Vitamin A Foods

What vitamin A foods are the best sources to get what you need of this important nutritional essential ... by Summer Banks, a prolific writer and certified medical assistant who has supervised customer support for multiple supplement companies..

Vitamin A is most often consumed in adequate amounts as part of a healthy diet. This vitamin plays a key role in bone growth, vision, reproduction, cell differentiation and division.

Cell differentiation is the process some cells go through to work efficiently in different parts of the body. For instance, cell differentiation will transform a common cell into a brain cell. The immune system is also dependent upon proper levels of vitamin A consumption. The immune system aids the body in warding off illness and infection. While blood cells known as lymphocytes are more effective thanks to vitamin A.

Recommended Daily Allowance

The recommended daily allowance establishes a daily value (DV) that can be followed as part of a healthy diet. Currently, the DV for vitamin A is 5000 IUs for adults. One half cup of carrot juice contains 22,567 IUs of vitamin A which is equivalent to 450% of the DV. Consuming enough vitamin A foods is easy with a healthy diet and thus supplementation is not common.

Vitamin A deficiency can lead to dry eyes, blindness, infections, gastrointestinal disorders and respiratory problems ...

In some cases, doctors may prescribe vitamin A supplementation for oral intake. This supplementation is most common in developing nations where malnutrition is a concern. Vitamin A deficiency can lead to dry eyes, blindness, infections, gastrointestinal disorders and respiratory problems.

If vitamin A deficiency is found, oral or intramuscular administration will often be started at 100,000 IUs and continued for three days. Two weeks of 50,000 IUs a day follows with a maintenance dose of 10,000 to 20,000 IUs continuing for several months. Patients undergoing chemotherapy may also be prescribed weekly vitamin A injections of 100,000 IUs.

Good vitamin A foods

Good vitamin A foods are not difficult to find. Food sources are divided into animal and plant categories. Animal sources of Vitamin A provide performed vitamin A which is absorbed into the body as retinol.

Retinol is the most highly available form of vitamin A. Sources of performed vitamin A include beef liver, chicken liver, fortified skim milk, cheddar cheese, whole milk and egg substitutes.

Plant sources of vitamin A foods can be transformed in the body to retinol. Sources of provitamin A carotenoid, or plant Vitamin A, include carrot juice, boiled carrots, frozen spinach, frozen kale and raw carrots.

Fruits also contain high levels of vitamin A with the highest concentrations being available in cantaloupe, apricots, papaya, mango and tomato juice. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin and thus breaking down of the vitamin into bio-available retinol requires fat in the intestinal system.

vitamin A toxicity is rare

The liver processes much of the vitamin A in the body. Consuming too much vitamin A can lead to extreme and/or chronic toxicity. Large doses of vitamin A consumed in a short period of time can lead to extreme or acute toxicity.

Liver damage can result with other symptoms including headache, dizziness, fatigue and blurred vision. Large doses of vitamin a foods consumed over long periods of time can lead to chronic toxicity. The symptoms are much the same as acute toxicity, but liver damage is much more prominent. Cases of vitamin A toxicity are rare.

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