What is the RDA for Vitamin A?

[ett]

I was just reading the post in Feeding about fish oils and there was mention of too much vitamin A. I'm trying to find out what is the RDA for vitamin A but seem to be finding different answers on line. One site says it is around 2300 IU/day. But if you look at the women's one a day bottle, it says theirs contain 2500 IU which is 50% of the RDA. So which is correct? Help me clear up this confusion. Thanks!

[brittone2]

It is complicated, IIRC. (eta: I mean, there is an existing RDA but in terms of toxicity, look up studies on synthetic vs. naturally occurring vitamin A because IIRC synthetic is easier to achieve toxic levels with. )Haven't looked into it in recent years, but in the past, some levels that were deemed toxic in pregnant women were set using levels with synthetic vits. With naturally occurring A, there are studies demonstrating the same levels might not be toxic. Balancing A and D properly helps reduce the toxicity IIRC. Sorry I'm not more help...it has been a while since i've looked into this directly.

[ett]

It is very confusing. It looks like they changed the RDA around 2002(?) to be lower around 2300 IU for women. But looking at all the multi-vitamin bottles at Whole Foods yesterday, almost all of them contain over 4000IU. Some of the mega vitamins contained 10,000 IU. I couldn't find any bottles whose number matched the new RDA.