HEALTH BENEFITS: Vitamin A

Impact And Symptoms of Vitamin A Deficiency

Vitamin deficiency in the body will cause the disease symptoms. Signs of vitamin A deficiency in the body is very diverse, most often symptoms found in people who are deficient in vitamin A is the presence of eye diseases or disorders of the eye. For example, night blindness, cataracts, and decreased visibility. It also led to a reduction in corneal blindness, vitamin A deficiency also causes changes in the shape of bones, stunted growth. Even cause damage to the teeth, atrophy tooth-forming cells. Some experts also said it could cause problems in the bowel, bladder, brain and spinal cord. In addition, diseases such as skin cancer that attacks the skin, rough skin, chapped skin and measles can also be caused due to deficiency of vitamin A.

In the intestines and urinary tract, vitamin A is very influential in keeping the intestinal walls to keep it as their function to work optimally. You also know that the intestines absorb various nutrients in food and water. If the intestinal wall disrupted as a result of vitamin A intake reduced and this will affect the absorption of water and nutrients to be disturbed. The result is a urinary tract infection due to the lack of optimal water absorption every day.

Lack of vitamin A will also reduce the ability of cells to produce mucous glands. This causes the skin to become dry and rough and difficult to heal wounds. Mucous membranes which can not produce a fluid mucus perfectly, will be susceptible to bacteria (infection). So that mucus is very important to maintain skin moisture. At a more acute level, the skin can become chapped skin to cancer. Actually, the skin itself has the retinoids ability to influence the development of epithelial cells and increases the activity of the immune system so that it can prevent skin cancer.

Vitamin A is influential on immune function in humans, although the mechanism is not known with certainty. Retinol appears to affect the growth and differentiation of B lymphocytes are leukocytes that play a role in the process of humoral immunity. Then the lack of vitamin A can lower antibody responses is dependent T-cell lymphocytes that play a role in cellular immunity. Below are an effect of vitamin A deficiency is associated with the body's defense (immune).

Abnormal keratin in the respiratory tract, genitourinary tract, and the ocular surface.
Loss of cilia of the respiratory epithelium.
Mikrofili loss of the small intestine.
Decrease in goblets cells and a mucin production in the mucosal epithelial.
Damage to the function of neutrophils.
Damage to the function of Natural Killer cells (NK) and NK cell count decline.
Damage to haematopoiesis aspects.
Changes T helper type 1 in immune response.
Decrease in the number and function of B lymphocytes
The destruction of the antibody response to T-cell dependent and independent antigens.

Therefore to prevent vitamin A deficiency, it is advisable to increase the consumption of foods containing vitamin A. Foods that contain lots of vitamin A include liver (beef, chicken, turkey, fish) (6500 mg 722%), carrots (835 mcg 93%), sweet potato (709 mg 79%), butter (684 mg 76%), spinach (681 mcg 76%), spinach (469 mcg 52%), pumpkin (400 mg 41%), cheddar cheese (265 mg 29%), melon (169 mg 19%), eggs (140 mg 16%), papaya (55 mg 6%), mango (38 mg 4%), beans (38 mg 4%), broccoli (31 mg 3%), and milk (28 mg 3%). For more complete vitamin A rich foods you can read at post here.

Vitamin A Rich Foods And Benefits Of Vitamin A For Our Body

Vitamin A is a micro nutrient essential for our body. Vitamin A is needed to build body tissues, helps metabolism and strengthen the immune system. Benefits of Vitamin A lot, associated with the eye. But in fact, vitamin A also has many other benefits. Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin. Inside there are compound such as retinol, retinyl palmitate and retinyl acetate. Retinol is a compound that has the most roles in the body.

Vitamin A is essential for the maintenance of corneal cells, helping the growth of bones and teeth, the formation and regulation of hormones, as well as protecting the body against cancer.

Health Benefits of Vitamin A

Here are some of the benefits of vitamin A:

Vitamin A plays an important role in the formation of the sense of sight. This vitamin will help change the signaling molecules of the rays or light, received by the retina, to be a projection of the image in our brains.
Vitamin A can help cells to reproduce normally. If the cells can not reproduce normally it could turn into pre-cancerous.
Vitamin A is also very good for pregnant women. Because it can assist the growth and development of the embryo and fetus, and will affect the genes for the development of organs.
Vitamin A protects the body from foreign organisms infections, such as bacterial pathogens. This vitamin will increase the work activity of white blood cells and antibodies in the body, so the body becomes more resistant to toxic compounds or parasitic microorganisms attack.

Vitamin A Deficiency

There are several signs and symptoms that can be recognized if the person is deficient in vitamin A. The symptoms are include having night blindness or difficulty seeing at night, an inflammation of the skin till become infected, to anemia.

In addition, vitamin A deficiency can also affect the growth of bones and teeth, till nerves. This could have an impact on tooth decay, bone deformation up to cause paralysis.

Vitamin A deficiency can occur as either a primary or secondary deficiency. A primary vitamin A deficiency occurs among children and adults who do not consume an adequate intake of yellow and green vegetables, fruits and liver. Early weaning can also increase the risk of vitamin A deficiency.

Adequate supply of Vitamin A is especially important for pregnant and breastfeeding women, since deficiencies cannot be compensated by postnatal supplementation.. However, excess Vitamin A, especially through vitamin supplementation, can cause birth defects and should not exceed recommended daily values.

Vitamin A Rich Food

To get the benefits of vitamin A, you can earn from your daily food consumption. Here are foods that rich in vitamin A

Animal liver is a very rich source of vitamin A. It has been found that 100 g of liver (beef, pork, turkey, fish) contains about 6500 mcg of vitamin A.
Carrot. If you are vegan and looking for dietary vitamin A sources, then eat raw carrot daily. It is said that 100 g of raw carrot has 836 mcg of vitamin A content.
Sweet potato. Sweet potato is also very rich in vitamin A content. 100 g of sweet potato has 709 mcg of vitamin A.
Spinach. Spinach too is quite high in vitamin A content. 100 g of spinach has 469 mcg of vitamin A.
Cheese. Just 100 g of cheddar cheese can provide 265 mcg of vitamin A.
Cantaloupe melon. Another rich source of vitamin A is cantaloupe melon. 169 mcg of vitamin A is present in just 100 g of it.
Eggs. Eggs are also excellent source of this vitamin and 100 g contain 140 mcg of vitamin A.
Apricot. By taking just 100 g of apricot daily, you are taking 96 mcg of vitamin A.
Papaya not only helps in digestion, but is also a good source of vitamin A. From 100 g of papaya you can derive 55 mcg of vitamin A.
Broccoli. You can get 31 mcg of vitamin a from 100 g of broccoli.
Mango and peas both contain trace amount of vitamin A. for every 100 g, 38 mcg of vitamin is present.
Milk. Milk is not only a rich source of protein, but other nutrients too. 100 g of milk contains approximately 28 mcg of Vitamin A.