Role of Vitamin A in the production of human embryonic blood cells

[curlygirl]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0224091753.htm

There are two interesting thing about this article, intellectually about too much vitamin A causing low blood cell development, but more interesting for our group WHY the authors are doing the research.

Here is the why:
"Niels-Bjarne Woods' research is about finding ways of artificially generating blood stem cells for use in blood stem cell transplants to patients with blood disorders and cancers, who do not have access to a suitable donor.

"The current research findings increase our understanding of the complexity of the process of blood formation during embryonic development. We hope that this, together with new future discoveries, will lead to the generation of blood stem cells in the laboratory, which in turn can be used to treat blood disorders and malignancies," says Niels-Bjarne Woods."

Here is the Vitamin A part in summary:
"The researchers observed that increased levels of retinoic acid drastically reduced the number of blood cells that could be produced. A reduction in the retinoic acid instead increased the production of blood cells by 300 per cent. On the basis of these results, Niels-Bjarne Woods and his colleagues propose a new explanatory model of how retinoic acid affects the embryonic development of blood.

Even if vitamin A is required for a normal pregnancy, it has long been known that too much vitamin A can be damaging to the fetus, with the risk of fetal malformation and miscarriage. Pregnant women have therefore been recommended to limit their consumption of foods that are high in vitamin A in the form of retinoids, such as liver."

[Chirley]

The anomaly is that my Vitamin A level used to be 0.2 (1.6-2.3) and I've been on replacement therapy. My latest blood test shows 1.4 and my pancytopenia has worsened. Shrug shoulders.