Taking vitamin A supplements can weaken the bones and increase the risk of fractures up to seven times, according to a large Swedish study. The research, conducted on men, confirms three earlier studies in women showing that high intake of vitamin A raises the risk of broken hips and weak bones. The latest study is the first to measure levels of the vitamin in blood, rather than just asking about diet and supplement use.
The three-decade study and other evidence suggest that daily vitamin A consumption of more than 1.5 milligrams can be dangerous, and that most people should not take vitamin A supplements. Current dietary recommendations call for only 0.7 mg of vitamin A for women and 0.9 mg for men a day. That is easily supplied by a healthy diet. But many popular multivitamins contain 0.75 mg to 1.5 mg of vitamin A, generally listed on labels as 2,500 international units and 5,000 IUs, respectively. “Vitamin A is potentially harmful,” said Dr. Donald Louria, chairman emeritus of preventive medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, N.J. “Unless there is a known medical reason like certain diseases of the eye, people should not be taking vitamin A supplements.”
Don’t pop too many vitamin A supplements, because large amounts, particularly megadoses available from health-food stores, can be dangerous, the US government says in guidelines that update how much of certain nutrients should be consumed for good health. Men need 900 mg of vitamin A a day and women 700, says Tuesday’s report by the Institute of Medicine, which slightly lowers the ‘recommended daily allowance,’ or RDA, of the nutrient.
Dr. Tonniessen said the idea for golden rice came from the field in developing nations. He once asked plant breeders at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines what they would choose if they could have genetic engineers insert any gene in rice. The answer was a gene to make rice seeds produce the yellow pigment beta carotene, a trait they had not found in any rice variety and therefore could not propagate by traditional cross breeding.
An example of this is the fact that the share of cereals in the value of agricultural output has generally remained unchanged in South Asia as a whole,” he said. Globalization has already dramatically broadened Asian diets. The FAO noted in Rome that significantly more livestock and dairy products, vegetables and fruit, and fats and oils are being consumed than a generation ago.
What this report alleges is that modern medicine casts a blind eye at nutritional medicine because they need deaths, published in the news media, to frighten the public into vaccination. This morning I read news reports saying another 16 American children died of the H1N1 pandemic flu. Fear is the pandemic. Health agencies and the news media are doing their best to spread it. The facts are stark – regardless of the evidence provided, the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization aren’t going to rush to recommend vitamin C pills.
The breast-fed infants of two mothers who did not eat any animal products, including milk and eggs, developed brain abnormalities as a result of a vitamin-B12 deficiency, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news – web sites) (CDC) reported Thursday. The primary sources of vitamin B12, which is essential for brain development, are animal products like meat, dairy products and eggs.
“The result is encouraging in the face of the survey findings,” Romualdez said, noting that 35% of the Filipino children have dangerously low levels of vitamin A in the body which is above the critical level (15%) set by the World Health Organization.(PNA) People with low levels of two common vitamins — B-12 and folate — may be at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, Swedish researchers reported.
