Vitamin A - What Is It?

In this new series of posts, I will be explaining what certain vitamins and minerals do.  Specifically, what are the benefits of certain vitamins and minerals and, outside of supplementation, how do you get them.

I thought the best place to start is at the beginning of the alphabet...Vitamin A.  So, what are the benefits of Vitamin A?  It helps form and maintain healthy teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, and skin.  In fact, people suffering from acne may see some improvement with increased levels of Vitamin A.

But what it is probably best know for is helping with eyesight, especially in low light.  Beta-carotene is a carotenoid which turns into Vitamin A.  You can find beta-carotene in certain plant foods...such as carrots.  Thus the old tale, rabbits have good eyesight because they eat a lot of carrots.  What are some more Vitamin A foods?  You can look to eggs, milk meat, liver, cod, and fish oil.  And sources of beta-carotene foods include:  carrots, pumpkins, sweet potato, broccoli, grapefruit, and spinach.

Vitamin A is also one of the very few vitamins and/or minerals you can get too much of.  It is possible to get Vitamin A poisoning, but you would need to receive over 100,000IU/day for several months before you ran the risk of reaching toxic levels.  As always if you have concerns, just check with your doctor.

In the next post, we'll be taking a look at the B vitamin complex.