Sunday, February 5, 2012

Vitamin A Deficiency Symptoms

Vitamins are vital nutrients required by your body and one of the most important Vitamins is Vitamin A. It is a fat soluble vitamin and is sub divided into two categories:

  • Retinol

  • Carotene.


Vitamin A plays major role in proper functioning of your system. Its deficiency can lead to several health problems. If you observe that you have Vitamin A deficiency you should immediately be alert and increase your intake of vitamin A otherwise you would have to face serious health complications later.

Some of the Vitamin A deficiency symptoms are given below. Your eyes get affected very soon if you have Vitamin A deficiency. Your eyes can show the symptoms such as dry eyes, night blindness, eye inflammation etc.

Though people in old age face eye problems due to various reasons such as diabetes, high blood pressure etc, you can face eye problems at any age due to vitamin A deficiency. Blurred vision, itchy eyes etc are some other symptoms of vitamin A deficiency.

Skin also starts showing symptoms of vitamin A deficiency. Your skin becomes rough and dry and starts looking dull. On getting any would your skin would not heal if you are deficit in vitamin A.

Dry hair is another Vitamin A Deficiency Symptoms. If your hair has become weak or dull and dry or your nails are not in normal condition they are indicating that you need vitamin A in more quantity. For strong and healthy hair you need sufficient amount of vitamin A.

Growth of children becomes slow which is another symptom of vitamin A. While consuming vitamin A you must keep it in mind that overdoses of this vitamin is injurious to your health.

Overdose of vitamin A gets deposited in your liver and produces toxins which harm your health to great extent. Therefore never consume vitamin more than your daily requirement.

In adults, daily requirement of vitamin A should be nearly 5,000 IU which can be obtained from healthy foods. If you want to know in terms of mcg, it should be 600mcg to 700mcg daily for normal person which excludes pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.

Your vitamin A consumption should in no case be more than 3000mcg daily. Liver, cod liver oil, raw carrots, red capsicum pepper, spinach, bitter gourd, mangoes etc are good sources of vitamin A.

 

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