You need animal fat
for Vitamin A!

Vitamin A has been known about since ancient times. Back then they learned the healing power of liver to cure various types of blindness.

Actual discovery is credited to Elmer V. McCollum in 1907. He found this nutrient when he was looking into why cows fed wheat did not thrive, became blind and gave birth to dead calves while those fed yellow corn had no health problems. He decided it would be easier to do his studies on a smaller animal.

He used mice and rats, giving them various foods in a controlled experiment. When he added butterfat or an extract of egg yolk to their diets, their health was restored. He discovered a fat-soluble factor that was essential for growth and survival and named it “Fat-Soluble Factor A”.

Weston A. Price’s work on retinol in the 1930's, showed that it has a fat-soluble activator that you can only find in animal fats and is necessary to process the minerals that we eat.

He found that the diets of healthy traditional people contained at least 10 times as much as the American diet of his day. They had Spring butter, fish eggs and shark liver that are exceptionally rich in vitamin A. All traditional cultures recognized that certain foods that were rich in this vitamin, the retina and tissues in back of fish eyes being the richest, was necessary to prevent blindness.

Liver was another food that was commonly used.

Continued experiments found that Vitamin A is made by beta-carotenes in the intestinal mucosa of animals and humans.

Whole milk, butter, eggs and Cod Liver oil was used for severe nutritional deficiencies at the end of WWI.

Retinoids, biologically active compounds that occur naturally in animal and plant tissues.

There are two major forms...

Retinol

When it comes from animal sources, it is a fat soluble and is in a bio available form of retinoic acid, retinal and retinol. This gets stored in the tissues, too much can build up and become toxic.

Beta-carotene

When it comes from fruits and vegetables, it is a precursor of carotenoids and our body must convert it into usable retinoids. You will need a mix of carotenoids for the body to make this vitamin . This way is water-soluble and does not accumulate in the body so toxicity is rare. You will have to be sure that you keep replenishing.

We have heard about carotenoids, there are more than 500 but fewer than 10% can be made into retinol in the body.

• You need fat to stimulate the secretion of bile in order to make the carotenes into this vitamin. Polyunsaturated oils can do that too but it needs antioxidants to prevent quick destruction of the carotene.
• Retinol has been used for preventive and treatment of cancer.
• Research shows that Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Rutin (a bioflavonoid) reduces the risk of a stroke by 75%.
• Tuberculosis.
• Corneal problems.
• Night blindness, dissolution of the cornea, bursting of the eye.
• Keratomalacia, corneal ulceration, extreme dryness of the eye and infection.

People that have carotenes in their diet can convert it into Vitamin A with the exception of:

• Infants
• Diabetics
• People with thyroid issues. The thyroid gland requires the most retinol out of all the glands and cannot function without it.
• People not getting animal fat in their diets
• Children (who make it very poorly)

This encompasses more than half of the U.S. population!

Today our diets have empty, processed polyunsaturates instead of good quality dairy products. Also today’s diet does not have good quality animal meats and cooked food with animal fat.

We have been taking fat out of our diets and there are now a lot of studies going on about fat, we should start hearing more about it soon.

Things that can make Vitamin A difficult to make in your body...

• A low fat diet
• Excessive consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids
• Excessive consumption of iron (fortified white flour and cereals)
• Deficiencies in zinc
• Prescriptions
• Cold weather
• Strenuous physical exercise
• Excessive consumption of alcohol
• Stress
• Fever

• Pastured good quality dairy products and eggs
• Beef liver
• Fruits and vegetables
• Carrots, spinach, kale, butternut squash, cantaloupe, mangoes, pumpkins, sweet potatoes

In recent decades, there has been research on this vitamin that focused on its role in preventing cancer and its use in combination with nontoxic therapies in the treatment of cancer.

In 1946, Dr. Max Gerson treated many cases of terminal cancer with excellent results using raw liver juice, a rich source of retinol. In 1973, Dr. Kanematsu Sigiura of the Sloan Kettering Institute published results of studies on mammary tumors in mice using high doses of this vitamin and a derivative of seeds called laetrile.

Modern agriculture with confinement farming practices, like you see in the movie Food, Inc., effectively prevent vitamin A from incorporation into animal foods. Vitamin A is present when the animals have a source of green pasture, insects and fish meal.

Today we use more vegetable oil than animal fat and feed our farm animals way too much corn. They are not getting carotenes and retinol in their diet.

The processing industry uses vegetable oils instead of animal fats that contain retinol.

Putting butter on vegetables and adding cream to vegetable soup stimulates the secretion of bile needed to convert carotenes from vegetables and into an easily absorbed true vitamin A. Polyunsaturated oils need antioxidants.

When you eat salads with fat-free dressing, you are not getting the fats you need to absorb the nutrients contained in the salad.

Vitamin A is so important, we can store large quantities of it in the liver and other organs. Deficiency symptoms would not show up right away if you have it stored. Stress, physical exercise, periods of physical growth, pregnancy, lactation, measles and infection can rapidly deplete you.

High protein, low fat diets are especially dangerous because protein consumption rapidly depletes this nutrient. Children can experience rapid growth, crowded teeth, poor bone structure, low immunity, and blindness.

What interferes with conversion of carotene's to vitamin A:

*Low thyroid function

*Low fat intake

*Diarrhea

*Pancreatic disease

*Celiac disease

Women, Could increase the risk of gastric cancer, osteoporosis and fractures

For the vast majority , recovery after discontinuation can have no residual damage.

Arctic explorers consumed too much from polar bear and seal liver (several million units) and after they stopped consumption, symptoms cleared up.

An amount example: 100,000 IU retinol per day for many months could induce acute toxicity. That would be 7 pounds of butter, or 309 egg yolks or 6 tablespoons of cod liver oil or 100 grams beef liver per day for many months!

Children in impoverished areas of the world are routinely given 2 - 100,000 unit doses of retinol per year for infants and 2 - 200,000 unit doses for children over 12 months.

Vitamin A has helped the children in Africa, Asia and Papua New Guinea fight off malaria.

More good sources for Vitamin A!

Other ways in which retinol/beta carotene plays a vital role...

• Performs a regulating role in the immune system.
• It lowers the rate for HIV transmission with mothers and their babies.
• Treatment with megadoses of vitamin A (100,000 IU per day) resulted in a 92% cure rate of menorrhagia (excessive menstrual bleeding) at Johannesburg General Hospital in South Africa.
• Helps with the optimal function of the hippocampus, the main seat of learning and memory.
• In the June 2000 issue of Med Hypothesis, natural vitamin A helps reconnect retinoid receptors critical for vision, sensory perception, language processing and attention in autistic children. Use of cod liver oil helps children recover from autism due to the DPT vaccine. The pertussis toxin interferes with retinoid receptors in the brain.
• Stroke victims are more likely to recover without damage (The Lancet, March 1998).
• Prevents lung and bladder cancers in men.
• The skin condition, Kyrle’s.
• Are less prone to leg ulcers.
• Healthy ears.
• Increases absorption of iron and folic acid.
• Reduces the risk of cataracts.
• It's more easily absorbed from butter than from other foods.

Some more facts:

A great source is dairy products from pastured animals.

Plant-derived Carotenoids is the type in fruits and vegetables that we have to convert into usable retinoids. There are several distinct classes of carotenoids (mixed carotenoids) that work together for health benefits.

Taking carotenes for this vitamin calls on large reserves of enzymes to make the conversion and consequently as we get older we have less enzymes.

Cats do not synthesize vitamin A from carotenes, it would compromise other functions like night vision and quickness of movement. They get theirs from prey. The betacarotene supplements contain a synthetic form of carotene which is much lower than the natural and puts stress on the immune system.

Another great way to get your Vitamin A, through supplementation.

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