Why Vitamins?

Vitamins are crucial to your good health. Since your body cannot produce vitamins on its own, you need to put it into your body through food and supplements. Sometimes the food we consume does not provide everything we need. If one lacks a certain vitamin or group of vitamins, his body functions may be effected to the point of weakness, disease or even death.

High fructose, corn syrup, bleached flour, ingredients that can't be pronounced, even fresh fruit like apples lose vitamins by the hour. The vital vitamins and minerals in the food supply today have been extremely diminished. Many nutritional experts agree that even if one was to eat 100% raw and organic fruits and vegetables, picked and eaten same-day straight from the farm, decades of farming has left large amounts of farmlland depleted. One would have to consume 8-12 times the amount of produce, in some cases, to absorb the vitamins many foods contained decades ago. While 1 out of every 10,000 or so people pick their own food, the rest of world relies on several-days to several-weeks old, processed, canned, previously cooked, etc. food to remain healthy and some vitamin loss often occurs when preparing foods.

Everybody critically needs vitamins to work, grow, and develop properly, which makes them extremely important on a daily basis. But it doesn't stop there. The human body also requires vitamins to do many things, such as ward off disease, boost immune system response, and even improve overall moods. When the skin gets a cut, the human body needs a good number of vitamins to clot. When one gets sick, the body requires a more than average amount of vitamins to help fight the virus (it is good to note here again that the typical diet does not even provide the average amount of vitamins needed on a daily basis). Some vitamins even help produce energy throughout the body. People still feeling tired regardless of making good efforts to eat all the right things may very well be not consuming the appropriate amount vitamins. When this happens, there is a very high chance the body isn't getting the vitamins needed to convert what is being eaten into energy. Vitamins are even involved in making sure objects are seen in color. Calcium, as so many have thought was an end-all solution to osteoporosis, does not work optimally unless sufficient amounts of Vitamin D are provided.

Most people don't realize just how extremely critical vitamins are. For starters, vitamins regulate reactions that occur in metabolism, One can consume all the right amounts of these fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, get all the exercise needed, but unless there ALSO are VERY ADEQUATE amounts of vitamins in the body to regulate how these macronutrients are used, benefits achieved will be SLIM TO NONE! To repeat, a VERY ADEQUATE amount of vitamins are needed to get the benefits of exercise and macronutrients. Absence of just a single vitamin blocks one or more specific metabolic reactions in a cell and eventually may disrupt the metabolic balance within a cell and in our entire body.

With the exception of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), all of the water-soluble vitamins (meaning vitamins that need to be replenished EACH and EVERY day because they are flushed out) assist enzymes that function in energy transfer/metabolism of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins. In other words, it is extremely difficult for our bodies to break down these nutrients into energy we can use without vitamins. A daily multivitamin is a great nutrition insurance policy.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A does much more than help you see in the dark. It stimulates the production and activity of white blood cells, takes part in remodeling bone, helps maintain the health of endothelial cells (those lining the body's interior surfaces), and regulates cell growth and division.

Vitamin B: Folate, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin B12

One of the advances that changed the way we look at vitamins was the discovery that too little folate, one of the eight B vitamins, is linked to birth defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly, and getting enough folic acid could prevent these birth defects but the timing is critical - for folate to be effective, it must be taken in the first few weeks after conception, often before a woman knows she is pregnant. Enough folate, at least 400 micrograms a day, isn't always easy to get from food. That's why women of childbearing age are urged to take extra folic acid as a supplement. The other exciting discovery about folate and two other B vitamins, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, is that they may help fight heart disease and some types of cancer.

People who do not eat any meat, fish, poultry, or dairy products are at risk of becoming deficient in vitamin B12, since B12 is only found naturally in animal products. That's why vegans should make sure to include B12-fortified foods or a B12 supplement in their diets. A much more common cause of deficiency, especially in older people, is a lack of stomach acid, because stomach acid is required to liberate vitamin B12 from food. An estimated 10 to 30 percent of adults over the age of 50 have difficulty absorbing vitamin B12 from food, providing yet another reason to take a multivitamin. Symptoms of B12 deficiency include memory loss, disorientation, hallucinations, and tingling in the arms and legs. Some people diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer's disease are actually suffering from the more reversible vitamin B12 deficiency.

Folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 play key roles in recycling homocysteine into methionine, one of the 20 or so building blocks from which the body builds new proteins. Without enough folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12, this recycling process becomes inefficient and homocysteine levels increase. Several observational studies show that high levels of homocysteine are associated with increased risks of heart disease and stroke. Increasing intake of folate, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 decreases homocysteine levels. And some observational studies, including the Nurses' Health Study, show lower risks of cardiovascular disease among people who use multivitamin supplements. A recent analysis of multiple studies suggests that folic acid supplements can reduce the risk of stroke, especially in people who have not already suffered a stroke.

In addition to recycling homocysteine, folate plays a key role in building DNA, the complex compound that forms our genetic blueprint. Observational studies show that people who get higher than average amounts of folate from their diets or folic acid supplements for 15 years or more have lower risks of colon cancer and breast cancer. This could be especially important for those who drink alcohol, since alcohol blocks the absorption of folate and inactivates circulating folate. An interesting observation from the Nurses' Health Study is that higher intake of folate blunts the increased risk of breast cancer seen among women who have more than one alcoholic drink a day. A more recent study from Sweden found that a high folate intake can protect against breast cancer even in women who have only a drink a day or less.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C has been in the public eye for a long time. Even before its discovery in 1932, nutrition experts recognized that something in citrus fruits could prevent scurvy, a disease that killed as many as two million sailors between 1500 and 1800. In the 1970s, Chemistry and Peace Nobel laureate Linus Pauling promoted daily megadoses of vitamin C (the amount in 12 to 24 oranges) as a way to prevent colds and some chronic diseases. There's no question that vitamin C plays a role in controlling infections. It's also a powerful antioxidant that can neutralize harmful free radicals, and it helps make collagen, a tissue needed for healthy bones, teeth, gums, and blood vessels.

Vitamin D

If you don't or can't get outside for at least a 15-minute daily walk in the sun, odds are you don't get enough vitamin D. African-Americans and others with dark skin, as well as older individuals, tend to have much lower levels of vitamin D, due to less formation of the vitamin from the action of sunlight on skin. Worldwide, an estimated 1 billion people have inadequate levels of vitamin D in their blood, and deficiencies can be found in all ethnicities and age groups. A study of teens in Boston, for example, found that 42 percent had insufficient levels of vitamin D, while an international study of post-menopausal women with osteoporosis found that more than 60 percent had inadequate levels of vitamin D.

Vitamin D helps ensure that the body absorbs and retains calcium and phosphorus, both critical for building bone. Laboratory studies also show that vitamin D keeps cancer cells from growing and dividing, and plays a critical role in controlling infections. Some preliminary studies indicate that insufficient intake of vitamin D is associated with an increased risk of fractures, and that vitamin D supplementation may prevent them, especially when vitamin D is taken in conjunction with calcium. It may also help increase muscle strength, which in turn helps to prevent falls, a common problem that leads to substantial disability and death in older people.

Other early studies suggest an association between low vitamin D intake and increased risks of breast, colon, and other cancers, as well as increased risk of multiple sclerosis. A recent randomized trial among postmenopausal women showed significant reductions in cancer incidence among those randomized to vitamin D. A promising report in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that taking vitamin D supplements may even reduce overall mortality rates: A combined analysis of multiple studies found that taking modest levels of vitamin D supplements was associated with a statistically significant 7 percent reduction in mortality from any cause.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E supplements may prevent heart disease. Promising observational studies, including the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, suggested 20 to 40 percent reductions in coronary heart disease risk among individuals who took vitamin E supplements (usually containing 400 IU or more) for least two years. Vitamin E supplementation has been linked to a 24 percent lower risk of cardiovascular death. And among women ages 65 and older, vitamin E supplementation reduced the risk of major cardiac events by 26 percent. Vitamin E supplementation (as part of a daily antioxidant pill) has been found to reduce the risk of cancer and the risk of dying from any cause in men, and a recent trial of vitamin E in Israel showed a marked reduction in coronary heart disease among people with type 2 diabetes

Vitamin K

Vitamin K helps make four of the 13 proteins needed for blood clotting. Its role in maintaining the clotting cascade is so important that people who take anticoagulants such as warfarin (Coumadin) must be careful to keep their vitamin K intake stable. Lately, researchers have demonstrated that vitamin K is also involved in building bone. Low levels of circulating vitamin K have been linked with low bone density, and supplementation with vitamin K shows improvements in biochemical measures of bone health. A report from the Nurses' Health Study suggests that women who get at least 110 micrograms of vitamin K a day are 30 percent less likely to break a hip than women who get less than that. Data from the Framingham Heart Study also shows an association between high vitamin K intake and reduced risk of hip fracture in men and women and increased bone mineral density in women. National data suggests that only about one in four Americans meets the goal for vitamin K intake from food.