Vitamin A and its byproducts are very important in the body. It could be more of utilization problem or another issue, but retinoic acid and its interactions is a major link in inflammation/disease that holds promise for people.
What is Vitamin A?
Vitamin A and its byproducts are very important in the body.
Whether supplementation would help these people I can’t know. It could be more of utilization problem or another issue, but retinoic acid and its interactions is a major link in inflammation/disease that holds promise for people.
Overview of Health Benefits
Vitamin A is crucial for your brain, immune system, skin, eyes, teeth, bones and for the formation of hormones.
This is one reason why people with chronic inflammation without fail have skin problems.
Vitamin A protects our eyes and skin from UV damage, so it will allow you to get UV and limit skin cancer risk [1].
1) It Is Important For Vitamin D and Your Thyroid Hormones to Work Properly
Vitamin A/Retinol is crucial in activating Retinoid X Receptors (RXR), which is required for PPAR activation (DHA can also activate RXR) [2].
Vitamin A is also crucial in activating Retinoic Acid Receptors (RAR).
Both RAR and RXR are crucial DNA binding proteins (transcription factors), which are needed for genetic expression. RXR is needed to activate the vitamin D receptor (VDR) and the Thyroid Hormone Receptor (THR).
In simple English, this means if you’re deficient in vitamin A you can take all the vitamin D you want and it won’t make that much of a difference because you need adequate vitamin A to make these work properly.
Vitamin D absolutely needs RXR in order to get the benefits from it and Thyroid hormones need RXR to work effectively.
See below how you need Vitamin D Receptor (VDR) to combine with Retinoid X Receptor (RXR) to result in gene expression. Therefore, you need adequate retinoic acid (a breakdown product of retinol) and vitamin D3 for these to function.
We also make pregnenolone from LDL cholesterol and use free T3 and Vitamin A. So low pregnenolone could indicate a vitamin A inadequacy.
If you are popping your vitamin D pills (or thyroid hormones) and it’s not working for you then try to add some real vitamin A/Retinol (upper level=10,000 IU daily) and see how you feel. Vitamin D might not work for you anyway (it’s better for Th1 dominant), but vitamin A will make it more likely to work for you.
