Expert answers: How much vitamin A is needed by the body?

The body always needs to provide a full range of essential nutrients through eating, or using specially formulated products to maintain basic life functions. One of them includes vitamin A, which plays a huge role and significance in many muscles in the body. So what is vitamin A and how much vitamin A is needed by the body?=

1. What is Vitamin A?

Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, the main function for the body is a strong antioxidant, plays an important role in supporting the manifestations of vision such as eye fatigue, eye defects, … Strongly reduces the aging process of the skin, helps the skin to retain good elasticity, …

Vitamin A includes those that the body absorbs directly in animals and those that the body must metabolize to absorb are found in plants (provitamin A). Like other substances, vitamin A plays an extremely important role for the functioning of organs in the body.

This is a well-known micronutrient, but are you sure you already know about vitamin A?

2. The role of Vitamin A in the body

For sight

One of the important substances that have a direct impact on the functioning of the visual function. Vitamin A deficiency, in addition to vision not working optimally, is also likely to have eye defects in children, especially night blindness and visual impairment in the elderly.

Immune support

Thanks to a strong antioxidant mechanism, vitamin A helps a lot in the anti-aging process, affecting the development of free radicals in the body. With this mechanism, vitamin A also has the effect of inhibiting the growth and preventing some cancers such as lung, lymph node, bladder, …. However, only vitamin A in vegetables has this ability, vitamin A in animals has no effect.

In addition, this nutrient is also involved in the production of white blood cells, helping to increase resistance, fight against invading bacteria and viruses, and reduce the risk of diseases such as measles, malaria. …

Musculoskeletal

Vitamin A also affects the development and growth of certain tissues in the musculoskeletal system. Vitamin A deficiency greatly affects the development of young children or adolescents, reducing metabolism and growing children’s height.

Genital

Vitamin A also plays a significant role in maintaining the development of sperm in men and in ensuring the quality of egg cells in women. Deficiency also impairs reproductive function or causes infertility

Some other roles

Participating in the formation and development of the fetus, for many organs such as lungs, kidneys, heart, … Therefore, pregnant women need to focus on supplementing the amount of vitamin A necessary for the body, lacking or Excess can also cause birth defects in the baby.

In addition, thanks to its ability to directly affect cells, vitamin A also contributes to maintaining the structure of the skin, helping to keep the skin bright and smooth, avoiding the effects of accelerating the aging process.

If the child is not provided with the necessary amount of vitamin A for the body, the child is very susceptible to eye diseases

3. How much Vitamin A is needed by the body?

Supplementing with vitamin A is essential for the body to ensure its vital functions work properly. However, not everyone knows how to properly supplement the dosage to avoid excess. The following are the actual vitamin A requirements that have been researched and collected:

Normal vitamin A requirements for men average about 900 mcg RAE/day and women about 700 mcg RAE/day (RAE is the unit of vitamin A). Some other special cases that need attention on the amount of micronutrients according to the nutritional requirements for Vietnamese people in 2012 are as follows:

However, the excess of vitamin A in the body is extremely harmful, there will be dangerous complications and directly affect the body:

• Vitamin A poisoning can directly affect the skull, causing patients to experience nausea, vomiting, headache, …

• For children, an excess of vitamin A will greatly affect the development of bone structure, may cause children to grow slowly, may be short or rickets, …

• In severe cases, it can lead to neurological disorders and many other diseases such as itchy skin, psoriasis, congestion in the skin and mucous membranes or hair that is dry, frizzy, brittle, and loss of legs. hair, mucositis in the mouth, dry lips, chapped hands/feet, etc.

Excess vitamin A causes babies to be born with birth defects, or congenital diseases

4. How to supplement the recommended amount of vitamin A

Supplementing vitamin A is extremely important for the body, so what foods should you choose for your daily meal to ensure the necessary amount of vitamin A for the body?

Animal

The body has the ability to absorb vitamin A directly from animals. In particular, the organ containing the most vitamin A content is animal liver (goose liver, beef liver, …). Therefore, you should incorporate this type of food into your daily meal, but be careful if you are suffering from other underlying diseases (such as high blood pressure, blood fat, …). In addition, vitamin A is also abundant in milk and dairy products, seafood, especially fish oil and fat.

Plants

Yellow or red tubers and fruits (such as papaya, mango, red flesh dragon fruit, strawberries, etc.), or dark green vegetables (cabbage, broccoli, kale, spinach, etc.) …).

Some foods are rich in vitamin A needed by the body

To find out how much vitamin A is needed for the body, as well as for specific advice on health care, as well as examination if there are any abnormal signs, go to the Hospital. Our easyhealthylive Polyclinic.