A boy has turned into a 'real-life Simpsons character' with yellow skin, according to a concerned mum, after eating too many oranges. Charlotte Travers, 32, noticed her son Thomas was becoming a strange shade of yellow and took him to the doctor for tests.
The family were then stunned to discover that the problem was caused by the six-year-old's love of eating oranges and satsumas - sometimes a bag a day. Medical tests didn’t show anything sinister, but did flag up unusually high levels of beta carotene which is a vitamin found in particularly orange-coloured foods.
The family now jokingly refer to him as "Thomas Simpson" - a nod to the famous yellow skinned characters of the Simpsons cartoon.
She said: "He started turning yellow and I was quite worried because it can be a sign of kidney or liver failure. I thought I’d take him to the doctor just in case, you never know.
"At the initial appointment the doctor said the main symptom of kidney failure was yellow eyes, which Thomas didn't have. She said sometimes children can just get stained skin from playing in the mud or sand, but this was more than that - so we did blood tests to rule anything out but they all came back normal."
Ms Travers, a domestic abuse support worker, from Paignton, Devon, then revealed to the doctor about her son, Thomas’, extreme eating habits. This was then determined by the GP that the boy's skin colour was a direct result of his love oranges.
Ms Travers said: "I did tell the doctor about his general diet - things like he at lots of fruit and veg, and that he loves cheese. I never in a million years would have thought that was what was causing his skin to turn yellow."
Unusually, eating a high volume of foods containing beta carotene has been scientifically proven to make skin turn yellow. Foods other than oranges that can have this affect too include carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe and even dried apricots.
"I have a rule in our house that if it’s in the fruit bowl you can have as much as you’d like," Ms Travers added "and that hasn’t changed."
"It’s harmless thankfully, people drink shots of beta carotene to tan more - so luckily for him he still eats just as many oranges. When the doctor told us about what the cause was, we both thought it was absolutely hilarious.
