Page 19 - Spring2020

Children who consume raw, pastured dairy occurrence of hyperkeratosis, including psoriasis and acne. When we
products rich in butterfat along with a serving of look at patients with acne, they have lower serum or plasma vitamin A
liver weekly or cod liver oil daily will get their and often zinc will be low. Zinc allows us to use our vitamin A so we also
vitamin A naturally. In fact, during World War have to consider zinc deficiency with skin diseases, especially if someone
II, the government of the United Kingdom had is on a more plant-based diet or avoiding red meat or other foods that are
a program to make sure all of the children got good sources of zinc.
their daily cod liver oil, and this continued for A colleague reported to me that the bumps on the back of her arms
two or three years after the war. did not clear up until she began taking desiccated oyster, which is full
I read an old report by a medical doctor of zinc. Her diet was rich in vitamin A and she ate red meat, but she still
who treated Civil War soldiers on the Confed- had the bumps until she got more zinc in her diet.
erate side. Due to a lack of food, they had very In moderate amounts, UV exposure from sunlight is great for skin
nutrient-deficient diets. Many of them were night cells, but excessive UV exposure will lower the vitamin A content of
blind. They also had an intolerance to daylight your skin. Sensible sun exposure is fine and good for your skin, but you
as their night blindness got worse. The doctor don’t want to overdo it.
noted that they had persistently dilated pupils, Vitamin A upregulates the collagen-specific genes that govern heal-
which explains the photophobia. If your pupils ing. You cannot form collagen without the right amount of vitamin A.
can’t contract, then daylight will be very painful. A possible indicator of vitamin A status is salivary pH. I see a fair
This could be another possible sign of vitamin number of patients with low pH (less than 6.8) in the saliva, which could
A deficiency to look for. indicate vitamin A deficiency. Vitamin A deficiency will lower the ability
What happens to your skin if you are of the saliva to contain the minerals needed to buffer the acidity. This
vitamin A deficient? A key sign is follicular will result in acidic saliva and a tendency to form cavities. In children the
hyperkeratosis, namely bumps where the hairs tooth enamel will not form well without vitamin A. Vitamin A-deficient
come out of the follicle. Hyperkeratosis is just children will have softer teeth and greater susceptibility to cavities.
a buildup of keratin, a hard substance similar to Vitamin A has a reputation for causing bone loss. A handful of ob-
what is in our nails. We need a little keratin in servational studies have found that a higher intake (greater than 5,000
our skin, but “hyper” means we have too much. IU per day) or higher blood levels of vitamin A are associated with lower
Dry skin, eczema, flaky scalp and acne are bone mineral density (BMD) or increased fracture risk.
all signs of vitamin A deficiency. Anyone who In one study involving thirty-six thousand women, the treatment
has acne should consider vitamin A deficiency group received 400 IU of vitamin D and 1000 mg of calcium carbon-
and get some vitamin A-rich foods in the diet. If ate for five years. After seven years they showed a slight improvement
you are vitamin A deficient, your hair and nails in BMD but no statistical difference in hip fractures. Surprisingly, the
might not grow very well. Poor wound healing treatment group had 17 percent more kidney stones.
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is another sign. In hospitals, they know that Other studies indicate that vitamin A is associated with a reduction
patients with wounds need vitamin A. in fractures. The discrepancy can be explained by the fact that vitamin
In my practice, one in every three or four A contributes to osteoporosis only in cases of vitamin D deficiency or
clients has a certain degree of follicular hyper- when the ratio of vitamin A to D is massively out of balance. In animal
keratosis. In his book Functional Medicine, Dr. studies, both high and low vitamin A intakes reduce BMD.
Alan Gaby reports his own frequent finding of Vitamin A is important for bone synthesis; vitamin A deficiency can
mild follicular hyperkeratosis on the extremities cause impaired bone remodeling due to unchecked function of osteoblasts
of both children and adults. Most of the patients as osteoblast production is decreased. In a case study of a teenager lack-
I’ve seen have never even looked at their arms or ing vitamin A due to a very poor diet starting in early childhood, it was
considered what those bumps signify, and their determined that his vision loss was due to the compression of the optic
doctors dismiss them as well. nerve from excessive bone growth in his skull. Interestingly, he did not
Why does our skin need vitamin A? Vi- have night blindness or eye dryness, which seems to be absent in about
tamin A has anti-keratinizing properties as it 5 percent of children with severe vitamin A deficiency.
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helps differentiate our skin cells into what they
are supposed to look like. All of the surfaces of THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
our body come in contact with the environment One of the most important roles of vitamin A is support of the
every day and need vitamin A to deal with that immune system. When vitamin A supplements or cod liver oil are
contact. Many skin diseases are marked by the given to populations with low vitamin A status, there is a reduction of

SPRING 2020 Wise Traditions 19