Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Volga bomb here. If your skin begins
Speaker 1: turning orange, you may feel like the star of a
Speaker 1: sci fi flick, but there's most likely a more down
Speaker 1: to earth explanation. Red orange and yellow fruits and vegetables
Speaker 1: often get their color from a pigment called beta carotene,
Speaker 1: which our bodies also happen to use to make vitamin A,
Speaker 1: which is one of the essential vitamins for human health.
Speaker 1: That means it's a vitamin that our bodies need in
Speaker 1: order to function properly, but our bodies can't produce it
Speaker 1: on their own, but we need to eat particular foods
Speaker 1: to help out. Vitamin A is involved in all sorts
Speaker 1: of important bodily processes. It's a component in one of
Speaker 1: the proteins that make our eyes work. It helps our
Speaker 1: immune system function, and it supports cell growth in organs
Speaker 1: like the heart, lungs, and kidneys. Lucky for us, carrots, cantaloupe, apricots, mangoes, oranges,
Speaker 1: pumpkin squashs, potatoes, and other red orange foods can be
Speaker 1: chock full of beta carotene, so chuck full, in fact,
Speaker 1: that when eaten in large amounts, they can sometimes cause
Speaker 1: people to develop an orange skin tone. What happens here
Speaker 1: is that eating an excessive amount of foods containing beta
Speaker 1: carotene can cause an overabundance of this pigment in the bloodstream,
Speaker 1: which in turn builds up in the areas of the
Speaker 1: body with thicker skin, hands, knees, elbows, feet, and the
Speaker 1: folds around the nose and produces there a visible orange
Speaker 1: ish hue. This is called carotenemia, and while the condition
Speaker 1: is more visible on people who have light colored skin,
Speaker 1: people of any skin color can be affected. Carotinemia isn't
Speaker 1: terribly common, even for people who are fruit and vegetable enthusiasts.
Speaker 1: It's usually the result of a restricted diet that includes
Speaker 1: large quantities of some specific fruit or vegetable that's high
Speaker 1: in beta carotene. There are hundreds of different carotenoid pigments
Speaker 1: aside from the common beta variant. They're actually named after
Speaker 1: carrots because the researcher who first identified these molecules was
Speaker 1: working with carrot juice. Credit for that goes to German
Speaker 1: pharmacist Heinrich Vilheim Ferdinand Wachnroeder. In the eighteen thirties. These
Speaker 1: pigments are also what's responsible for yellow and orange coloration
Speaker 1: in cultured butter and cheeses that haven't been dyed. That's
Speaker 1: because carrotenoid pigments also occur in fresh grass, and when
Speaker 1: a cow eats that grass, the pigments wind up in
Speaker 1: the cow's milk, blocked away in fat molecules that get
Speaker 1: broken up when the milk is turned into butter or
Speaker 1: cheese like cheddar. A large carrot has about six melograms
Speaker 1: of beta carotene. These six milligrams will convert to about
Speaker 1: a thousand micrograms of vitamin A in the human body,
Speaker 1: which is a little bit more than the recommended daily intake,
Speaker 1: but even so, with about a twelve to one beta
Speaker 1: carotene to vitamin A conversion rate, you'd need to eat
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty to three hundred carrots per day
Speaker 1: for several weeks, assuming that that was your only source
Speaker 1: of the pigment for it to start showing up in
Speaker 1: your skin. While orange, yellow, and red fruits and veggies
Speaker 1: are the primary cause of carotonemia, it can also be
Speaker 1: caused by foods of other colors. A justice beta carotene
Speaker 1: is found in grass. It's also found in cabbage, spinach, kiwi, asparagus,
Speaker 1: and apples, just to name a few. But as long
Speaker 1: as you don't overdo it, eating produce that contains beta
Speaker 1: carotene is great for you. A study published in the
Speaker 1: American Journal of Public Health in reported that eating just
Speaker 1: two extra portions of fruits and vegetables a day for
Speaker 1: six weeks caused a detectible change in skin tone, in
Speaker 1: that it produced a healthier glow. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article It's true eating too many carrots can
Speaker 1: turn your skin orange on how stuff works dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Laurel Dove. Brain Stuff is production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership of how stuff Works dot Com,
Speaker 1: and it is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts
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