Vitamin A

If you’re eating a healthy and varied diet, you should be pretty good for vitamin A - you’ll get plenty of it from pretty common foods, including tomatoes, eggs and leafy green vegetables. But if you’re not getting enough, you’ll feel it in your body.

Vitamin A - or retinol - has a few important functions that you rely on every day. It helps you see in dim light, and keeps the skin and lining of your body healthy. Because it has antioxidant properties, it can help protect your cells against the effects of free radicals - the molecules that might play a role in cancer and other diseases when your body is exposed to tobacco smoke and radiation. Crucially, it’s also a key player in keeping your body defended against illness and infection - so if you find you’re getting sick easily, it might be time to bring more vitamin A into your lifestyle.

Eating more foods that are rich in vitamin A is an easy way to top up what you need. You could add milk and yoghurt to your diet, or opt for oily fish and cheese in addition to yellow, red and green vegetables or fruit, which contain beta-carotene. Your body can convert beta-carotene into retinol in a pinch.

You should be aiming to get between 600 and 700 mg of vitamin A per day, and hopefully you can get everything you need from your diet - but if you’d like a little top-up, your local pharmacy will be able to provide you with Vitamin A supplements that can help you through the day.

That said - be careful about taking too much vitamin A. A large dose can cause nausea, vomiting and vertigo in the short term, and be even more serious if you sustain an overly large dose over a long period of time. For anyone, especially older people, ingesting too much vitamin A (over 1,500 mg) can also affect your bones, making them more likely to fracture. If you’re pregnant, having too much vitamin A can harm your unborn baby.

If you’re concerned about how much vitamin A you should be taking, ask your community pharmacist for their recommendations. Over the course of a quick chat, they’ll be able to tell you if you’re having too much or not enough, and will advise you on how to get the right amount, whether it’s a case of adjusting your diet or investing in supplements.

Your local pharmacy team is composed of medical professionals who are trained to give you the best advice for staying healthy all year round - and when it comes to your health, the best strategy often comes down to preparation.

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Before a weak immune system gets the better of you, check out your nearest chemist and have a chat with a friendly pharmacist to get to grips with the vitamins and minerals your body needs to work at full capacity on a daily basis.