Failure of a massive single oral dose of vitamin A to prevent deficiency.

Pereira, Sheila M., and Begum, Almas (1971). Archives of Disease in Childhood, 46, 525. Failure of a massive single oral dose of Vitamin A to prevent deficiency. Preschool children maintained on low and moderate carotene diets were given a single oral dose of 50,000 jg vitamin A palmitate. On the low carotene diet, xerosis was observed in 8 weeks' time in the control group of children, and in 10 weeks' time in the children given the load of vitamin A. Statistical differences in serum vitamin A values between the groups were not of significance after 18 weeks. Children on a moderate carotene diet did not benefit from the loading dose of vitamin A.