What is vitamin A
Vitamins are regulators of biological processes, without which the biochemistry of the body and the functioning of organs are disrupted. Most of them come from food, and some are synthesized by the body or intestinal flora. Vitamins are divided into water-soluble and fat-soluble. The former do not stay in the body for a long time and are excreted with metabolic products, while the latter accumulate in the liver. We wrote about vitamin D - the only one that affects the body's immune defense. But C turned out to be not as useful as dietary supplement manufacturers write about it.
Vitamin A is fat soluble. A person receives it from food in the form of precursors - retinoids and carotenoids. They are contained in the fatty depot of the liver, and when needed they are converted into retinol and sent to the tissues. Vitamin A regulates embryogenesis, the functioning of reproductive organs, skin glands, inflammation, the creation of new cells and their death. A retinol derivative is one of the components of rhodopsin. This is an eye pigment responsible for color perception.
External retinoids are used in dermatology: they treat acne and are prescribed to prevent age-related skin changes. It has been proven that isotretionine prevents the enzymatic degradation of collagen, the main structural component of the skin. Vitamin A derivatives are added to sunscreens for antioxidant protection.
“Vitamin A is used externally for many dermatoses, especially those associated with impaired keratinization, sebum secretion and healing,” says Nina Sergeeva, a dermatologist at the Fantasy children’s clinic. “It accelerates the restoration of skin integrity, reduces sebum production and regulates keratinization.”
Systemic retinoids are treatments for severe acne, psoriasis, rosacea, precancerous lesions, and nonmelanoma skin cancer. They normalize the formation of cells in the upper layer of the epidermis, reduce sebum secretion and inflammation, providing long-term remission. They are prescribed in cases where external therapy is ineffective or gives temporary results.
Products with retinol: price
The world's leading manufacturers of cosmetics with pure retinol are definitely SKINCEUTICALS® and ZO® SKIN HEALTH. But we immediately warn you that the products of these companies are not cheap - from 6,500 rubles and above. In Kiehl's branded cosmetics stores, you can find a good cream-serum with retinol, Kiehl's Retinol Skin-Renewing Daily Micro-Dose Serum (Serum with a microdose of retinol for every day to combat the signs of skin aging). The cost of this serum is from 4300 rubles per 30 ml. More details about all these tools can be found in the link below.
Good cosmetics with retinol -
Products that contain 0.1% pure retinol + 0.1-0.2% retinol esters are available for purchase at the pharmacy (their cost will be from 2400 to 2700 rubles). In addition, on sites such as Amazon or Ebay, you can purchase products with pure retinol or retinaldehyde from another leading manufacturer, SIRCUIT® (a cream or serum from this company will cost $80).
And on the iHerb website you can purchase American and Neutrogena cosmetics for about 2,000 rubles. These are also well-known manufacturers of cosmetics with retinol, but they do not indicate the percentage of pure retinol in their products. At the link below, you can read the rating of the best products with retinol (according to our editors), as well as familiarize yourself with the composition and characteristics of these products.
→ The best products with retinol for facial skin
How to understand that vitamin A is low
Every year, 500 thousand children around the world die from a lack of vitamin A, and 250 thousand go blind due to corneal opacity. Residents of Asia and Africa are mainly affected - this is due to early weaning and lack of vitamin A in the diet. At risk are people who have impaired absorption of zinc and fats, as well as those who abuse alcohol.
Vitamin A deficiency is visible externally. A person’s eyes and mucous membranes “dry,” he has difficulty finding his way in the dark and often gets sick. The skin becomes “toad-like” - strewn with small tubercles due to follicular hyperkeratosis - an accumulation of horny scales at the mouths of the hair follicles. If you do not replenish the vitamin A balance in time, you can go blind: the cornea will “dry out” and become opaque.
“Since vitamin A and carotenoids play a large role in the growth of cells and tissues, insufficient intake of the substances can lead to weakening of the skin,” says GMS Clinic dermatologist Nadezhda Nabatnikova. “Dryness, irritation and acne occur, after which the skin heals worse or slowly, and scars appear.”
What to do
If you are concerned about the quality of your skin, order vitamins early. First you need to go to the doctor and find out what the reason is. Maybe the body does not have enough iron, or the person has hypothyroidism - only an examination will determine this. If the indicators are normal, the doctor will prescribe a test for vitamin levels in the blood. When there are few of them, the diet is first changed. Supplements are prescribed only to those who have digestive problems.
“Most vitamin A comes from foods rich in beta-carotene and provitamin A carotenoids. These are powerful antioxidants. They neutralize the effect of free radicals, which break down collagen and contribute to the appearance of wrinkles, explains Nadezhda Nabatnikova. “The substances also reduce skin sensitivity to ultraviolet rays, providing natural protection against redness and pigmentation caused by the sun.”
The norm for a person from the age of four is 5000 international units of vitamin A. He should receive it from food of animal and plant origin. The best source is cod liver. One teaspoon of its oil contains 150% of the daily requirement. A lot also contains beef liver, salmon fillet and tuna. The plant richest in vitamin A is sweet potato, one hundred grams of which covers the daily requirement. Kale, winter squash and turnips contain it in abundance, with carrots only coming in sixth. Important: heat-treated root vegetables are taken into account, not raw ones.
Some people, tired of acne, buy systemic retinoids and take dosages from the Internet. This is dangerous - if the dosage is exceeded, these drugs cause fetal malformations - auricular atresia, underdevelopment of the limbs, atrial septal defect and displacement of large vessels. Therefore, a dermatologist prescribes systemic retinoids after a pregnancy test and the patient’s commitment to use double contraception - hormonal pills plus a condom.
“When using systemic retinoids and other vitamin A preparations, a teratogenic effect on the fetus is possible. Therefore, even before taking dietary supplements, and even more so medications, it is worth consulting with your doctor,” says Nina Alexandrova. “The unfavorable effect of high doses of vitamin A persists even after stopping its use, depending on the drug - from 1 month to 2 years.”
Pure retinol -
Real retinol, and not its esters, is already found in not too many cosmetic products. Moreover, very often manufacturers resort to deception - on the packaging in large letters they write that the product contains retinol, and in the ingredients in small print they may already write about retinol palmitate. The most important thing you should know about cosmetics with pure retinol is its concentration. Let's figure out which concentrations are effective.
1) Effective concentration of retinol –
We have already said above that the most effective form of vitamin A is “retinoic acid” (tretinoin). There are a large number of clinical studies that show that the optimal therapeutic concentration of tretinoin for the treatment of aging skin is 0.025%. And this is exactly the concentration recommended by the FDA (the most authoritative organization in the world that studies the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals and treatment methods). And as you will see below, this has a direct bearing on retinol.
Evidence base: 1) study “Griffiths CE, Kang S, Ellis CN et al. Two concentrations of topical tretinoin cause similar improvement of photoaging but different degrees of irritation." The study followed patients over 48 weeks and concluded that using a lower 0.025% tretinoin concentration for skin aging treatment had exactly the same effects as a higher 0.1% concentration. This is how the effective therapeutic concentration was determined.
2) Study “Olsen EA, Katz HI, Levine N et al. Tretinoin emollient cream: a new therapy for photodamaged skin. J Am Acad Dermatol 1992" shows that the use of products with tretinoin concentrations below 0.01% was not very effective. In this case, there was no significant difference in the condition of the skin before and after. And this also has a direct bearing on the effective concentration of retinol.
Important: the fact is that 0.1% pure retinol is approximately equivalent in effectiveness to 0.0025% tretinoin. It turns out that the 0.025% concentration of tretinoin recommended by the FDA for the correction of aging will correspond to 1.0% of pure retinol. That is why the world's leading manufacturers of anti-aging cosmetics with retinol, SKINCEUTICALS® and ZO® SKIN HEALTH, have products with 1.0% pure retinol in their lines. And these products are intended specifically for the correction of wrinkles in older patients.
Products with 0.3% pure retinol are suitable for correcting fine lines, as well as increasing skin elasticity, evening out skin tone and texture (products with 0.5% should add shallow wrinkles to the above). In addition, products with 0.1-0.3% pure retinol are suitable for correcting wrinkles in the corners of the eyes (while the 0.1% concentration is suitable for daily use, and 0.3% - only 3 times a week). The fact is that the skin around the eyes is thinner and more sensitive, and therefore lower concentrations will be effective here.
In addition, a 0.1-0.3% concentration can be used to prevent aging, as well as to acclimate the skin to retinoids (as a preparation before using a more concentrated 1.0% form of pure retinol).
2) Duration of use of retinol –
The study (“Two concentrations of topical tretinoin cause similar improvement of photoaging but different degrees of irritation” Griffiths CE, Kang S, Ellis CN et al.) shows that to achieve significant correction in older patients, the course of treatment should be at least 48 weeks . If we are talking about an average correction, the duration of the course should not be less than 36 weeks. And in any case, for any patients, the course should not be less than 24 weeks.
But there is one exception. Products with retinol can be prescribed for preparation before hardware rejuvenation methods, such as fractional RF lifting or laser resurfacing. In this case, even a 2-3 month course of pure retinol can significantly increase the effect of hardware methods. If you want to be guaranteed to get a pronounced anti-aging effect, and sooner than after 1 year, then the following scheme is suitable.
Carry out a course of 3 months with effective concentrations of pure retinol, after which do several fractional RF lifting procedures. These can be the following devices - 1) the “Venus Viva” device with a special “NanoFractional RF” applicator included in the kit, 2) a special tip for fractional grinding “Sublative RF”, which comes with the eTwo™ and Elos Plus™ devices. And it will be very effective.
3) Retinol microencapsulation technology –
If we talk about retinol esters, although they are not very effective, they have good stability. Those. the retinol in them is not destroyed by exposure to light and air. But pure retinol is quickly destroyed by both. Therefore, high-quality manufacturers use microencapsulation (or liposome) technology to stabilize pure retinol. In these cases, pure retinol molecules will be hidden in microcapsules or liposomes.
This protects pure retinol from degradation. When such technologies did not yet exist, high-quality manufacturers produced their products with pure retinol - only in opaque containers with a pump (dispenser). If retinol comes encapsulated, then such a dispenser is no longer needed. In addition, retinol in microcapsules has another excellent property - it significantly reduces the risk of skin irritation, which often occurs when using retinoids.
Important: many manufacturers of inexpensive cosmetics may not indicate the concentration of retinol at all. In addition, most manufacturers use non-encapsulated pure retinol in a cream or serum - and the product can come in a container without a dispenser, or in a transparent bottle (serum). Please note that if a manufacturer uses stabilized retinol in microcapsules or liposomes, this will always be written on the packaging. But don’t be confused: sometimes manufacturers write that their product contains a stable form of retinol, but we are talking about retinol palmitate, and not stabilized pure retinol (24stoma.ru).
What is vitamin E
This is a family of tocopherols and tocotrienols - eight antioxidants that protect body cells from free radicals. This is the name given to oxygen atoms that are missing one electron. They strive to take it away from everything they reach, damaging surrounding cells and causing their death. Vitamin E absorbs free radicals, reducing the harmful effects of solar radiation and improving antitumor protection.
Getting into skin cells, it reduces the synthesis of prostaglandins and nitrogen oxides - mediators of inflammation. Its wound healing properties are known. Therefore, vitamin E is used to treat inflammatory skin diseases - psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, ulcers and pustular dermatosis. The anti-inflammatory effectiveness of tocopherol for acne has been proven. A study on mice showed that tocopherol prevented skin cancer, but this did not work in humans.
The magical effects of vitamin E are the result of taking it orally. When used externally, it does not treat wounds, burns and scars - this is what the study showed. But in combination with retinol, phytonadione and vitamin C, it sometimes helps remove circles under the eyes. It is often added to anti-aging creams, but it is not yet clear whether it will help protect skin from aging. But it is known that in some people the external use of this vitamin causes an adverse reaction in the form of contact dermatitis.
Retinol acetate
Retinol acetate
Registration number: LSR-002668/08
Trade name of the drug : RETINOLA ACETATE
International nonproprietary name: Retinol
Chemical name
Retinol acetate - trans - 9,13 - dimethyl - 7 - (1,1,5 - trimethylcyclohexene - 5 - yl - 6 -) - nonatetraene - 7,9,11,13 - ol - 15 acetate.
Dosage form
Capsules.
Compound
One capsule contains:
active components:
retinol acetate solution for oral and external use
oily 8.60% - 0.132 ml (33000 ME)
excipients: refined deodorized sunflower oil
shell composition: gelatin, glycerol (glycerin), methyl parahydroxybenzoate (nipagin), quinoline yellow dye (quinoline yellow dye E-104).
Description
The spherical capsules are yellow in color, without streaks and mechanical impurities, filled with an oily liquid from light yellow to dark yellow in color without a rancid odor.
Pharmacotherapeutic group
Vitamin.
CodeATX:[A11CA01].
Pharmacological properties
Vitamin A has a general strengthening effect, normalizes tissue metabolism; participates in redox processes (due to the large number of unsaturated bonds), in the synthesis of mucopolysaccharides, proteins, lipids, in mineral metabolism, and in the processes of cholesterol formation. Enhances the production of lipase and trypsin, enhances myelopoiesis and cell division processes. Has a positive effect on the function of the lacrimal, sebaceous and sweat glands; increases resistance to diseases of the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract and intestines; increases the body's resistance to infection. Strengthens the division of epithelial skin cells, rejuvenates the cell population, inhibits keratinization processes, enhances the synthesis of glycosaminoglycans, activates the interaction of immunocompetent cells with each other and with epidermal cells. Stimulates skin regeneration. Participates in photoreception processes (promotes human adaptation to darkness). The local effect is due to the presence of specific retinol-binding receptors on the surface of epithelial cells.
Indications for use
Hypovitaminosis, vitamin deficiency A. In complex therapy:
-infectious and inflammatory diseases (dysentery, influenza, tracheitis, bronchitis, etc.);
- skin lesions and diseases (skin cracks, ichthyosis, hyperkeratosis, seborrheic dermatitis, psoriasis, neurodermatitis, some forms of eczema, skin tuberculosis);
- eye diseases (retinitis pigmentosa, hemeralopia, xerophthalmia, keratomalacia, eczematous eyelid lesions);
-gastrointestinal diseases (erosive gastroduodenitis, peptic ulcer of the stomach and duodenum);
- liver cirrhosis.
Contraindications
Hypersensitivity to the components of the drug, hypervitaminosis A, pregnancy, cholelithiasis, chronic pancreatitis, acute inflammatory skin diseases, childhood.
With caution: nephritis, heart failure stage II-III, alcoholism, liver cirrhosis, viral hepatitis, renal failure, old age.
Directions for use and doses
The use of the drug must be carried out under the supervision of a physician. The drug is taken orally after meals early in the morning or late in the evening.
Therapeutic doses for adults with mild to moderate vitamin deficiencies are up to 33,000 IU/day.
For eye diseases, adults are prescribed 100,000 IU of retinol acetate per day and at the same time 0.02 g of riboflavin.
For skin diseases, adults are prescribed 100,000 IU of retinol acetate per day.
The daily dose for adults should not exceed 100,000 IU.
Side effect
Allergic reaction to the components of the drug, hypervitaminosis A.
Overdose
Symptoms of acute overdose (develop 6 hours after administration): hypervitaminosis A: in adults - drowsiness, lethargy, double vision, dizziness, severe headache, nausea, uncontrollable vomiting, diarrhea, irritability, osteoporosis, bleeding gums, dryness and ulceration oral mucosa, peeling of the lips, skin (especially palms), confusion, increased intracranial pressure (in infants - hydrocephalus, protrusion of the fontanelle).
Symptoms of chronic intoxication: loss of appetite, bone pain, cracks and dry skin, lips, dry oral mucosa, gastralgia, vomiting, hyperthermia, asthenia, increased fatigue, headache, photosensitivity, pollakiuria, nocturia, polyuria, increased irritability, hair loss hair, yellow-orange spots on the soles, palms, in the area of the nasolabial triangle, hepatotoxic phenomena, intraocular hypertension, oligomenorrhea, portal hypertension, hemolytic anemia, bone changes on radiographs, convulsions; fetotoxic phenomena: malformations of the urinary system, growth retardation, early closure of epiphyseal growth zones.
Treatment: drug withdrawal, symptomatic therapy.
Interaction with other drugs
During long-term therapy with tetracyclines, it is not recommended to prescribe vitamin A (the risk of developing intracranial hypertension increases). Salicylates and glucocorticosteroids reduce the risk of side effects. Cholestyramine, colestipol, mineral oils, neomycin reduce the absorption of vitamin A (increasing the dose may be required). Oral contraceptives increase plasma concentrations of vitamin A. Isotretionine increases the risk of toxic effects. Weakens the effect of Ca2+ drugs, increases the risk of developing hypercalcemia. Vitamin E reduces the toxicity, absorption, hepatic storage and utilization of vitamin A; high doses of vitamin E can reduce vitamin A stores in the body.
special instructions
Do not take other multivitamin complexes containing vitamin A at the same time to avoid overdose.
Release form
Capsules 33000 ME.
25 or 50 capsules in orange glass jars, sealed with plastic caps. 10 capsules per blister pack made of polyvinyl chloride film and aluminum foil. Each jar or 3 or 5 blister packs along with instructions for use are placed in a cardboard pack.
Conditions for dispensing from pharmacies
Over the counter.
Storage conditions:
In a dry place, protected from light, at a temperature not exceeding 25°C. Keep out of the reach of children.
Best before date:
2 years. Should not be used after the expiration date.
Units:
pack
Should I take vitamin E supplements?
If a person eats more or less normally, he needs 4 years of extreme diet to use up all the vitamin E reserves in the liver. Therefore, tocopherol deficiency is rare. It usually appears if a person has impaired lipid absorption.
“Without fats, normal absorption of vitamin E is impossible, so it is important to include oils in your daily diet,” explains Nadezhda Nabatnikova. — Wheat germ oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil and soybean oil are rich in vitamin E. Nuts such as almonds and peanuts are also suitable sources.”
Only your doctor can decide whether you should take vitamin E supplements. If you self-medicate and drink “for health”, you can get hypervitaminosis. It is manifested by nausea, vomiting, weakness, headache and blurred vision. Particularly persistent ones lead themselves to disorders of the blood coagulation system.
Important to remember
- Vitamins A and E are fat soluble. They accumulate in the liver and enter the tissues that need them. Fats are needed not only for their preservation, but also for absorption
- Vitamin A is needed by humans for normal vision, skin condition, and even fetal development in a pregnant woman.
- A lack of vitamin A affects not only appearance, but also vision. If hypovitaminosis is not treated in time, you can go blind
- Systemic retinoids should not be taken during pregnancy - they cause serious fetal malformations
- Vitamin E is an antioxidant that protects the skin from free radicals
- Most people are not at risk of vitamin E deficiency. But hypervitaminosis with a tendency to bleeding is easy.
