I have a confusion about retinoids that I haven’t been able to find an answer to:
If retinoids are approximately vitamin A, does this just mean that the average person is very vitamin A deficient? Should they just be eating vitamin A instead? (The best source is probably animal liver.) Surely this would have not just the beneficial skin effects but also lots of other positive effects on the body (surely facial skin is not the only part of the body bottlenecked by vitamin A).
I wonder if people who eat/absorb lots of vitamin A don’t get any marginal benefit from retinoids.
Btw I’ll pay $30 for a satisfying answer to this
Clarification: By vitamin A, I literally mean vitamin A. The compound that can be used without conversion. For example, the compound that is consumed through animal sources like liver.
Interesting question! I hypothesize the following:
Vitamin A is distributed throughout the body, so only a small amount actually benefits the skin. The body tightly regulates how much retinol is converted into retinoic acid, meaning that even if you consume a lot of vitamin A, your skin won’t necessarily receive much retinoic acid. Topical retinoids, on the other hand, deliver a concentrated dose directly to the skin, providing targeted benefits that dietary vitamin A alone can’t achieve. Even people with sufficient vitamin A levels in their bodies can still see significant skin improvements from topical retinoids due to their localized effectiveness. Also, consuming large amounts of vitamin A for additional benefits isn’t advisable due to the risk of toxicity.
As a crude comparison, just drinking water doesn’t automatically give you well-hydrated skin, while a moisturizer directly targets your skin’s hydration.
When you say vitamin A, do you literally mean vitamin A, or the similar potential-precursor compound found in plants that is often mistaken as vitamin A? See my other comment.
My (34) skin has just now started to look aged. In response to that and migraines (linked to magnesium deficiency), I’ve started eating liver a lot. I’ll report back in a year.
Dietary vitamin A (beta carotene) is not the active form of vitamin A (retinoic acid), it needs to be converted into the active form by the body’s enzymes. Once retinoic acid is formed, it can bind to the retinoic acid receptor and regulate gene expression.
Retinoid treatment bypasses these enzymes and directly activates retinoic acid receptor signaling. So, eating vitamin A in the form of beta carotene won’t directly increase retinoic acid receptor signaling because the rate-limiting step is the enzymes, but retinoid treatment will. This is also why you can’t overdose on vitamin A by eating carrots.
Does this meet your criteria for a good answer? If not I can explain in more detail.
Dietary vitamin A (beta carotene) is not the active form of vitamin A (retinoic acid), it needs to be converted into the active form by the body’s enzymes.
It is possible to eat the active form of vitamin A, for example through animal sources like liver.
When I said vitamin A, I meant vitamin A (not the compound in plants that can be lossily converted into vitamin A).
The highly active form of vitamin A is isotretinoin, which you can take orally. It has substantial side effects though, meaning it’s generally only used for severe (cystic) acne.
If you want to think of it as a kind of deficiency you can, but then only your skin is deficient in vitamin A (not the rest of your body).
I have a confusion about retinoids that I haven’t been able to find an answer to:
If retinoids are approximately vitamin A, does this just mean that the average person is very vitamin A deficient? Should they just be eating vitamin A instead? (The best source is probably animal liver.) Surely this would have not just the beneficial skin effects but also lots of other positive effects on the body (surely facial skin is not the only part of the body bottlenecked by vitamin A).
I wonder if people who eat/absorb lots of vitamin A don’t get any marginal benefit from retinoids.
Btw I’ll pay $30 for a satisfying answer to this
Clarification: By vitamin A, I literally mean vitamin A. The compound that can be used without conversion. For example, the compound that is consumed through animal sources like liver.
Interesting question! I hypothesize the following:
Vitamin A is distributed throughout the body, so only a small amount actually benefits the skin. The body tightly regulates how much retinol is converted into retinoic acid, meaning that even if you consume a lot of vitamin A, your skin won’t necessarily receive much retinoic acid. Topical retinoids, on the other hand, deliver a concentrated dose directly to the skin, providing targeted benefits that dietary vitamin A alone can’t achieve. Even people with sufficient vitamin A levels in their bodies can still see significant skin improvements from topical retinoids due to their localized effectiveness. Also, consuming large amounts of vitamin A for additional benefits isn’t advisable due to the risk of toxicity.
As a crude comparison, just drinking water doesn’t automatically give you well-hydrated skin, while a moisturizer directly targets your skin’s hydration.
When you say vitamin A, do you literally mean vitamin A, or the similar potential-precursor compound found in plants that is often mistaken as vitamin A? See my other comment.
My (34) skin has just now started to look aged. In response to that and migraines (linked to magnesium deficiency), I’ve started eating liver a lot. I’ll report back in a year.
ooh thx
Confound: I may also start eating a lot more collagen/gelatin, because it is delicious and afaict it does something.
Dietary vitamin A (beta carotene) is not the active form of vitamin A (retinoic acid), it needs to be converted into the active form by the body’s enzymes. Once retinoic acid is formed, it can bind to the retinoic acid receptor and regulate gene expression.
Retinoid treatment bypasses these enzymes and directly activates retinoic acid receptor signaling. So, eating vitamin A in the form of beta carotene won’t directly increase retinoic acid receptor signaling because the rate-limiting step is the enzymes, but retinoid treatment will. This is also why you can’t overdose on vitamin A by eating carrots.
Does this meet your criteria for a good answer? If not I can explain in more detail.
Hi, thanks for responding. You say:
It is possible to eat the active form of vitamin A, for example through animal sources like liver.
When I said vitamin A, I meant vitamin A (not the compound in plants that can be lossily converted into vitamin A).
So this doesn’t answer the question IMO
The highly active form of vitamin A is isotretinoin, which you can take orally. It has substantial side effects though, meaning it’s generally only used for severe (cystic) acne.
If you want to think of it as a kind of deficiency you can, but then only your skin is deficient in vitamin A (not the rest of your body).
How do we know?