Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol 10, Issue 5 460-465, Copyright © 1991 by American College of Nutrition

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Serum concentrations of retinol and retinyl esters in adults in response to mixed vitamin A and carotenoid containing meals

H. M. Rasmussen, G. E. Dallal, E. Phelan and R. M. Russell
USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts 02111.

Previous studies using spectrophotometric methods for vitamin A analysis concluded that fasting prior to blood collection is not necessary for determining vitamin A status of children or young adult subjects. We measured the effect of mixed vitamin A and carotenoid containing meals with less than 3, 50, and 100% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin A on serum concentrations of retinyl esters, retinol, and carotenoids in elderly and young adults after an overnight fast. Retinyl ester concentrations rose significantly in both age groups with a numerically higher rise over baseline in the elderly subjects: 6.0 +/- 0.9 micrograms/dl for elderly (p less than 0.001), 5.0 +/- 0.5 micrograms/dl for young (p less than 0.001) at 50% RDA; 9.0 +/- 1.3 micrograms/dl for elderly (p less than 0.001) and 6.8 +/- 1.6 micrograms/dl for young (p less than 0.05) at 100% RDA. We conclude that in both young and elderly adults, but especially in the elderly, fasting conditions are necessary for the accurate assessment of vitamin A status if spectrophotometric methods are used for measuring vitamin A.

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