A national study of children hospitalized for vitamin and mineral poisoning found that most of the cases were not accidents, a result the researchers say points less at product hazards and more at adolescent distress.
Researchers analyzed the federal Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Kids' Inpatient Database for 2016, 2019, and 2022 and identified 1,961 children hospitalized with vitamin or mineral toxicity listed as a cause. Fifty-six percent of those cases followed intentional ingestion. Teenagers ages 13 to 17 accounted for 57 percent of the hospitalizations, and 73 percent of the children were girls.
