iU Confused? A Guide to Vitamin Measurements

A Viridian Nutrition guide to vitamin and mineral comparison calculations.

Eating a varied and balanced diet can help you get the nutrients you need to maintain optimum health, however there will be times when we need to fill nutritional shortfalls.

Food supplements can help fill nutritional gaps. But how do you read the labels on vitamin and mineral supplements, to know how much you are taking?

Mg, Mcg, ug, IU the measuring of vitamins and minerals can be confusing. Here we help you through the vitamin measurement maze.

GRAM
A gram is a metric measurement of weight. An old imperial measure of weight is the ounce and one ounce = 28.4 grams.

MILLIGRAM
One milligram is one thousandth of a gram and one thousand micrograms. A milligram is generally abbreviated as mg.

MICROGRAM
One microgram is one millionth of a gram and one thousandth of a milligram. It is usually abbreviated as mcg or ug. Mcg and ug are the same.

IU
The IU is an International Unit, usually used to measure fat soluble vitamins including Vitamin A, D and E.

The conversion of IU to mg varies depending on the nutrient.

Vitamin A	Equals
One milligram of Beta Carotene	1667 IU of Vitamin A activity
15mg of Beta Carotene	25,000 IU of Vitamin A activity

Vitamin E	Equals
One milligram of Vitamin E	Approx 1.21 to 1.49IU (depending on the carrier)
400 IU of d-alpha tocopherol	268mg

Vitamin D	Equals
One microgram of Vitamin D	40 IU
400 IU of Vitamin D	10 ug

Please remember that 'more' isn't necessarily better in nutrition. Many nutrients are only required in microgram amounts and taking larger amounts could be unnecessary or even detrimental to health.

We hope this will help you when comparing different supplements in your local health food store, where you will find experienced staff able to give you further guidance.

Explore our full range of effective and ethical supplements here.