Never Take Vitamin A Supplements

Dr. Berg’s Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting Podcast

Dr. Eric Berg

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Let’s talk about vitamin A—the benefits of vitamin A and the dark side.

Vitamin A is a non-keratinizing vitamin. Keratinization is a condition that causes skin issues.

Both a vitamin A deficiency and excess vitamin A can affect the internal and external skin in many ways.

Vitamin A is involved in supporting the immune system as well. There is an association between vitamin A deficiency and autoimmune conditions like Graves’ and Hashimoto’s. Vitamin A also allows iodine to be absorbed.

Signs of vitamin A deficiency:

• Poor night vision

• Blindness

• Dry eyes

• Poor immunity

• Skin problems

• Bone issues

Signs of too much vitamin A:

• Abnormal bone formation

• Dry lips

• Dry skin

• Double vision

• Alopecia

• Oily skin

• Peeling skin

• Heart valve calcification

• Hypercalcemia

• Intracranial pressure

Vitamin A toxicity is rare, but taking a synthetic vitamin A supplement may increase your risk. Synthetic vitamin A may also increase the risk of lung cancer. Accutane, a form of synthetic vitamin A, has serious potential side effects.

I suggest getting your vitamin A from food sources or natural food-based supplements.

Foods high in vitamin A (retinol):

• Cod liver oil

• Egg yolks

• Grass-fed butter

• Grass-fed cheese

• Liver

Beta carotene is the precursor to the active form of vitamin A (retinol). Beta carotene is in foods like carrots and spinach.

But, if you’re relying on beta carotene alone to get your vitamin A or if you have a liver or gallbladder issue, you could be deficient in vitamin A.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'd like to discuss some very important aspects of vitamin A, not just the positive benefits, but the dark side as well.
0:08.0	Vitamin A is typically known as the non-carotonizing vitamin.
0:12.0	Now what does that mean? Caratinization is a condition that causes
0:16.5	skin issues. So if you have an overgrowth of carotin, it's not going to be at the right moisture,
0:21.5	it's going to be kind of dry. And so this is one reason why if you have a deficiency of
0:26.5	vitamin A or even an excess, it can really affect your skin in many ways. On the flip side of that, Vitamin A is also involved in the
0:35.6	epithelial layer of the skin. That is the outer most layer of your inner
0:39.3	skin that is lining your body. And so Vitamin A has a lot to do with controlling what that skin turns into.
0:45.6	Is it going to be normal skin cells or abnormal skin cells? And when we're talking about the
0:50.6	inside of the body too, we're talking about the maintenance of the inner skin,
0:56.0	your inner sinuses, the esophagus,
1:00.0	the digestive system, and so this is why vitamin A is important for the immune system
1:04.8	because the skin both external and internal is one of the immune barriers and so if you're
1:10.0	deficient in vitamin A you can actually weaken that barrier and allow pathogens to cross over.
1:16.1	Vitamin A is also involved in the immune system specifically, what's called the T regulatory
1:22.2	cells. And that has a lot to do with whether a
1:25.4	person can develop an autoimmune disease or not and so there's this association
1:30.3	also with a vitamin A deficiency and an autoimmune problem with the thyroid, either
1:37.7	Graves or Hashimoto's. And so if someone's deficient it could increase the risk for either one of those and also
1:44.4	Vitamin A allows iodine to be absorbed. So there's an iodine relationship between
1:51.8	vitamin A as well. And typically if you're between vitamin A as well.
1:53.0	And typically if you're deficient vitamin A,
	...

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