse effect identified for niacin is flushing, or redness of the face, and niacin’s UL only applies to the form of niacin used in supplements and fortified foods. Many people can safely consume the UL amount, but should use discretion.
So Airborne was pushing against and slightly overstepping the limits of the RDA in its recommendations for taking their product however, it is important to note we are talking about a remedy for cold and flu - it is not meant to be taken long term. And “long term” is applicable, for example the UK Food Standards Agency, notes concerns about long term effects of high Vitamin A doses “Some research suggests that having more than an average of 1.5mg per day of vitamin A over many years may affect your bones and make them more likely to fracture when you’re older.”
So what about short-term? Well, again, lets talk about context. If you refer to the Office of Dietary Supplements (oh yes, we have one!) Fact Sheet on Vitamin A you’ll discover half a cup of canned carrot juice contains 22,567 IU of Vitamin A, and half a cup of frozen boiled spinach contains 11,458 IU. In other words a single serving of our recommended veggies easily puts us over the UL established by the scientific community. Quick - outlaw the carrot juice!
Additionally just to check - our current immune booster also provides 5,000 IU and suggests 6 capsules every 3 hours. Okay, so I think that’s overkill, and don’t follow their recommendations, but I suspect with a little walk down the grocery store aisles we’ll find plenty of other supplements out there that have erred more egregiously than Airborne.
What I’m saying is there is a little bit of the ‘tempest in the teapot’ about the product. Airborne did some no-nos which I’m not defending, and if the users want their money back, feeling they were duped, I have nothing against it, but I’m definitely far from convinced that Airborne poses any actual danger or, as I posted earlier, is ineffective.
Well at least no more than the spinach I’m having tonight for dinner…
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Note there are two forms of Vitamin A - Retinyl Palmitate is the form used in Airborne. I didn’t find any online cited research on the difference between this and the other synthetic form of Vitamin A, acetate. Acetate is more commonly used in supplements while the former is used more often in foods because of its stability. If there are any concerns about the form of Vitamin A used, it would be interesting to know! Comments….?
Maybe some context is needed. I wrote that post in January 2006, back when there was only one version of Airborne formula and it was still pretty much a novelty.
That Airborne Fomula had 5,000 IU of Vitamin A per dose, and no warnings or dosage limitations whatsoever. It said to take “every three hours, as necessary” with no limitations on dosage other than that. That would give up to 8 doses in a 24-hour period, as stated in my post. That would be 8 times the RDA, or 40,000 IUs of Vitamin A. That would be FOUR TIMES the upper limit, not “pushing against and slightly overstepping the limits of the RDA” as you stated. You are comparing apples to oranges. And, at that time, there were a lot of people taking it daily, and taking it many times daily. I think a caution was in order.
Also please keep in mind that synthetic Vitamin A, such as that in supplements, reacts very differently in the body and is easier to overdose on than Vitamin A in the form of Beta Carotene, such as that in vegetables and fruits–which is supposedly almost impossible to overdose on. Even Vitamin A from animal protein is a completely different beast than Vitamin A from plant sources.
If you will read the comments under the post, you’ll see quite a bit of discussion about the possibility of Vitamin A overdosage and the differing forms of Vitamin A. You might find it interesting.
Also, please keep in mind that I said repeatedly in my post that I was not recommending that anyone stop taking Airborne, just that they use caution and be careful to take into consideration their own health and the upper limits of vitamins, as well as the amounts of these vitamins in any other supplements they were taking that might combine with the amount in Airborne to be a too-high dosage. As I pointed out, people that are at higher risk of overdosage, like pregnant women and people with kidney or liver disease, need to be especially cautious.