Large amounts of vitamin A are found in beef liver and fish liver oils; smaller amounts are in egg yolks, butter and cream. Milk and some cereals are fortified with vitamin A and, per serving, provide about 10 percent of daily needs. And substances in dark green, leafy vegetables and yellow vegetables and fruits are converted to vitamin A in the body.
Annette Dickinson, acting president of the trade group for supplement makers, the Council for Responsible Nutrition, said the Swedish men had an unusually high intake of vitamin A, even though very few were taking supplements. “I don’t think there’s a reason now from the studies we have before us to say that multivitamins containing ordinary amounts of vitamin A are harmful,” Dickinson said. She said that in many multivitamins, much of the vitamin A is in the form of beta-carotene, which studies have shown does not weaken bones. The study had some shortcomings: Blood levels of vitamin A were measured only once, and the participants’ reports of diet and supplement use 20 years later did not match well with their earlier vitamin A blood levels.
Why did they recommend not to take fish oil supplements more than once per week, does it have a high vitamin A content? If so, how much? Depends on the fish and what it eats. My salmon oils that I have here at work only list how much fat and which kind of fat. They make no claims for any kind of vitamin at all. But one reason some fish oils aren’t good for you is that they’re high on the food chain if they’re big enough to go after commercially (sardines to the contrary) and that means they’ve eaten a lot of other fish or vegetation. Which means accumulations of heavy metals and other toxic crud That’s nice to know, but not everything that is true in animals is true in humans.
Milk drinking is given as the reason second generation Japanese in America grow taller than their native ancestors. Some investigators postulate that the reduced phytate content of the American diet-whatever maybe its other deficiencies-is the true explanation, pointing out that Asian and Oriental children who do not get enough meat and fish products to counteract the effects of a high phytate diet, frequently suffer rickets, stunting and other growth problems. Marketing the Soybean The truth is, however, that most Americans are unlikely to adopt traditional soy products as their principle food.
Vitamin A is known traditionally for its role in the maintenance of night vision and in the normal development of skin and other epithelial tissues, but in recent years its antioxidant and anticancer effects have drawn more attention. Vitamin A toxicity does occur, both in people who eat seal and polar bear livers, which concentrate huge amounts of it, and more commonly in people who take massive doses of supplements.
The question of whether flu shots avert flu-related death is a difficult question to answer. Not every influenza virus, nor every pneumonia death, is confirmed by laboratory testing. The Centers for Disease Control employs statistical methods, not body counts, to come up with flu-related mortality figures. Some guesstimates indicate large numbers of vaccinated populations having been spared their lives. However, one group of researchers report that excess deaths attributable to influenza have only been 5– 10% on average in flu seasons in the past several decades.
It is virtually impossible to find an adult multivitamin and mineral supplement that is only 100 percent of the R.D.A.,” Ms. Miller-Kovach said. “All are 150 percent or so. I worry about getting too much and I worry about imbalances. They put in more of the things that are inexpensive, like B vitamins and things with consumer appeal like vitamin C. The formulas are based on market forces, not nutritional needs.” Others decided against taking the pills. Dr. Kava, of the American Council on Science and Health, said she abstained.
