DISCRIMINATING BETWEEN ANIMAL AND PLANT FOOD SOURCES OF VITAMIN A IN 7-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN FROM A BIRTH COHORT IN FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA

Background: The intake of vitamin A in primary school children has been found to be generally adequate in previous Italian studies. Recently in the NAC-II birth cohort¹, the nutritional assessment showed a median intake of retinol equivalents (RE) equal to 603.7 μg/d. The aim of the present work was to assess vitamin A intake in the NAC-II cohort discriminating between animal and plant food sources. Methods: Intakes (median, 25th–75th centile) of RE and different vitamin A forms (retinol, and β-carotene) were derived from food information reported in each child’s 3-day dietary record using the Italian Food Composition Database (BDA). We compared observed median intakes with the corresponding Italian Dietary Reference Values². We estimated the percentage contribution of 18 food groups on RE within a food-group analysis. Results: Despite the median RE intake was adequate in the total sample (N=381), 14 children showed a RE intake (1773 μg/d, 1570– 2042 μg/d) above the tolerable upper intake level (UL, 1500 μg/d). The retinol intake of this subsample (252 μg/d, 211–320 μg/d) was in line with that of the total sample (211 μg/d, 148–272 μg/d). Thus, the differences in RE intake between the subsample and the total sample were due to different β-carotene intakes (subsample: 8489 μg/d, vs. total: 2376 μg/d). This also suggests that the main form of vitamin A intake was β-carotene. Moreover, RE derived primarily from vegetable sources in the total sample (50.8%) and the subsample (64.1%) and secondarily from “Milk and dairy products” (23.2%) in the total sample, while from “Meat and meat-products”— including liver — (17.5%) in the subsample. Conclusions: According to the LARN², 14 children exceeded the UL and were potentially at risk for adverse health effects of vitamin A (expressed as RE). However, as this UL likely referred to retinol and retinyl esters³, and in our sample RE intake mainly derived from plant-based food sources, this observation alleviates our initial concerns on excess vitamin A intake. Further studies on representative samples of the pediatric Italian population are needed to assess the intake of vitamin A in its different forms. ¹Giordani et al., Nutrients, 2022; 14(3):515. ²SINU, LARN, 2014. ³EFSA, EFSA Journal, 2015; 13(3):4028.