How much Vitamin A do you need each day?

Men need nearly 30% more Vitamin A each day compared to women. Foods such as spinach, carrots, and sweet potato are some of your best bets. Vitamin A plays important roles throughout your body. It has even been linked to a lower risk of cancer.

Professionally Reviewed by Charles Li, MD

1. Men Need More Vitamin A Each Day

Men need nearly 30% more Vitamin A each day compared to women.

2. Vegetables Are Great Sources of Vitamin A

When it comes to your daily Vitamin A, foods such as spinach, carrots, and sweet potato are some of your best bets.

3. More Than Just Eyesight

Vitamin A plays important roles throughout your body. It has even been linked to a lower risk of cancer.

Adults

Vitamin A Daily Requirements

Men need slightly more Vitamin A per day than women. Women need slightly more than 1/2 a cup of carrots worth of Vitamin A. Men need slightly more than 1/2 of a sweet potato. For the examples below, we stuck to commonly found foods at the supermarket. The food with the most Vitamin A was Beef liver, which had 6,500 mcg per serving!

Each day, men are recommended to eat 900 mcg in their diet, and women are recommended to eat 700 mcg. This corresponds to slightly more than half of a sweet potato and just less than one cup of spinach. Unlike Vitamin D, your body needs to get its Vitamin A from your diet.

Children

Daily Vitamin A Requirements

Children need varying amounts of Vitamin A depending on their age. Babies tend to need slightly more than toddlers. After they reach age 1, they will need more Vitamin A each year until they reach adulthood.

Babies need 400 mcg of Vitamin A each day. Toddlers need slightly less, at 300 mcg per day. This rises each year until they reach 14. 14-year-old boys need 900 mcg of Vitamin A each day. 14-year-old girls need 700 mcg of Vitamin A each day.

Key Facts

Vitamin A

Vitamin A plays key roles in night vision, boosting the immune system, and helping your body grow and develop.

Key Facts

Functions

Vitamin A

Key Facts

Type
Fat soluble
Source
Diet
Other Names
Retinol, retinyl ester

Appearance

Key Sources

Carrots

Sweet Potatoes

Spinach

Vitamin A

Functions

Vision

Vitamin A plays a key role in our black and white and night vision.

Immunity

Vitamin A helps your immune system fight off disease.

Cell Growth

Vitamin A helps your cells grow and develop properly, particularly in young children.

Vitamin A Benefit #1

Eye Health

Vitamin A plays an important role in keeping your eyes healthy.

Your body gets Vitamin A from your diet. Vitamin a gets converted into rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is used by your rod cells in your retina. The retina turns light into signals for your brain to interpret.

Vitamin A Benefit #2

Cancer Risk

A diet rich in Vitamin A has been linked with a lower risk of breast cancer. However, clinical trial results remain mixed.

A pooled analysis of eight cohort studies found that Vitamin A levels in your blood correlate with your risk of breast cancer. Having a lot of vitamin A in the form of β-carotene correlates with a 17% lower risk of breast cancer. Having a lot of total carotenoids, which includes the pigments found in vegetables, correlates with a 19% lower risk of breast cancer.

Data Source

"In this large pooled analysis with more than 3000 case subjects, we observed statistically significant inverse associations between circulating levels of individual and total carotenoids and breast cancer risk. "

Source: Circulating carotenoids and risk of breast cancer: pooled analysis of eight prospective studies