The importance of Vitamin A
Vitamin A is the central driving factor in the development of normal, healthy human tissue including all parts of the skin, literally from conception to death. If vitamin A was to disappear from earth tomorrow for some mysterious reason, no more humans would be born in the normal, recognizable form any more. We are human because of vitamin A.
Vitamin A is essential to assist the basal cell layer cells to specialise into the various functional epidermal cells above it. This process happens approximately once per month to five weeks. Without vitamin A this would not happen effectively, and healthy, functioning layers would not form.
Skin becomes thin because of a general lack of vitamin A, sun damage, loss of sex hormones, general ageing and excess exposure to cortisone(stress). If the skin is not assisted by proper nutrition of all elements which contribute to healthy cell behaviour, the end result will be malnutrition. Just as humans become very thin when they are starving and undernourished, so too does the skin, when it lacks essential vitamins and nutrients.