This subject along with many others are quite common. We will do our best to answer this and many other similar questions in this article which should ease your mind regarding this subject.
What Is An International Unit?
IU stands for International units and is a unit commonly used in the measurement of medications, vaccines and vitamins. The volume or mass that makes up one International unit is dependent on the concentration or potency of the substance and therefore varies from substance to substance depending on what is being measured.
How To Find Out The Conversion Value?
For a vitamin, consider contacting the vitamin manufacturer – their contact information is usually listed on the bottle.
Converting from mg or mcg to IU for Vitamins A, C, D and E
We’ve included mass equivalents of 1 IU for selected vitamins below. Note that the information contained here is purely for casual interests and is not intended to replace your doctor’s advice. Please use it at your own risk.
As with all calculations where health could suffer from inaccurate conversions, you are advised to check with a health professional before taking a dosage of any vitamin or supplement. If you wish to convert between micrograms (mcg) and milligrams (mg) you can do so using the mcg to mg converter. Should you be interested, we’ve covered the conversion of milligrams to milliliters (mg to ml) in an article here.
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Milligrams And Micrograms
If the unit is grams, which measures the mass of a substance, then one gram contains 1,000 milligrams or 1,000,000 micrograms.
To convert from milligrams to micrograms, multiply by 1,000. To convert from micrograms to milligrams, divide by 1,000.
International Units
One international unit, or IU, is a measurement of the biological effect that a specific substance has on the body.
For each type of vitamin preparation, there is a unique IU value based on the method used for formulating that vitamin. ••• Bigkhem/iStock/Getty Images
Water-Soluble Vitamins
The eight B-complex vitamins and vitamin C are water soluble. There is little danger of a build-up of excess amounts of water-soluble vitamins in the body.
Because they are stored for long periods of time, these vitamins can accumulate in the body. Taking excessive dosages of fat-soluble vitamins can have a toxic effect because they linger in the body for longer periods of time and cannot easily be purged. Recommended Dietary Allowance
Supplement labels provide a recommended dietary allowance (RDA) to inform consumers of the average amount of a specific vitamin they should consume daily.
Unless otherwise specified, the RDA on a supplement label refers to both genders older than four years. If the RDA for vitamin A as a retinol preparation is 3,000 IU, the equivalent in micrograms is 900 µg. One IU of d-alpha-tocopherol equals 0.67 mg.
Converted to micrograms, it equals 670 µg. In micrograms that is equivalent to 900 µg.