Fluctuations of NK activity in human volunteers receiving vitamin A or a placebo daily

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of prolonged daily administration of Vitamin A on NK activity. A placebo and a pill containing 50,000 IU retinol acetate (RA) were taken daily for 120 days by 5 and 6 healthy volunteers respectively. NK activity was determined on days -45, -40, -30 and -10 to calculate each volunteer's inherent variability and then twice a month throughout the administration period. To minimize the experimental variability, an internal control was inserted in each assay. This consisted of two lymphocyte preparations from two healthy individuals divided into cryopreserved aliquots. The cytotoxicity percentage in each assay was corrected against these reference standards and converted into NK values by angular transformation. No increase in NK activity was noted during the study in the group receiving RA. A marked individual variability, however, was noted in both groups.