Vitamins and Minerals for Good Health

Vitamins and minerals are substances your body needs in small but steady amounts for growth, functioning and health. Vitamins and minerals are called trace elements.

Vitamins are a group of essential nutrients that your body can not synthesize itself and must obtain them (in minute quantities) of food for maintaining good health.

Vitamins are essential for various biological processes, including growth, digestion, mental health and resistance to infection. They also help the body use carbohydrates, fats and proteins and act as catalysts – start or accelerate chemical reactions. Although vitamins are involved in converting food to energy, supply body calories. People need 13 different vitamins.

There are 2 types of vitamins:

• Water-soluble vitamins – (vitamin C, biotin and B vitamins) are dissolved in water and stored in the body in significant quantities. Are excreted in the urine.
• Fat-soluble vitamins – (vitamins A, D, E, K) which our body is not consumed immediately after ingestion, are stored in body fat and liver. Excess fat-soluble vitamins can accumulate in the body and become toxic.
• Name vitamin invented Polish biochemist Funk in 1912. Vita means life in Latin and the suffix-amine is short for amine; at that time it was presumed that the vitamins are amines. Although today we know that this is not true, the name changed.
• Vitamins were first identified due to diseases caused by lack of vitamins.

Diet

• All foods are the best source of vitamins and minerals because they are complex, contain fiber and other substances, which are obviously important for good health.
• Disease from lack of vitamins
• There are several diseases that are caused by insufficient supply of vitamins. You can get stronger and even endanger human life.

Some of these diseases are:

• Vitamin A deficiency – night blindness
• Vitamin B1 – beriberi
• B2
• B12 – malignant anemia (loss of red blood cells)
• B3 – pellagra
• C – scurvy
• D – rickets (calcium deficiency)

Names of vitamins

Some of the names are already outdated vitamins: vitamin B – in fact a complex of several vitamins (B-number, H and M), vitamin G – another name for riboflavin (vitamin B2).

Use names in the format “vitamin letter” and “vitamin letter number” is diminishing. This is especially true for vitamins H, M, B1, B2, B3 and B5, which are usually called their proper chemical names.

Conversely vitamins D and E are still called by their symbolic names, and vitamins A and C do not even have proper chemical names (since they are mixtures of chemicals).

Names of ascorbic acid and vitamin C are used equally often.

“Letter” vitamin is sometimes several names. For example:

• Vitamin A – retinol, retinaldehyde, retinol acid
• Vitamin B1 – thiamine
• Vitamin B2 – Riboflavin
• Vitamin B6 – pyridoxine, pyridoxal, pyridoxamine
• Vitamin B12 – cobalamin
• Vitamin C – Ascorbic Acid
• Vitamin D – calciferol
• Vitamin E – tocopherol, tocotrienol
• Vitamin K, phylloquinone.

You may be interested in reading Skin Vitamins and Benefits of Vitamin E. If you want read more Vitamin Good Skin Care

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