Talk:Carotenoderma

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A fact from Carotenoderma appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on 31 December 2007.

"Carotenodermia has been observed to occur upon chronic doses in excess of 30 mg of carotenoid per day" In adults? In children? Per KG of body? This seems to be the study referenced: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/48/4/1061 It says that 30 mg of purified beta-carotene supplement caused carotenodermia 25 days into the study. 272 g of cooked carrots did NOT cause carotenodermia after 42 days. It also says that it occurs after carotenoids reach plasma levels of 4.0 mg/L. From this, one might be able to determine what quantity of, say, carrots, would cause carotenodermia. --Mdwyer 20:19, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Reverse calculating to carrots skirts both original research, in the sense that no one has done the study with carrots, and also WP:BEANS, in that it's probably a bad idea to declare a number - someone is going to try it to find out. We aren't censored for people's protection, but I can't imagine any use for the number unless you were going to deliberately try it out. (On the other hand, if you put it in, I won't remove it :) ) -- stillnotelf is invisible 21:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:BEANS, indeed! :) I came upon the article after finishing off a 5lb bag of baby carrots, wondering if there was a chance I would turn orange. I know that carotenodermia happen in infants -- especially when they refuse to eat anything but strained carrots -- but I had never heard of it happening to adults. I'm just looking for a ballpark answer that suggests if the legend is plausible or not. I'm aiming for something similar to the Rhubarb entry, where they explain that although the leaves are poisonous, it is unlikely that you would ever eat the 5kg of leaves needed to hit the LD50. --Mdwyer 03:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Infants are so small, and eat so much relative to their body weight...it'd be hard for an adult to eat enough. I think chronic dosing is necessary, not a single large dose. I don't know, though. (As a humorous aside, a friend told me that she's seen rhubarb WITH leaves on sale at a local grocery store - she's told the managers several times "look, I'm a botany professor, I know they're toxic, DO NOT SELL THEM", and they cut them properly for a month, then go back to being lazy...) -- stillnotelf is invisible 03:48, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Also yellow canaries turn orange if always you give them carrots to eat. This is no hoax! Aelwyn 21:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

My aunt ate carrots all the time. She carried them around in her pocketbook. In the late fifties, she developed carotenemia. I know that she ended up in the hospital and had to have two blood transfusions. The only symptom I recall was the yellow skin. Although I have searched, I have never found information about carotenemia in adults and whether or not it can be toxic. I can only vouch for the fact that my aunt was very ill and the diagnosis was carotenemia. --68.89.128.245 19:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC) PKWchatterbox-cafe@yahoo.com

Further to the above discussion, I heard years ago of a woman who went to a doctor because she was concerned about infertility. As I recall the story, the doctor diagnosed the problem based on the orange color of her palms. She consumed large amounts of carrot juice. Stopping this excess consumption of carrots solved the infertility problem. Wanderer57 (talk) 07:12, 31 December 2007 (UTC)