Vitamin A 10,000 IU Retinyl Palmitate

Description

Vitamin A at 10,000 IU per softgel as retinyl palmitate, in an oil carrier, not beta carotene. Retinyl palmitate is preformed vitamin A, an ester of retinol and palmitic acid, which the body cleaves and uses directly. The distinction between preformed vitamin A and a carotenoid precursor is the most important thing on this page, and the dose figure is the second.

Label figures

Read the upper limit before you buy retinyl palmitate

This is the figure that belongs on the front of every preformed vitamin A bottle and appears on almost none. Ten thousand IU is 3,000 micrograms of retinol activity equivalents, and the tolerable upper intake level for adults for preformed vitamin A is 3,000 micrograms a day.

So one softgel sits at the upper limit, before counting a multivitamin, a cod liver oil or liver in the diet. That is published reference figure arithmetic rather than a warning we invented, and the whole table is on the NIH vitamin A fact sheet.

Preformed vitamin A against beta carotene

Beta carotene is a precursor the body converts as needed, and conversion is regulated and variable between people, which is why carotenoids have no upper intake level. Preformed vitamin A is not regulated that way and accumulates in the liver.

Both appear on labels as vitamin A, often without saying which. Ours says. Naming the chemical form rather than the letter is the rule across the vitamins page, for exactly this reason.

The pregnancy caution

High intakes of preformed vitamin A in pregnancy are associated with birth defects in the published literature, and that is the reason prenatal formulas use beta carotene or keep preformed vitamin A low.

Anyone pregnant or planning to be should take this decision to a clinician rather than to a product page. The prenatal and postnatal formulas on the women’s page are grouped separately and carry no description beyond their composition.

Retinyl palmitate against retinyl acetate and retinol

All three are preformed vitamin A and all three are converted to retinol, so the IU figure is what compares them rather than the milligram weight of the ester. Palmitate is the more stable ester and the one commonly used in oil filled softgels.

Acetate is more often found in dry tablets and in fortified foods. Retinol itself is less stable in a supplement matrix. A label stating retinyl palmitate and an IU figure has given you both halves of what you need, which many vitamin A bottles do not.

Why it is in an oil softgel

Retinyl palmitate is fat soluble and unstable in air and light. An oil filled softgel keeps oxygen away from it and provides the lipid that absorption needs, which a dry tablet does not. It should be taken with a meal that contains some fat.

What the research measured

Supplementation trials have mostly been conducted in populations with low vitamin A status, measuring serum retinol concentrations and clinical outcomes at doses from a few thousand IU daily to large periodic doses. That describes the literature and the amounts it used, and it is not a claim about this bottle.

Testing

Every lot of retinyl palmitate softgels is assayed for potency by a laboratory with no ownership link to this company, with peroxide value, heavy metals and microbials on the same certificate. Under strength or oxidised lots are withdrawn and the failing report stays published, for the reason given in why we publish the batch that failed. Your lot certificate is linked above. Ten thousand IU of retinyl palmitate is about 3,000 micrograms of retinol activity equivalents, which is the upper intake level for preformed vitamin A rather than a figure comfortably below it.