Biohack: Turn Yourself Yellow Using Carotenosis

anita-drew

Anita and Drew are trying to turn themselves yellow by eating 8 carrots a day (each). They are on Day 14 of their self induced carotenosis journey. Pumpkins and pawpaw fruit would also work because they too are high in β-carotene. β-carotene is the precursor which our bodies use to produce Vitamin-A.

Anita sums up the experiment nicely here:

“Ingesting β-carotene from food is different from using β-carotene or vitamin A supplements, which is not recommended. Basically, once your body has generated enough vitamin A, it won’t generate more from the excess β-carotene you get from food (source). Therefore, there is no risk of conditions like hypervitaminosis A that are caused by an excess of vitamin A. Other than the yellowing of the skin, it does not appear to be harmful and our skin will go back to a normal color once we’ve decreased our intake again. On the plus side, we might get a little bit of sunburn prevention!”

Related discussions on carotenosis:

International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition (2011)

Scientific America – Too Many Carrots

 


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3 Comments

  1. Thanks for the post (and now I’ll remember to take nice pictures of myself, rather than just-out-of-the-shower and exhausted photos:)! I hope others try the world of self-experimentation, even if to try some small things like what we’re doing. Enjoy!

  2. Anita – You inspire us. I’m sure there were be some carrot and pawpaw gobbling due to your influence. Keep it up. We can’t wait to see your lovely jaundice complexion.

  3. thomas zerucha

    In Medical Detectives by Berton Roche (2 volumes), there is a story about someone who turned himself orange. The diagnosis was this plus tomatoes which are red and have a similar effect.

    Medical Detectives is one of the non-programming hacker’s debugging mastercourse canon books.

    Also note there is agyeria if you have too much collodial silver where you can turn yourself blue.

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