Welcome to Culture Clinic, MedPage Today‘s collaboration with Northwell Health to offer a healthcare professional’s take on the latest viral medical topics.
People are touting “carrot maxxing” on social media as a natural shortcut to golden skin.
“Week 6 of drinking my self-tanner,” one woman said on TikTok, downing a glass of carrot juice.
A different woman who went viral for her carrot maxxing results frequently posts slideshows of her before-and-after skin. In the before photos, she is very pale. After months of carrot maxxing, her face has a noticeable orange-y glow.
While eating a large amount of carrots can indeed shift a patient’s skin tone, it’s not the same as an actual tan, doctors told MedPage Today.
Stephanie Widmer, DO, an emergency physician and medical toxicologist at Northwell Health’s Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York, said that carrot maxxing is “a new name for an old trend” that goes around every so often.
“People are intentionally eating very, very large amounts of carrots, and their goal is to try to develop a warmer, golden skin tone from a pigment that’s inside of the carrots called beta-carotene,” she explained.
The buildup of beta-carotene in the body causes carotenemia — excess carotene in the blood — then carotenoderma, or a shift in skin tone to be more yellow or orange. Carrots are the primary source of beta-carotene, hence carrot maxxing. Beta-carotene is not usually toxic because the body regulates how much vitamin A it makes from it, Widmer explained, but excess preformed vitamin A supplements can be toxic.
Raman Madan, MD, chief of dermatology at Northwell Health’s Glen Cove Hospital in New York, said that for most people it takes eating two to four large carrots or about 16 ounces of carrot juice daily for a week or more to see visible shifts in skin tone. Continuing to consume lots of carrots is necessary for the golden hue to remain.
Usually, the body clears excess beta-carotene, Madan explained, but when carrot-maxxing, the body can’t clear it fast enough. The pigment accumulates in areas of the skin with oil glands — like the face, hands, and feet — which is where the golden tint is the most noticeable. Results will vary from patient to patient, and it may be more noticeable on lighter skin tones.
“Some people may not be thrilled with their results,” Widmer cautioned. While many think that carrot maxxing results in a sun-kissed look, others joke that it actually makes people look outright orange.
The late Steve Jobs’ skin has been described as having an orange hue; the businessman ate excessive amounts of carrots for months.
“Day one of me drinking carrot juice until I turn orange,” one TikToker said in the first of daily updates.
Madan explained that skin tone changes from carrot maxxing are not the same as a true tan, where sun exposure stimulates the production of pigment in melanocyte cells. “With beta-carotene, you’re not stimulating pigment; you’re actually just adding this color artificially,” he explained.
He noted that doctors should temper their patients’ expectations: carrot maxxing is not nature’s self-tanner and the orange hue of carotenoderma will not look the same as a sun tan.
Carotenoderma’s golden hue doesn’t protect patients from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, Widmer added, noting that sun protection is still vital.
As a whole, Madan and Widmer agree that carrot maxxing is one of the more harmless skincare fads and there are far worse things than eating a lot of carrots.
Widmer said she most often sees carotenemia in kids who have a lot of carrots in their diet. “But now with this TikTok trend, if this is something that teens and adolescents or young adults are doing, that may change,” she noted.
Widmer suggested keeping carotenemia in the differential diagnosis when pediatric patients present with golden skin. Jaundice and carotenemia may appear very similar in some patients, though jaundice would also affect the color of the eye whites.
