What is vitamin A?
Vitamin A is an essential vitamin that helps support immune health, vision, reproductive health, and foetal growth. Though vitamin A is often considered a singular nutrient, it’s actually a group of fat-soluble compounds that includes retinol, retinal, and retinyl esters.
Getting enough vitamin A can be key to overall health. However, too much vitamin A can be harmful, which is why monitoring your vitamin A levels with a simple blood test can be beneficial.
Keep reading to find out more about vitamin A and the role it plays in your body, the recommended daily dose for adults, and how you can ensure you are getting enough.
Why do we need vitamin A?
Vitamin A is essential for your overall health as it plays a vital role in many functions:
Eye health
Vitamin A is best known for its role in eye health and vision. Retinal, the active form of vitamin A, is essential for producing rhodopsin, a molecule necessary for colour vision and low-light vision.
Vitamin A also helps protect and maintain the cornea, the outermost layer of the eye, and the conjunctiva, a thin membrane covering the surface of the eye and the inside of the eyelids.
Surface tissues
Vitamin A helps maintain surface tissues, such as your skin, intestines, lungs, bladder and inner ear.
Immune function
Vitamin A supports the growth and distribution of white blood cells that help protect the body from infections and illnesses.
Reproductive health
Vitamin A is vital for healthy foetal development in pregnant women and plays a role in both male and female reproductive health.
What are the benefits of vitamin A?
Vitamin A is an important nutrient that has numerous health benefits. When you consume foods rich in vitamin A, they can:
Have an antioxidant effect
Beta carotene is a type of carotenoid that the body can convert into vitamin A.
Carotenoids have antioxidant properties and help protect your body from free radicals. These are highly reactive molecules that can harm your body by causing oxidative stress, which has been linked to many chronic conditions, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and cognitive decline.
Improve eye health
Adequate intake of vitamin A is vital for eye health and can help to protect against certain eye diseases, including age-related macular degeneration.
May offer protection from certain cancers
Certain carotenoid-rich fruit and vegetables, due to their high antioxidant properties, may help protect against some forms of cancer.
In addition, retinoids have been shown to inhibit the growth of certain cancer cells.
Play a key role in fertility and foetal development
Vitamin A plays a key role in both the development of healthy sperm in men and the production of eggs in women.
It is also critical for the health of a pregnant woman’s placenta, foetal tissue development and maintenance and foetal growth.
Boosts immune health
Vitamin A is involved in the creation of cells, such as B and T cells, which play a key role in your immune response and help stop you from becoming ill. It has also been found that vitamin A deficiencies are linked to a diminished immune response.
How much vitamin A is recommended?
For adults, the recommended daily dose of vitamin A is:
- 700µg a day for men
- 600µg a day for women
Most people can get enough vitamin A from their diet alone. However, there are certain health conditions that are linked to a vitamin A deficiency, such as:
- Chronic diarrhoea
- Coeliac disease
- Cystic fibrosis
- Some pancreatic disorder
- Gastric bypass surgery
- Alcohol misuse
- Intestine or pancreas surgery
- Bile duct blockage
- A zinc or iron deficiency
What foods are rich in vitamin A?
As most people can get enough vitamin A from their diet, knowing which foods are rich in vitamin A can be beneficial to your health. Some of the most vitamin A rich foods include:
- Cheese
- Eggs
- Milk and yoghurt
- Liver
- Oily fish
- Fortified spreads
In addition to vitamin A rich foods, eating foods rich in beta-carotene, which your body can convert into retinol (a form of vitamin A) can also be beneficial. This can include fruit and vegetables such as:
- Carrots
- Leafy green vegetables
- Sweet potatoes
- Red peppers
- Mango
- Papaya
- Apricots
What happens if you have a vitamin A deficiency?
A vitamin A deficiency is relatively rare in developed countries, as most people have access to foods rich in vitamin A. However, people with conditions that affect their ability to absorb vitamins or those with conditions that affect the liver (where most vitamin A is stored) can develop a vitamin A deficiency.
Vitamin A deficiencies can lead to serious health complications, such as blindness and anaemia, and can increase the severity of infections like measles and diarrhoea. However, if noticed early enough, a vitamin A deficiency can usually be treated with a high-dose vitamin A supplement for several days, followed by a lower maintenance dose until symptoms start to resolve.
Can I have too much vitamin A?
As vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, it can be stored in the liver. This means levels can build up, which can lead to toxicity.
The most common side effects of vitamin A toxicity include:
- Visual disturbances
- Joint and bone pain
- Poor appetite
- Nausea and vomiting
- Sunlight sensitivity
- Hair loss
- Headaches
- Dry skin
- Liver damage
- Jaundice
- Delayed growth in children
- Confusion
- Itchy skin
To prevent vitamin A toxicity, it’s important not to exceed the tolerable upper intake level of 10,000 IU per day for adults. Although technically, it is possible to consume this amount of vitamin A by eating excessive amounts of animal-based sources, in most cases, vitamin A toxicity is caused by excessive supplement intake. This is why it is important to discuss vitamin A supplementation with your doctor before you begin taking it.
Is too much vitamin A bad for you?
Yes, having excessive levels of vitamin A in your body can lead to toxicity, which can have serious health implications. However, most people can avoid having a vitamin A toxicity simply by not taking a vitamin A supplement unless your doctor has specifically advised you to take one. Or by reducing the amount of vitamin A or beta carotene rich foods you eat, if you have been told your vitamin A levels are higher than recommended.
Take a proactive approach to monitoring your health with Bluecrest Wellness
If you want to know more about your overall health our private health checks are ideal. Our full body health MOTs are designed to provide comprehensive insights into your general health by including a range of private blood checks, such as a full blood count, liver and kidney tests and cholesterol and diabetes checks as well as insights into your risk of certain health conditions.
You can book private health MOTs across the UK, so it is easy to find a convenient location for private health testing. Plus, you can be confident that we will deliver fast, efficient and accurate results as we have established links with leading UK laboratories and are fully accredited for a wide range of private blood checks.
