How Much Lutein Vitamin Can Be Taken Daily

Lutein is a natural pigment (carotenoid) found in dark-colored fruits and vegetables. It has been linked to good health in the eyes, skin, heart, veins and arteries, and it is important for healthy pregnancies. The best way to consume lutein is by eating foods that contain high amounts of the vitamin, but it is otherwise available as a dietary supplement at health food stores.

The Daily Dose

The daily dosage of lutein is age- and sex-specific and ranges from 6 to 10 milligrams every day. That does not sound like much until you find out that you would have to eat a large bowl of fresh spinach to get about 6 mg of lutein. This is absolutely possible if you are a vegetarian. If you are not, you will need to take a daily multivitamin to get the lutein your body needs.

Foods Containing Lutein

One of the best natural sources of lutein is kale. One cup of raw kale contains 26.5 mg of lutein, which is well over the recommended daily dose. Other sources of lutein include collards, turnip greens, green peas, corn, broccoli, papaya and oranges. The farther down the list you go, the less lutein the food contains. Collards contain 14.6 mg of lutein per cup (cooked), and an orange contains 0.2 mg for one large orange.

Multivitamins with Lutein

Your daily multivitamin may already contain lutein. Check the label, and if your multivitamin does not have lutein, consider switching to a product that does. Find a multivitamin that contains as much lutein as possible in a single dose. There are many vitamin makers out there, so you do not need to settle for the one you have always taken. And if you have never taken a multivitamin before, now is the time to start. The best multivitamins are sold at health food stores.

Multivitamin labels give vitamin quantities in International Units (IU), milligrams (mg) and micrograms (mcg). Converting one unit to the other can be tricky, unless you have a conversion calculator. Converting milligrams to micrograms can be a little confusing, but remember that one milligram equals 1,000 micrograms. Converting International Units is even more tricky because IU measurements are substance-specific, meaning that one IU of vitamin A is different than an IU of vitamin E. The calculator linked in Resources allows you to get very specific when dealing with IU measurements so that you can read your multivitamin label correctly.

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