Sarah Schenker from British Nutrition Foundation replies: Yes! Ingestion of excessive amounts of carrots is the usual cause of carotenaemia or carotenodermia, but it can also be associated with ingestion of many other yellow vegetables, as well as some green vegetables. There are a number of reports of this condition in scientific literature. For example, in 1998 the Journal Of Dermatology reported the case of a 22-year-old woman who had eaten excessive amounts of carotene-rich seaweed to lose weight. Her skin colour changed to orange-yellow and her blood level of betacarotene was much higher than normal. After stopping the ingestion of seaweed, her skin colour returned to normal.
Carotenaemia is a benign condition; vitamin A poisoning does not occur despite massive doses of carotene because the conversion of carotene to vitamin A is slow. Hypothyroidism, diabetes mellitus, hepatic and renal diseases may be associated with carotenaemia, but are not caused by ingestion of carotene. The absence of yellow pigment in the eye and oral cavities distinguishes carotenaemia from jaundice (another condition in which the skin appears yellow). A similar disorder, lycopenaemia, is associated with an orange-yellow skin pigmentation as a result of ingestion of large amounts of tomatoes.