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mostly women, for whom sources of vitamin A levels of vitamin A in their bodies.
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are seldom included in the diet. It’s rare to find During pregnancy, for those who won’t eat liver, I recommend
a client who knows about the Wise Traditions somewhere between 2,500-5,000 IU daily from a supplemental source
diet. Not many people eat liver or take cod liver (vitamin A from fish liver oil, cod liver oil or desiccated liver supplements,
oil. People are afraid to eat eggs because they for example). The Foundation recommends 20,000 IU daily from food
contain a lot of cholesterol, and they avoid but- sources (including cod liver oil) starting before pregnancy. As a licensed
ter because it contains saturated fat. Of course, dietitian, I can’t recommend more than 10,000 IU in my practice because
I encourage my clients to eat these foods, even of the Rothman study and clinical guidelines. Therefore I tend to be fairly
more so if they are trying to conceive, are preg- conservative, while teaching women how to top off their vitamin A stores
nant or are lactating. prior to conception.
Can we get too much vitamin A? Yes, that Vitamin A is truly A-Mazing! Unfortunately, due to a lot of misplaced
is possible. I don’t think you need to eat liver fear and misinformation, people—especially pregnant women—are not
more than once a week, unless you know that getting enough. From my experience on the front lines of nutritional
you are actually deficient in vitamin A. If you guidance, I believe that vitamin A is the single most important yet unrec-
have fatty liver, you are probably not going to be ognized nutrient. Its intake will determine whether we enjoy robust good
able to store any more vitamin A in your liver, health or suffer from the ongoing repercussions of borderline malnutrition.
so limit your preformed vitamin A intake to
at most 3,000 IU per day. If you have elevated
triglycerides or have taken a lot of supplements Pamela Schoenfeld, MS, RD, a registered dietitian-nutritionist whose
containing around 50,000 IU of vitamin A for practice in Raleigh, North Carolina, focuses on the nutritional needs
a few years, you could be getting too much. of women and their families. She credits the Weston A. Price Founda-
Be careful if you are doing water-miscible or tion for restoring her own health and giving her the energy to become
emulsified forms as they can be toxic at one- a dietitian at the age of fifty. She firmly believes this was in part due to
tenth the recommended dose. her resuming the consumption of liver and other high-vitamin-A foods
What are the signs of vitamin A excess? she enjoyed while growing up. A member of the board of directors, she
They include nausea, fatigue, headaches, dry has represented the Weston A. Price Foundation via written and oral
skin, joint pain, muscle pain, anorexia, hair commentary to the U.S. government regarding the critical deficits in the
loss, brittle nails, elevated liver enzymes, high Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the FDA food labeling require-
blood calcium and bone abnormalities. The risk ments, both of which have contributed to the simultaneous epidemics of
of vitamin A toxicity is higher in situations of malnutrition and obesity in the U.S. and across the globe. She has been
liver disease or protein and zinc malnutrition. a frequent presenter at Wise Traditions Conferences with topics includ-
Fortunately, these symptoms are reversible with ing polycystic ovary syndrome and senior malnutrition. She has written
discontinuation of vitamin A sources. several articles for Wise Traditions including “The Scarlet Nutrient: The
Deficiency is worse. All sorts of bad things Unfair Stigmatization of Vitamin A During Pregnancy.” She embraces
can happen if a woman is deficient in vitamin a common-sense approach to food and nutrition and is not afraid to
A. I’ve seen this so many times in my own question the dietary dogma that unfortunately all too often governs her
practice. Lots of things improve when women profession. She is the author of the book, The Collagen Diet, where she
get adequate vitamin A. They get their periods weaves the traditional wisdom of nose-to-tail eating into the scientific
back. Their cervical mucus returns. They are basis of consuming collagen protein.
getting pregnant when they couldn’t before. Of
course, we work on improving their intake of REFERENCES
other important nutrients besides vitamin A, but 1. Timoneda J and others. Vitamin A deficiency and the lung. Nutrients. 2018 Aug 21;10(9).
2.
Weston A. Price. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, 1945.
we know these things are affected by whether or 3. Blomhoff R and Drevon CA. Fat-soluble vitamins in clinical practice. Tidsskr Nor
not a woman gets enough vitamin A. We need Laegeforen. 1995;115(4):481-5.
vitamin A to make progesterone, and I have seen 4. International expert on Vitamin A, Alfred Sommer, MD, Dean Emeritus, Johns Hopkins
School of Public Health quoted in Vitamania: How Vitamins Revolutionized the Way We
that vitamin A can help treat endometriosis. Think About Food by Catherine Price.
And if someone is considering in vitro 5. Jackson RD and others. Calcium plus vitamin D supplementation and the risk of fractures.
N Engl J Med. 2006; 354(7):669-83.
fertilization (IVF) as a means to conceive, one 6. Zayed and others. Unilateral compressive optic neuropathy due to skull hyperos-
study shows that women are more likely to have tosis secondary to nutritional vitamin A deficiency. Clin Cases Miner Bone Metab.
a better quality embryo if they have adequate 2015;12(1):75–77.

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