Background: The intake of vitamin A in primary school children has been found to be generally adequate in previous Italian studies.
Recently in the NAC-II birth cohort1, the nutritional assessment showed a median intake of retinol equivalents (RE) equal to 603.7 μg/d.
The aim of the present work was to assess vitamin A intake in the NAC-II cohort discriminating between animal and plant food sources.
Methods: Intakes (median, 25th–75th centile) of RE and different vitamin A forms (retinol, and β-carotene) were derived from food
information reported in each child’s 3-day dietary record using the Italian Food Composition Database (BDA). We compared observed
median intakes with the corresponding Italian Dietary Reference Values2. We estimated the percentage contribution of 18 food groups
on RE within a food-group analysis.
Results: Despite the median RE intake was adequate in the total sample (N=381), 14 children showed a RE intake (1773 μg/d, 1570–
2042 μg/d) above the tolerable upper intake level (UL, 1500 μg/d). The retinol intake of this subsample (252 μg/d, 211–320 μg/d) was
in line with that of the total sample (211 μg/d, 148–272 μg/d). Thus, the differences in RE intake between the subsample and the total
sample were due to different β-carotene intakes (subsample: 8489 μg/d, vs. total: 2376 μg/d). This also suggests that the main form of
vitamin A intake was β-carotene. Moreover, RE derived primarily from vegetable sources in the total sample (50.8%) and the subsample
(64.1%) and secondarily from “Milk and dairy products” (23.2%) in the total sample, while from “Meat and meat-products”— including
liver — (17.5%) in the subsample.
Conclusions: According to the LARN2, 14 children exceeded the UL and were potentially at risk for adverse health effects of vitamin A
(expressed as RE). However, as this UL likely referred to retinol and retinyl esters3, and in our sample RE intake mainly derived from
plant-based food sources, this observation alleviates our initial concerns on excess vitamin A intake. Further studies on representative
samples of the pediatric Italian population are needed to assess the intake of vitamin A in its different forms.
1Giordani et al., Nutrients, 2022; 14(3):515.
2SINU, LARN, 2014.
3EFSA, EFSA Journal, 2015; 13(3):4028.
