Vitamin A and Your Immune System

Now I've done quite a few videos on the immune system relating to zinc , vitamin c , vitamin d , but I haven't done one on vitamin a .

And vitamin a is essential for your immune system .

Having a vitamin A deficiency will increase your susceptibility to getting more infections , especially in the respiratory system , both lower lungs as well as sinus and throat .

You need vitamin A for all of your mucus membranes .

And I'm talking about the sinuses , the mouth , the lungs , and even the gut .

Without vitamin a , you're not gonna be able to produce the mucus membranes that you need .

The mucus membranes are an important barrier to microbes .

The microbes have a difficult time of penetrating this mucus layer , and they get stuck in there and they can't move too well .

If a lot of your immune cells sitting there waiting , for some type of invasion , so they can actually attack and also signal the rest of the team , as they hold down the fort .

The internal skin of your body , the epithelial layer of your sinuses , your throat , and your lungs , which basically is just beneath the mucus , is highly influenced by vitamin a .

Without vitamin a , you're not gonna have a normal , cell layer .

Also vitamin a keeps these cells together so they don't leak or open up and allow microbes or pathogens to invade .

In your colon , you have the mucus membrane and then you have a layer of colon cells , and then you have a layer of the lymphatic system just below that , and that's where a lot of immune reactions take place .

If you haven't seen my video on lymph nodes , I put a link down below .

So vitamin a is needed to make something called mucin , which is a part of the mucus membrane .

It's like a gel that is involved in your immune system .

Without vitamin a , you're gonna have a difficult time having normal amounts of macrophages .

These are the cells that are very large and they eat microbes for dinner .

They also clean up debris and garbage .

They act as a first line of defense to hold down the fort while they send the message to the rest of the troops .

Depending on the magnitude of the battle .

If it's a small thing they'll pretty much take care of it by themselves , but if there's a large attack they will call in the troops .

Your thymus gland right above the heart and it helps train your immune cells , specifically T cells which stand for thymus .

And the thymus has a capacity to activate and synthesize vitamin a .

And the reason for that is because your immune system needs Vitamin A .

Now there's another player involved called the dendritic cell , and that cell basically takes a piece of a pathogen or a microbe and presents it to your immune system to let your immune system know if they happen to see something that resembles this , go ahead and kill it .

So they actually work between the innate and adaptive part of the immune system .

The innate is kind of a general immune protection defense .

And then you have another part of the immune system which is more specific , where you have very specific cells that are designed to kill very specific cells .

Well , the dendritic cells work between these two systems to give them information to know who to kill and who not to kill .

Also , vitamin a is involved with enhancing the neutrophil traps .

Now what does that mean ?

When you have an infection , you have like mucus and pus and inflammation .

About 70% of that infection is filled with neutrophils .

Neutrophils are part of the innate immune system that do various things to kill off invaders .

And one strategy they use is they use these little traps .

If you can envision Spider Man throwing a web over the enemy , that's what neutrophils do .

And what they have is certain chemicals that they can inject into that pathogen as it's in this web contained to dissolve it .

If you're deficient in vitamin a , you your risk goes up for ulcerative colitis , MS , psoriasis , and even lupus .

But the question is what food do you get vitamin a from ?

Beef liver would be at the top of the list .

Then you have cod liver oil , mackerel , salmon , goat's cheese , butter .

And of course I'm talking about grass fed , cream cheese , eggs .

Now vitamin a is also in the kale , broccoli , the spinach , but that would be in the pre vitamin a form carotenoids .

The active form called retinol is in all of these .

Now it is true that your body can convert carotenoids into retinol because Carotenoids are like a pre vitamin a , compound .

But only under certain conditions , which I did a separate video on that .

You can watch that next .

However , there are some great benefits of just carotenoids in general , for vision , as an anti inflammatory , as an antioxidant .

If you would like to see more information about vitamin a , I put a link right here .

Check it out .