Vitamin A is needed for immunity and is cheap
Vitamin A (which is retinol) and immunity
WHO report
https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2023-DON494
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vitamins-and-minerals/vitamin-a/
Vitamin A has several important functions
helping natural defence against illness and infection (immune system) work properly
helping vision in dim light
keeping skin and the lining of some parts of the body, such as the nose, healthy
Good sources of vitamin A
Good sources of vitamin A (retinol) include:
cheese
eggs
oily fish
fortified low-fat spreads
milk and yoghurt
liver and liver pâté
If you’re pregnant you should avoid eating liver or liver products, (NHS, 2023)
Excess vitamin A is toxic.
Vitamin A deficiency
https://www.who.int/data/nutrition/nlis/info/vitamin-a-deficiency
What are the consequences and implications?
Night blindness is one of the first signs of vitamin A deficiency.
In its more severe forms, vitamin A deficiency contributes to blindness by making the cornea very dry, thus damaging the retina and cornea.
An estimated 250 000–500 000 children who are vitamin A-deficient become blind every year,
and half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight.
World’s leading preventable cause of childhood blindness.
Deficiency of vitamin A is associated with significant morbidity and mortality from common childhood infections,
Vitamin A deficiency also contributes to maternal mortality and other poor outcomes of pregnancy and lactation.
It also diminishes the ability to fight infections.
Even mild, subclinical deficiency can be a problem, because it may increase children’s risk for respiratory and diarrhoeal infections,
decrease growth rates,
slow bone development and decrease the likelihood of survival from serious illness.
Beta carotene
Red-orange pigment, in plants and fruits,
especially carrots and colourful vegetables.
The body converts beta carotene into vitamin A
The advantage of dietary beta carotene is that the body only converts as much as it needs.
Healthy antioxidant
May prevent cognitive decline
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/769551
May help lung function
https://thorax.bmj.com/content/61/4/320
Both may be due to preventing oxidative stress
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/252758#_noHeaderPrefixedContent
Foods rich in beta carotene:
Apricots, Asparagus, Broccoli, Carrots, Chives, Dandelion leaves, Grapefruit, (Chilli powder, oregano, paprika, parsley), Kale,
Onions, Peas, Peppers, Plums, Pumpkin, Spinach, Squash, Sweet potatoes.
Role of Vitamin A in the Immune System
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6162863/
Needed for mucous membrane innate immunity (respiratory and GI)
Essential for the normal function of many immune cells such as T lymphocytes
Vitamin A deficiency is associated with severe Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia in children
https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=comments&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnZodGdTajdHbllOaTVLWmVFTE9pcFcyWXlCZ3xBQ3Jtc0trbzNvb18yUzUxWUZkZDNEdVdqLTRmOF9qRDA4Q3ItZFFZTEV3b251U25lM3BGblpFR1huMHo5dldCU2E2Y09fQUx6cms5ODNxWGNFbDVRVWlrNTR6RHdibUNJMldhMHdZY2xPdFgxbWFjdXQ3aUNqTQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Fpmc%2Farticles%2FPMC7049042%2F&stzid=Ugwx9s13s_uXnqgTv7B4AaABAg
Beijing, Feb, 2020
N = 122 children, (0 – 15)
52 sMPP
Severe Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia
70 nsMPP
Non-severe Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia
Serum levels of vitamins A, D, and E were measured and compared, and correlated with nsMPP and sMPP.
Results
The age was older in the sMPP samples than that in the nsMPP samples.
(7.12 vs. 4.01)
So older children suffered more severe infections.
Vitamin A deficiency was present in both the nsMPP and sMPP samples.
Vitamin A levels were significantly lower in the sMPP serum than that in the nsMPP serum.
(0.15 vs. 0.19)
Vitamin A deficiency was defined
Deficiency, less than 0.2 mg/L,
Subclinical vitamin A deficiency, 0.2–0.3 mg/L
Normal vitamin A level by 0.3–0.7 mg/L.
So, children with lower vitamin A levels suffered more severe infections.
Vitamins E and D levels were also lower in sMPP children
Vitamin E (7.4 vs. 8.22)
Vitamin D (23.08 vs. 32.07)
Both sMPP and nsMPP did not show a deficiency of vitamins E and D.
So information on vitamin A and specific information today on uh the likelihood in fact evidence from China proper evidence from China peer-reviewed literature that shows that vitamin A deficiency is a big risk factor for severe myoplasmic pneumonia micoplasma being a a bacteria quite a simple bacteria um it’s procaryotic like all bacteria simple
Organism but doesn’t have a cell wall so it’s a very simple organism now just before we get into that I just want to look at the wh recommendations for what they’re saying here so uh based on the available information wh recommends that people in China follow measures to reduce the risk
Of respiratory illness which include recommended vaccines against influenza covid-19 and other respiratory pathogens as appropriate keeping distances from people who are ill staying at home when ill getting tested and medical care as needed wearing masks as appropriate ensuring good ventilation and practicing regular handwashing sorry I drifted off there a minute um so
So why aren’t we seeing advice here on optimizing natural immunity let’s hope we don’t need International organizations new inventions new medications or genetic codes or vaccines uh or help from philanthropists to solve this problem why don’t we just optimize the immune system anyway that’s what we’re talking
About today if you want to stay around you’d be more than welcome now I’m going to start with some interesting information on vitamin A first of all let’s let’s start off with that um now um vitamin A is also called retinol now the reason it’s caused this called This
Is is it’s essential for the function of the retina at the back of the eye lack of it will cause blindness first night blindness and then overall blindness potentially later on and of course there’s that famous story about the second world war when the allies inv vented radar and they were pinpointing
Targets at night and they gave this myth to the LOF waffer that it was because the British Pirates are being fed on carrots and the myth is whether it’s true or not that they they started feeding Lu raffer pilots on huge amounts of carrots don’t know whether that’s true or not
But it’s heck of a good story anyway getting back getting back to the science um vitamin has several important function now this is from the NHS itself from their website so we’re pretty confident about this a vitamin A has several functions helping natural defense against illness and infection so
Clearly vitamin A is necessary to prevent against illness and infection it’s important for immunity to keep the immune system working properly so definitely important for immunity so if people are short of vitamin A that is going to impede their immune function thankfully in the Western countries very
Few people are certainly adults and uh vitamin A um suppl ements are often recommended against because too much vitamin A fat soluble vitamin can cause toxicity remember the fat soluble vitamins addc a d e and K so potential for overdose on vitamin A so um certainly not advising supplementation
With vitamin A unless it’s recommended by a medical your a medical practitioner I certainly wouldn’t dream of taking fat soluble vitamins apart from vitamin D um helping Vision in dim light so for sure night blindness keeping the skin and Linings of some part of the body such as the nose
Healthy So What vitamin A is needed for here it’s the it’s the integuments so it’s needed for healthy skin but it’s also needed for healthy uh respiratory mucosa the lining of the nose and the respiratory tract and the lining of the gastrointestinal tract so children who
Are short of vitamin A are more prone to respiratory infections because of the reduced quality of the integrant of the respiratory tract and also more prone to gastrin stal infections due to the uh suboptimal nature of the uh integr the the gastrin styal mucosa um so strange that who didn’t
Mention that but we’re mentioning it now and we’re showing it’s consistent with what the NHS is teaching now good sources of vitamin A um and you’ll see why we’re not short of it cheese I love cheese eggs good I eat eggs oily fish sometimes um fortified low flat fat spreads well
Probably not sure we’re still on to low fat spreads but that that’s on the NHS website that’s just a quote so make what you will of that milk and yogurt liver and liver pate liver animal liver is a very rich source of vitamin A uh very very rich source in fact liver
Can cause toxicity so the NHS is still recommending against liver in pregnant women because of the danger of toxicity to the to the unborn baby developing in the uterus and there’s also famous stories of Arctic explorers who pretty gruesome really but they had to eat their dogs and that included the dog
Livers and they were very rich in vitamin A and some of these got a mystery illness it was vitamin A toxicity and the innuit uh traditional people in the northern latitudes they have always known not to eat polar bear liver for example because it’s very very high in in vitamin A it’s essentially
Toxic to them because the polar bears eat the seals which have already in the fish so you get this bioamplification of the vitamin A and um you end up with far too much of it um so if you’re pregnant you should avoid eating liver or liver products
That is a direct quote from the NHS website um excess vitamin A is toxic yes it is fat soluble vitamin and because it’s fat soluble if you take too much it’s difficult to excrete remember a d e k ADC fat soluble vitamins now vitamin A deficiency now this is
This is strange this is what I would call um kind of Old World Health Organization so the World Health Organization they still put up some really good stuff um and this is an example from that but it is still live it’s on the an alternative website not
This not this one uh we looked at at the start which is from this report here about the upsurge of respiratory illness amongst children in northern China which they do blame on the Micco plasma um so this is a separate uh thing from the who um so um what are what World Health
Organization what are the consequences and implications of vitamin A deficiency so w themselves night blindness is one of the first signs of vitamin A deficiency yes correct uh it’s more severe forms vitamin A deficiency contributes to Blindness by making the cornea the front part of the eye very
Dry in fact it it can form like keratin like on the surface of your skin uh damaging the retina and corer according to the wh of course clear basic medicine um an estimated quarter of a million to half a million children who are vitamin A deficiency become blind every year so
We see that vitamin A deficiency is common in children particularly in Asia as far as I am aware certainly having seen and treated it very often in Asia giving out um vitamin A as appropriate in Asia not rec commending it at all on this video but um that is a common
Problem in Asia remember toxic in in high doses um terrible indictment half up to half a million children becoming blind through lack of vitamin A generally poor diet and as I say the first thing you say is these Beto spots and uh on the eyes and they will grow over the front
But if you give the vitamin A they simply go away quite a beautiful thing to do in children that are deficient so appalling that this is still happening half of them half of them die within 12 months of losing their sight terrible vitamin A deficiency is associated with uh morbidity and
Mortality from common childhood infections so here wh is saying it in another place here um causes sickness and death vitamin A deficiency vitamin A deficiency also contributes to maternal mother’s mortality and other poor outcomes of pregnancy and lactation also diminishes the ability to fight infections um now
Actually don’t pretend to know the full details here um I’m pretty sure it’s in David Anderson’s book I’ll put a link to that but but um it’s it works in a similar way or it works with vitamin D to promote immunity in all the immune
Cells of the body as far as I know and it has this additional effect on the respiratory mucosa and the gastrointestinal muosa so very important we just don’t really have a problem with it we don’t really don’t see it because vitamin A deficiency is so rare rare essentially I’ve never seen it in
Western countries but as we say in children in Asia it is quite common and uh that’s why it could be a big factor in this Chinese outbreak now this this um micoplasma pneumonia it has been reported in China Denmark France Netherlands Ohio I think I I don’t know
The veracity of these reports yet but um what I’m hoping is that the we also know that antibiotic resistance in myoplasmic pneumonia is a big problem in China um huge amount of antibiotic resistance I’m just hoping the antibiotic resistant form is not spreading around the world
But we simply at least I don’t know that yet we are keeping an eye on this evolving uh development development because the concerning thing is of course this is affecting children unlike co uh this is uh primarily affecting children uh in the Chinese situation at the moment and we don’t want that all
Around the world because um childhood illness would be potentially catastrophic of course um now uh even mild subclinical deficiency uh can be a problem because it may increase children’s risk for respiratory and diarrheal infections so again respiratory mucosa uh and the gastrin stal mucosa don’t work properly don’t
Function properly in the absence of vitamin A I hope I’m saying vitamin A not vitamin D I think I am so far vitamin A of course vitamin D is necessary as well but vitamin A is specifically identified in this uh in this release from the wh decrease in growth rates Slow Bone
Development and uh decreases the likelihood of survival from serious illness again without the vitamin A you’re not going to get the amuno the amuno comp competence now we list listed those Foods there that contain vitamin A so cheese eggs oily fish um fortified lowfat spreads milk
And yogurt liver and Pate um liver pate so they’re the foods that contain vitamin A but the the other thing that um vitamin uh we can get the other way we can get vitamin A is from beta carotene now carotene was first identified in carrots of course um so
The body can convert beta carotene into Vitamin A so two ways to get your vitamin A directly from the vitamin A itself great but also from eating particularly fruit and vegetables with beta carotene in it beta carotene in it that the body will then convert into Vitamin A so beta
Carotene is a precursor of vitamin A and the good thing about beta carotene is the body will only convert into Vitamin A as the body needs it so it’s it’s much harder to overdose in fact I’ve never heard of an overdose of beta carotene I think it can happen but very very high
Amounts um and uh certainly eating it from a normal diet would be absolutely fine and is is is good of course so um beta carotin converted into Vitamin A as the body requires it so let’s have a look at this beta carotene so another way to get vitamin A so it’s in red
Particularly orange pigments in plants and fruits so a reddish or particularly orange fruit therefore carrots of course remarkably high in beta carotene first identified of course in carrots hence the name especially carrots and colorful vegetables the body converts beta carots into Vitamin A the advantage of dietary betacarotene is that the body only
Converts as much as it needs but also betacarotene is a healthy antioxidant there’s evidence from this scientific paper here it may prevent cognitive decline and dementia and there’s evidence from this scientific paper here that betacarotene may help lung function remember we’re talking about betacarotene now not the
Vitamin A uh both may be uh both may prevent oxidative stress so what seems to be happening is that the beta carotene is acting as an antioxidant it’s mopping up your free radicals so normally cell metabolism you’re going to get the production of free radicals they
Can oxidize things like DNA in the cell oxidize the organel in the cell cause cell damage cause genetic damage leading to disease cancers for example atherosclerosis other diseases um so if the beta carotene is preventing the oxidative stress that is a good thing that maybe maybe how it’s working um it’s
Certainly very likely to be one of the modalities of action if not the main modality of action foods rich in beta carotene as you would expect a variety of fruit and vegetables particularly colored ones um contain the beta carotin that’s why we have this saying uh eer rainbow
Eating a wide variety of colored fruit and vegetables is a good thing because of these poly phenols the the antioxidants the the flavonoids which are all remarkably good for us um and of course the fruit and vegetables also contributes to the microbiome so it’s good good all around uh for the vast
Majority of people role of vitamin A in the immune system now this is from this paper here I’m not going to go into this in detail now but it’s clear it’s needed for mucus membrane uh innate immunity so protecting us from a wide range of organisms through the respiratory tract
And the gastrointestinal tract and essential for normal function of many immune cells such as uh tea lymphocytes so this double immune effect stopping a wide range of organisms uh getting into the uh into the respiratory tract from the the lining of the respiratory tract and and and uh that’s the innate immunity and
Then playing an important role in specific acquired immunity as we make a resistance to spefic specific organisms that or parts of organisms that we’ve encountered um as it’s necessary for the function of the vitamin A is necessary for the function of immune cells such as T lymphocytes in this specific example
So there we see uh that’s the first part of this video on um the importance of um vitamin A generally and for immunity specifically
