This Vitamin May Help Fight Fat
By
Most of the press from the past few years has been focused on vitamin D and the integral role of its deficiency on human health and disease. Much less focus has been given to any of the other fat soluble vitamins.
Vitamin A sits on the same nuclear receptor as vitamin D and, much like vitamin D, vitamin A acts more like a hormone than it does a vitamin. For this reason, supplementation of vitamin A along with vitamin D is probably a very good idea. Luckily, both are easily taken and very inexpensive.
Of course, levels of supplementation vary between D and A. Supplementation of D usually starts around 2,000 IU per day, while vitamin A can be used at much higher dosages, sometimes up to 25,000 IU per day.
Vitamin A, much like vitamin D, has many functions in the body, although the first few to jump to mind are always vision, immune support and skin support. It is not unusual to have patients who are unsuccessfully fighting off respiratory infections to do much better with the addition of both vitamins A and D. Vitamin A is also essential for healthy skin, and has even shown some very strong benefits on lowering precancerous skin lesions in sun exposed area of the skin.
This particular study gives some new insight into some less well known benefits of vitamin A. Researchers used mice to see what effect giving retinoic acid (a metabolite of vitamin A) had on the development of new fat cells. They found that, in the presence of a high fat diet that would normally cause obesity in the mice, the retinoic acid was able to lower the production of new fat cells. Pretty neat.
Good food sources of vitamin A are the usual players…broccoli, sweet potatoes, dandelion greens (ok…so maybe not usual for most…), spinach, kale and pumpkin.
Do you like what you’ve read here? Would you like to read more? Join the Rantings!
Join now and receive Dr. Bogash’s Lifestyle Recommendations ebook free!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Since acquiring a passion for how the body works in chiropractic school, I have continued to indulge this desire by reading some 120 peer reviewed medical journals per month. I’m always learning more about how to help people avoid chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis, obesity and cancer, and pass along this information in my blog. There are currently almost 2,000 posts cataloged on almost every health topic imaginable. Click Here for more bio information
Google+
