Vitamin A / Beta Carotene

[Gothic Muscle]

Evening all!!

I regularly supplement with 25000iu natural vitamin a but recently I've been looking to ditch the vitamin a in favour of beta carotene - beta carotene converts to vitamin a, has no toxicity levels and also contains antioxidant activity which vitamin a does not so it would apprear on paper that beta carotene is the better product, if this is the case why would anyone need to supplement with vitamin a when beta carotene gives you so much more benefits?

[natron]

What exactly are you using vitamin a or beta carotene for?

Simply for an anti-oxidant?

[Frosty]

A few things:

1. I don't know why you would be worried about toxicity of vitamin A with only 25,000 IU a day.

2. Isolated beta carotene actually shows negative effects in literature. It may have something to do with it never being isolated in high doses like that in nature. You get a mix of carotenoids when you eat plant foods.

3. The conversion is not efficient. You would have to take massive amounts of beta-carotene to match 25,000 IU of vitamin A. There are also a number of factors that can hinder the conversion of beta carotene to vitamin A.

4. You have to have good zinc status for proper vitamin A functioning in the body.

I think it's very unwise to ditch vitamin A for mixed carotenoids, let alone isolated beta-carotene.