“…Vitamin A that if taken internally can be toxic, even fatal at levels of 100,000 IU per day. In fact, 1 ounce of polar bear liver contains enough retinol vitamin A to kill you.”
I just wanted to warn anyone going to the Pole to stay away from the chopped liver.
I’m curious how you would find the original study? I can find “official” sites like this that mention the fact, but not where they got it from. Isn’t it bad to eat seal liver as well for the same reason?
I know dog liver can poison you, but no idea where you could find the firm data on that either. Other then people dying from it.
Gulo. Excellent example. You posted a site that appears to be credible but is merely a private web-site It presents facts which are from the “U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.” But then, half way through, they post the polar bear factoid under the heading of Additional Facts from “Wild Mammals of North America”
samclem - just out of curiosity - honestly not trying to pick a fight - why do you care to “call bullshit” or insist on a cite? Were you planning to eat polar bear liver sometime soon?
He’s got a freezer full of the stuff, and his plans for a big weekend BBQ are in jeopardy, give him a break, he’s expecting 2 dozen guests tomorrow and dosen’t want to have to run out to the store in the morning.
This site claims that the LD50 (the dose required to kill 50% of a population) for vitamin A is 2570 mg/Kg when it’s taken orally. Now all we need is data on percent by weight of vitamin A in polar bear liver. The rest is left as an exercise for the reader.
Wait a sec…let’s see here. Say we have a 100 Kg person. That means they’d have to eat 25,700 mg, or 25.7 grams, of pure vitamin A to have a 50% chance of dying. There are 28.35 grams in an ounce. So that means that polar bear liver would have to be, hang on, 90.6% vitamin A by weight to have a 50% chance of killing a 100 kilogram person.