Vitamin A Needed for Healthy Sex Organs

Did you know that vitamin A is actually responsible for our sexuality? Without proper amounts of vitamin A, the gonads can't manufacture our sex hormones. These hormones regulate our sexual desires and abilities. For males proper amounts of vitamin A can mean healthy sperm and virility. For females it means responsiveness, and the ability to conceive, and to carry the fetus to full term in the womb.

Vitamin A is an essential human nutrient which is commonly attributed to better vision, healthy skin and bone growth (besides calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium). But besides these, it is also involved in many of our body’s processes such as cell growth and development, immune function, reproduction, embryonic development, reduction of heart diseases and cancer, and its antioxidant activity. In fact, it doesn’t only reduce the possibility of cancer but some sources are also citing its ability to cure both cancer and leukemia even better than chemotherapy.

Vitamin A is required for our gonads to convert cholesterol into sex hormone to release it to the blood stream and increase our sexual desire. It is involved in the production of sex hormones like progesterone, estrogen and testosterone. This vitamin is also responsible for the health of the mucous membranes and responsible in fact, for the entire epithelial package inside and out.

Without vitamin A, the outer covering of ovaries in women, and the prostate gland in men stops producing mucus and sex hormones. The covering hardens (no mucus) and cannot function properly (no sex hormones). A domino effect comes into action and your whole reproductive system is in danger. Because of this, men's sperm count can decrease, and women's fertility can go down if they are not getting sufficient vitamin A. Women can experience a reduction in sexual desire, lower fertility, and more problems with the delivery of their children. Vitamin A not only causes reproductive cells to secrete mucus, but also causes most other cells in your body to secrete mucus. This mucus protects the cell from invading bacteria and viruses. This is an important part of the immune system and can even protect against cancer. Some doctors and scientists think that some forms of cancer are caused by viruses. When the cell membranes are coated in mucus, they stay intact longer, extending the cell life and keeps you looking young.

For many women menorrhagia, or excessively prolonged menstrual periods, can cause anemia, and the cramps can be at the least, debilitating. But there is almost no other problem associated with a woman's cycles that can't be corrected by simply getting proper amounts and dosages of the vitamins A and E. Studies have shown that women suffering from this condition were invariably always deficient in vitamin A. In a study, these women were given 60,000 IU of vitamin A per day for a month, 90 per cent of them were cured. The other 10% saw remarkable improvement. Pain, spotting and irregularity also were corrected or dramatically improved creating over all better health.

People who are heavy drinkers often have problems with their vision. That’s because ninety percent of all the vitamin A in your body is stored in the liver. Alcohol kills your liver, and not as much of the vitamin can be stored there. Alcohol also makes you urinate a whole lot of vitamins, including A. If you are a heavy drinker and cannot cut back, you might consider eating more foods rich in vitamin A.

Vitamin A is found in quite high amounts in oil-rich fish such as herring and mackerel and in shellfish such as oysters. Liver, egg, yolk, cheese, butter, squash and carrots are also good sources of vitamin A. Vitamin A can occur in two different forms - as retinol, which is easily absorbed by the body, or as carotenoids, which are less easily absorbed and have only 50% of the absorption rate of retinol.

Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin. That means it is eaten, absorbed, transported and stored with fat. You must be careful when cutting out a lot of fat in your diet, not to cut out the A and all the other fat soluble vitamins. Even if you eat a healthy diet, you may be getting less vitamin A than you think. Processing takes vitamin A out of foods, and additives kill it. Most refined foods are much lower in vitamins than "the real thing". Cooking can also render much of the vitamin A in foods useless. You can get more carotene from steamed carrots than raw, though. Boiling, however, makes A inactive. You should be careful how you prepare your foods, so you can get the full amount of vitamins possible.

As vitamin A is fat-soluble, disposing of any excesses taken in through diet is much harder than with water-soluble vitamins B and C. As such, vitamin A toxicity can result. This can lead to nausea, jaundice, irritability, anorexia (not to be confused with anorexia nervosa, the eating disorder), vomiting, blurry vision, headaches, muscle and abdominal pain and weakness, drowsiness and altered mental status. These toxicities only occur with preformed (retinoid) vitamin A (such as from liver and supplements). The carotenoid forms (such as beta-carotene as found in carrots), give no such symptoms, but excessive dietary intake of beta-carotene can lead to carotenodermia, which causes orange-yellow discoloration of the skin.

Recommended daily allowance of vitamin A are as follows:
(Infant 0-1 years) - 375 RE
(1-3) - 400 RE
(4-6) - 500 RE
(7-10) - 700 RE
(11+ (men)) - 1000 RE
(11+ (women)) - 800 RE
Pregnant - 800 RE
Lactating 1st 6 months - 1300 RE
Lactating 2nd 6 months - 1200 RE

*RE = retinol equivalent
*1 microgram of retinol (animal vitamin A) = 1RE
*6 micrograms of beta-carotene (most common plant vitamin A) = 1RE
*12 micrograms of other provitamin A carotenoids (plant vitamin A) = 1RE