There is a large variety of vitamins available which can help you to stay healthy. These vitamins as well as other very important minerals are also known as micronutrients. Your body requires a steady influx of these nutrients so that your cells are able to carry out all of the biochemical reactions that are required of them. Micronutrients help you to grow properly, aid with food digestion and help you to be more alert mentally. In addition, they make your body more resistant to infectious diseases and they aid with the digestion of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Vitamins and minerals also act as catalysts which means that they help to speed up many important chemical reactions within your body cells. Essentially then, protein, fats and carbohydrates provide you with energy, whereas, vitamins and minerals help with cellular function.
Most vitamins and minerals are not directly produced by our body. For this reason, we need to get our vitamins from the food we eat or by taking additional supplements. In the event that you become deficient in a particular vitamin or mineral over the course of time, you may end up developing a particular disease. This adverse situation can often be turned around simply by supplementing yourself with the nutrient which you are deficient in.
There are 13 vitamins overall. Of these, four are the fat soluble type and the remaining nine are considered to be water soluble. The fat soluble variety has the ability to be stored in various parts of your body. For instance, they can be stored within the fat cells as well as in certain organs, in particular, the liver. Typically, water soluble vitamins will not get stored in any great quantity within your body, so you need to be getting a regular influx of these on a fairly regular basis.
Some of the fat soluble vitamins which can be stored within your body include vitamins A, D, E and K. These will dissolve within fatty tissue and they need to react with bile in order to be successfully absorbed. The fat soluble vitamins are additionally stored within your tissues so if they build up too high, then they can become toxic.
Vitamin C as well as the eight B vitamins are considered to be the water soluble variety. These include thiamine or B1, riboflavin or B2, niacin or B3, pantothenic acid or B5, pyroxidine or B6, vitamin B12, biotin and folic acid. All of these will dissolve in water, so one has to be careful as they can be washed right out of the food during the preparation and cooking process. Water soluble vitamins are both absorbed and excreted very easily. Since they do not get stored to any great extent in your tissues, they will rarely reach levels which are considered toxic.
Now ultimately, you should be able to get all of your vitamins and minerals in the food you eat, at least in theory. The trouble is, we often come up short on nutrition with our present day diets. For this reason, it is a good idea to supplement our diet with selected vitamins and minerals.
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