It can be easy to ingest more than 10,000 IU of vitamin A (more than three times the amount recommended for men and four times the amount recommended for women) if you eat a lot of forti ed cereal and liver in addition to taking a multivitamin containing retinol or retinyl compounds every day.

Plenty of evidence from earlier research shows that too much vitamin A can harm bones. Excess vitamin A can have other e ects as well. Birth defects occur more o en when pregnant women take more than 10,000 IU of supplemental vitamin A. To protect yourself, get most or all of your supplemental vitamin A in the form of beta carotene, and try to stick to the RDA for vitamin A (see Table 1, page 9)