Everything You Never Knew About Vitamin A (and How to Get More of It)

As anti-aging experts who offer a full scope of wellness services, Nawo K. Fiamo, ARNP, and our team at Fiamo Aesthetics know that when it comes to reaching your aesthetic goals, balanced inner health is just as important as any external treatment to restore your complexion or refine your shape. 

Sometimes, one of the best beauty boosts is intravenous (IV) therapy, or the direct delivery of essential health-supporting nutrients to your bloodstream, body, and skin. Our anti-aging IV therapy formulation typically includes vitamin A. Here’s why.  

Vision protection and beyond 

Through the generations, many kids have heard their parents proclaim: “Eat a lot of carrots if you want good eyesight.” Why? Carrots are an excellent source of a yellow-orange plant pigment called beta-carotene, which your body readily converts into vitamin A. 

Vitamin A is an essential nutrient that — you guessed it — protects eye health and promotes normal vision, especially in low light. But this fat-soluble vitamin with antioxidant properties supports your health and well-being in other key ways, too. This vital nutrient: 

• Helps body cells divide normally
• Aids growth and development 
• Helps foster optimal immunity 
• Sustains healthy bones and teeth
• Maintains healthy skin tissues 
• Supports the hair growth cycle

As a nutrient that exerts powerful antioxidant activity, vitamin A helps neutralize harmful free radicals. 

Produced by the body as a natural byproduct of metabolism or following exposure to a toxic substance or harmful energy like cigarette smoke or ultraviolet (UV) light, free radicals are highly reactive, unstable molecules that can damage body cells.    

Given that free-radical damage plays a role in accelerated aging as well as chronic disease development (including cancer), vitamin A and other antioxidant nutrients (e.g., vitamins C and E) are important protectors of long-term wellness. 

Getting vitamin A from your diet 

Most people in developed nations — including most vegetarians and vegans — get enough vitamin A by eating a varied and nutritious diet. Found in a wide range of animal-based and plant-based foods, vitamin A is available in two forms:

• Preformed vitamin A, or retinol, in animal-based and fortified foods 
• Provitamin A carotenoids, or plant pigments that your body converts into vitamin A

Foods that are rich in active, preformed vitamin A include eggs, dairy products, certain fish (e.g., salmon), organ meats (e.g., liver), and fortified cereals. Because vitamin A is fat soluble, the fat in most of these foods helps you absorb the nutrient more completely.  

Foods that are high in beta-carotene, the main carotenoid precursor to vitamin A, include carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, mango, broccoli, and dark leafy greens (e.g., spinach). Eating these foods with a small amount of fat helps you absorb their carotenoids more fully. 

Measured in micrograms (mcg), the recommended daily amount of vitamin A is 900 mcg for men and 700 mcg for women. Expecting or breastfeeding mothers require more vitamin A, as the nutrient plays an vital role in pregnancy, as well as lactation.

The benefits of a vitamin A boost

When you come to us at Fiamo Aesthetics for IV therapy, your custom infusion blend may contain vitamin A. Delivered directly into your bloodstream, this versatile antioxidant vitamin bypasses your digestive system and heads straight to the body tissues that need it the most. 

We may include vitamin A in an IV infusion that aims to:

• Boost your energy 
• Improve immunity 
• Accelerate healing 
• Support skin health

An IV infusion with vitamin A can be especially helpful just before or after a clinical skin care treatment like microneedling with PRP or laser skin resurfacing. Why? Vitamin A enhances the natural skin cell turnover rate for more efficient skin renewal results.    

Because most people get enough vitamin A in their diet — and because your liver stores some excess vitamin A for future use — having regular vitamin A infusions is both unnecessary and potentially unhealthy. 

Unless you have a doctor-diagnosed vitamin A deficiency, continuous supplementation can lead to skin problems, hair loss, and headaches, among other concerns. 

Do you have questions about the benefits of IV therapy or any of its infusion blend nutrients? We have answers. Give us a call today, or use our online booking feature to schedule a visit at Fiamo Aesthetics in Yakima, Washington, anytime.