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Vitamins are an integral part of our lives. Vitamins are essential for good health. They are found in a variety of foods. A good way to meet your needs is to eat a well balanced diet with a wide variety of foods. Choose a vitamin to learn more about them.
Why take them? What are their benefits? What dosages should you take? Which vitamins should you avoid, if any?
There are over 50 vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that can keep you healthy and fit.
The many different vitamins required by man were found to be similar because they are made of the same organic elements--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and sometimes nitrogen. (Vitamin B-12 also contains cobalt.) They were found to be different because their elementary structures are arranged differently. At first, no one knew what vitamins were chemically, so they were identified by letters. Later, in some cases, what was thought to be one vitamin turned out to be many, and to differentiate numbers were added to the letters; the vitamin B complex is the best example.
When some of these organic compounds were found unnecessary for human needs, they were removed from the list of essential vitamins, which accounts for some of the gaps in the letters and numbers. So now, hoping to minimize confusion, we have only 13 vitamins that are claimed essential.
Anyone who reads a food label or the fine print on the back of a vitamin bottle sees nutritional values compared to RDA's (the Recommended Daily Allowance). These numbers are the nutritional recommended values for 18 essential vitamins and minerals that have been established to "serve as a goal for good nutrition."
Each of the 13 essential vitamins performs one or more specific functions in the body. If any one is missing, a deficiency disease becomes apparent. Vitamins do not provide energy, nor do they construct or build any part of the body. They are specifically needed for transforming foods into energy and body maintenance. Research indicates that getting enough vitamins is essential to life. In contrast, the body has no use for excess vitamins. High doses of certain vitamins can be dangerous, even fatal. Add to that the complication that the body can only store some vitamins for only relatively short periods. The fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are absorbed along with fat from various foods and are stored in the body. The water-soluble vitamins, the B's and C, generally are not stored.
How They Work?
A lot of people think vitamins can replace food. They cannot. In fact, vitamins cannot be assimilated without ingesting food. That is why we suggest taking them with a meal. Vitamins help regulate metabolism, help convert fat and carbohydrates into energy, and assist in forming bone and tissue.
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