Curious to know, as we’ve all been cautioned against too much vitamin A, because it builds up in our fat stores and can become toxic to the body at high amounts. Wondering what would happen to those vitamins and the body, if anything, if someone were to lose weight quickly? And if there are other things stored in fat to be aware of.
In: Biology
I’m pretty sure nothing important happens. I don’t think you can lose weight fast enough for it to matter.
If you lose the weight surgically (fat extraction, liposuction) the vitamins go with it.
If you lose the weight through even extreme dieting and exercise, it’s still slow relative to your liver just dealing with it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast this guy did fine not eating for a year (he had nutritional supplements)… he would have been releasing these vitamins as fast as is plausible with no ill effect.
If you lose the weight through insane metabolism, like some combination of 2,4-dinitrophenol and ice baths…you are gonna die of fever first anyway.
With vitamin D specifically, losing weight very quickly can “free up” vitamin D that was previously stored in fat. Apparently this can cause vitamin D toxicity [in some cases](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1530891X23001490), but not frequently, and [it’s unclear](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33792853/ ) to what extent this happens, how it’s affected by other factors like sunlight exposure, etc.
As for other things stored in fat: weed metabolites. I’ve seen studies that say it can take months to be fully purged from the body (normally it’s a few weeks, but outliers exist).
For fat soluble vitamins. Absolutely nothing. The low amount of vitamins that is released through fat cells being emptied out is not enough to do much.
It can cause you to test positive on a drug test though if you’ve used lipophilic drugs (like cannabis) in the past, as the amount of metabolites released from the fat cells can become high enough that it triggers the test (even though you’ve tested negative in between).
The same is true for a bunch of fat-soluble toxins like DDT and various types of biphenyls. Exposure to such toxins in the past and then rapidly losing weight can cause these toxins to be release into the bloodstream where they try to bind to other fats, like the ones in the brain and organs. This can happen in sufficient amounts that it can cause symptoms.
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