Vitamins and Your Body: What is Essential About Vitamins?

(Excerpt from Vitamins and Our Body by John Spencer Ellis)  Have you ever wondered why the word ‘essential’ usually precedes the term, ‘vitamins’? The reason is simple. Vitamins as well as minerals ensure that our bodies function as they were designed. Interestingly, as important as vitamins are, the body lacks the ability to manufacture most on its own. Instead, it must rely on outside sources to meet its nutritional needs.

Vitamins are organic compounds and as such they’re found naturally in many of the foods we consume. They’re also available in the form of vitamin supplements. Thirteen different vitamins are needed to perform such crucial functions as helping protect against infections and disease, helping the body’s metabolism, helping the body grow and helping the body remove waste.  (to read more click here)

Dr. Dave’s Vitamin Basics:

Most scientists and nutritionists recommend taking vitamin supplements. The foods we eat simply don’t supply enough.

Vitamin A

is necessary to build healthy cells, especially those that line the mouth, stomach, intestines, and respiratory tract.  Since those cells are the barrier to invasion by bacteria and viruses, Vitamin A helps protect us from infections by preventing their entry into mouth, nose, lungs, and gastro-intestinal tract.

These individual vitamins in the B vitamin family are thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, folic acid, and cobalamin.  These are essential vitamins. Essential means that the body does not make that vitamin, or does not make enough of it, and it must be supplied by the diet or a deficiency state can result.

Let’s talk a bit about thiamin as an example of a vitamin that is found in food but has often been refined out by processing, leading to the need for supplementation. Thiamin helps the body produce energy from carbohydrates.  It makes sense that it’s found in high carbohydrate foods like whole grains. When a grain is refined, most of the thiamin is lost. For example, when whole wheat is refined, the outer part of the grain is removed and the remaining part is used to make white flour. Many nutrients are lost during the refining process.  The same thing happens when processing brown rice to make white rice.  Enriching the grains replaces some of the lost nutrients, although they may not have the same amount as before refining.  That’s why we recommend whole grains instead of refined grains.

Vitamin C provides antioxidants that protect your body from free radicals, which may cause heart disease and cancer It is responsible for producing collagen which is present in your muscles and bones. Collagen is responsible for holding the cells together. Vitamin C also boosts the immune system.

Vitamin D is critical for healthy bones.  It aids in the process of bone mineralization and helps absorb calcium.  Vitamin D functions more like a hormone than a vitamin, but it is considered essential because some people don’t produce enough.  Vitamin D is produced in the skin cells when exposed to sunlight.  In areas where the sun doesn’t shine for extended periods of time, or for those who are home bound or bedridden, this can be a problem.  That’s when taking a dietary supplement or drinking fortified milk is important. Food sources of Vitamin D are egg yolks, fatty fish, butter, milk fortified with Vitamin D.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant.  It helps reduce free radical damage in the fat layer of the cell.  Vitamin E is found in oils, nuts, wheat germ, whole grains, and nut butters like almond butter.  For people who don’t eat much fat, dietary supplements are a good source of Vitamin E.  Make sure you choose a mixed natural tocopherol.  It should contain alpha, gamma and delta tocopherol.

Minerals are important too. They regulate fluid balance, help muscle function and nerve function and keep bones healthy.

You probably already know how important calcium is for strong bones and teeth.  Making sure you get the right amount of calcium will help slow the rate of bone loss as you get older.  Most of bone building occurs by the mid-thirties, but it never stops.  Your bones are continually being “remodeled,” that is broken down and built up again.  The need to get the right amount of calcium never stops.  Calcium is also important for muscle and nerve function.  Your need varies depending on your age and whether you are male or female.

Vitamins: You Need to Know What Supplements You Are Taking

The supplement industry is fragmented and difficult to navigate. As a general rule of thumb, it is good to remember that quality and purity are costly for the manufacturer, so the cheaper your supplements, the likelier it is that they are of poor quality and poor purity and you are not getting the full benefits from them. The most expensive vitamins, in my opinion, are the ones that don’t get utilized by the body, so even if you bought them for cheap, you’re actually being taken for a ride.

Knowing what you are getting is not always easy. You may have to brush up on your research skills to wind up getting the best buys and bargains in supplements. What is happening now in the nutriceutical industry is that there is some standardization. GMP is a set of principles and procedures that helpsensure the products will have the required quality. Look at your supplements and see if they are GMP certified. If they are Triple GMP certified that means they have passed the quality and purity tests of three different certifying sources. I use those. Every single step of every single part of the manufacturing process is screened for potency, purity and quality. I’ll pay extra for that. I’ve found that it’s worth it.  In office we sell Metegenics products.  They are the only company that I have found that are triple GMP certified.  We would gladly consult with you and ship what you need right to your door.

Do You Want More Information on Vitamins an Supplements?

I hope this basic rundown on the basic vitamins was helpful for you.  For more information and recommended quality supplement advice, contact me to get your copy of the  “Living Longer: Vitamins and Supplements” audio.

Related posts:

1. Acupuncture for Mind and Body in Clifton, NJ What is Acupuncture? Acupuncture is a great addition to the...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.