Long-term vitamin A does not produce clinically significant hypertriglyceridemia: results from CARET, the beta-carotene and retinol efficacy trial.

Retinol and retinyl palmitate in the moderate doses tested in chemoprevention trials produce only a negligible increase in serum triglyceride levels. The effect is nonprogressive and is not associated with the kind of exaggerated response reported for interacting factors such as presence of diabetes mellitus and/or high baseline values for serum triglyceride concentration. These findings seem to represent an advantage for safety of retinol in relation to isotretinoin (13-cis-retinoic acid).