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From: werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Fish Oils (now Polar Bear Liver)
Message-ID: <843@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Jan-87 18:46:48 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.843
Posted: Thu Jan  1 18:46:48 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Jan-87 05:37:51 EST
References: <941@midas.UUCP> <441@omen.UUCP> <835@aecom.UUCP> <2917@diku.UUCP>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 17
Summary: Polar Bears and Vitamins

> other good things, e.g. vitamin D. Before the advent of vitamin pills, the
> common way of preventing ricketts[sp?], i.e. calcium deficiency in children,
> in Scandinavia, was a daily spoonful of cod liver oil. By the way vitamin D is
> toxic in large doses, and this is the reason why Greenland Eskimos never eat
> the liver of the polar bear - it's so full of vitamin D concentrated from the
> fish the bear eats that it's poisonous to humans.
> --
> Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, U of Copenhagen, Denmark		

	Yes, Vitamin D is toxic in large doses, but the Vitamin that's
concentrated in sufficient quantity in polar bear liver to kill is the
another fat-soluble vitamin, Vitamin A, not Vitamin D.
-- 
			      Craig Werner (MD/PhD '91)
				!philabs!aecom!werner
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
  "Sometimes you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place."