An 89-year-old retired businessman died from an “overdose” of Vitamin D supplements that did not warn about the risks of excessive intake.

David Mitchener from Oxted, Surrey, reportedly had fatally high levels of Vitamin D when he was brought to the East Surrey Hospital last year in May and was suffering from hypercalcaemia – a build-up of calcium in the body associated with taking too much vitamin D.

He died ten days later.

  • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Yeah I’ve always been weirded out about the phrase “FDA approved” since that implies that supplements and the like can be sold… Without approval? Surely that can’t be right? You can’t just put a bunch of pills in a bottle, call it a vitamin supplement and sell it without some pharmaceutical rigor. I heard someone say you basically could do that, and then at some point the FDA would crack down, but they couldn’t do it premptively. Never looked into it, because that sounded crazy.

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      You can literally make any claim as long as you slap on “Not FDA approved.”

      I came across some crap that “treats” cancer, but it had a little star next to it. And at the bottom on the back of the label, you can see “these statements are not FDA approved”

      • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        That’s just wild to me. I feel like you should have to get approved before you are allowed to sell medicinal supplements.