Health Tips Vitamin A Benefits
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Aug
20
Health Tips Vitamin A Benefits
Health Tips Vitamin A Benefits
Vitamin A, also called retinol, helps your eyes adjust to light changes when you come in from outside and also helps keep your eyes, skin and mucous membranes moist. Vitamin A mostly comes from animal foods, but some plant-based foods supply beta-carotene, which your body then converts into Vitamin A. It also has antioxidant properties that neutralize free radicals in the body that cause tissue and cellular damage.
Vitamin A helps cell reproduction. It also stimulates immunity and is needed for formation of some hormones. Vitamin A helps vision and promotes bone growth, tooth development, and helps maintain healthy skin, hair, and mucous membranes. It has been shown to be an effective preventive against measles.
Vitamin A Deficiency
Vitamin A Benefits are as follows
Act as anti-oxidant, helping to protect our cells against cancer and other disease
Vitamin A improves our vision and prevents night blindness
This vitamin promotes formation of strong bones
Vitamin A guards us against bacterial, viral, parasitic infections
Guards us against heart disease, stroke and lowers blood cholesterol level
It can improve skin condition like acne or psoriasis
A well-known wrinkle eliminator, vitamin A reduces fine lines in the skin and helps fade age spots.
Vitamin A supplements may help kids who have respiratory problem
The supplement is also believed to help people suffering from glaucoma and measles.
Vitamin A deficiency occurs with the chronic consumption of diets that are deficient in both vitamin A and beta-carotene. When vitamin A deficiency exists in the developed world, it tends to happen in alcoholics or in people with diseases that affect the intestine's ability to absorb fat. Examples of such diseases are celiac disease (chronic nutritional disorder), cystic fibrosis, and cholestasis (bile-flow failure or interference). Vitamin A deficiency occurred in infants during the early 1900s in Denmark. The deficiency resulted when milk fat was made into butter for export, leaving the by-product (skimmed milk) for infant feeding. Vitamin A deficiency has taken place in infants in impoverished populations in India, where the only foods fed to the infants were low in beta-carotene. Vitamin A deficiency is also common in areas like Southeast Asia, where polished rice, which lacks the vitamin, is a major part of the diet.
The earliest symptom of vitamin A deficiency is night blindness. Prolonged deficiency results in drying of the conjunctiva (the mucous membrane that lines the inner surface of the eyelids and extends over the forepart of the eyeball). With continued vitamin A deficiency, the drying extends to the cornea (xerophthalamia). The cornea eventually shrivels up and becomes ulcerated (keratinomalacia). Superficial, foamy gray triangular spots may appear in the white of the eye (Bitot's spots). Finally, inflammation and infection occur in the interior of the eye, resulting in total and irreversible blindness.
Provitamin A is especially abundant in vegetables and fruit coloured yellow, red or green (carrots, spinach, watercress, cabbage, mangoes, apricots…).
sources of vitamin A are - liver ,sweet potatos ,carrots ,mangoes ,spinach ,cantaloupe ,dried apricots,milk ,egg yolks,mozzarella cheese
The following table shows the Sources of Vitamin A
Fruits Vegetables Nuts Tomatoes
Cantaloupes
Watermelon
Peaches
Kiwi
Oranges
BlackberriesSweet potato
Kale
Carrots
Spinach
Avocado
Broccoli
Peas
Asparagus
Squash - summer
Green Pepper
Pistachios
Chestnuts
Pumpkin Seeds
Pecans
Pine Nuts/Pignolias
Sunflower Seeds
Almonds
Filberts/Hazelnuts
A word of caution: Too much vitamin A, either from animal sources or supplements, can prove toxic and is particularly dangerous during pregnancy. Excess beta carotene, on the other hand, isn't toxic but can lend you a decidedly orange hue.
