Donna L Brogan.com

Vitamins and nutritional supplements are an essential part of our being, usually found in the foods we eat.  They represent a multi-billion dollar business and are getting bigger each year.  Their success is due in part, because people have been searching for ways to get themselves more healthy and more in control of their lives. Many people all over the world now rely on taking vitamin and nutritional supplements  in order to get the vitamins and minerals necessary to lead active and healthy lives.

Congress voted to change the Food and Drug Administration’s regulations of nutritional supplements in 1994, thus making supplements much more popular. Since then the industry has boomed.  Most stores in America now supply vitamins and minerals to keep us healthy. The good thing about this is that people are trying to be healthy. People need to educate themselves as to what vitamins and minerals are important to their bodies and how they are used by their bodies.  Don’t get discouraged because there is enough information available to help you know what is right for you. 

In order to really know if vitamin and mineral supplements are going to benefit your family, you should check with your local doctor. He or she will be able to give you the information that you need to make educated conclusions about the usefulness of vitamins and minerals for you.

There are many different kinds of vitamins that can help your body. These vitamins, along with the essential minerals, are things that your body needs, in small amounts, which promote good biochemical reactions within your body and within your cells. They make you grow right, help you digest your food, make you more mentally alert and more mentally sound, help you to be resistant to infectious diseases, and help your body to use carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Also, vitamins and minerals are catalysts in your body, which speed up or initiate chemical reactions. The difference between the vitamins and the proteins you get from food is that you don’t burn up the vitamins, so you can’t use them for energy.

 Because your body does not make most vitamins and minerals directly, you have to get them from food sources or from vitamin supplements. However, even today there are arguments within the medical community about whether or not supplements are really important and whether or not people should be taking them for their health. When taken correctly, there can be a lot of benefit to vitamins and minerals being taken as supplements. If you aren’t eating correctly your body may not be getting enough of a certain vitamin or mineral for a long period of time. A person may develop a certain disease or condition.  This will usually be fixed when the vitamin or mineral is put back in your body.

 Basically, there are 13 vitamins, fat-soluble and water soluble. The ones that are fat-soluble can be stored in your body fat  and certain organs such as your liver.  They can be stored in your body for a long time. The water-soluble vitamins do not get stored in your body in large amounts.  The vitamins that are fat-soluble include A, D, E and K.  These dissolve in lipids and require bile (secretions from the liver) in order to be absorbed  They are also stored in tissues, and too much of these vitamins can be toxic to you.

The water-soluble vitamins are going to be C and some of the B vitamins. These are thiamine, which is B1, Riboflavin, which is B2, niacin, pyridoxine, which is B6, pantothenic acid, which is B5, vitamin B12, biotin and folic acid. These dissolve in water, so a different way of cooking, such as steaming, may be necessary to keep from losing the the content. They are easily absorbed and excreted, and are not stored easily in your tissues, so will seldom reach toxic levels.

All of these vitamins are found in food, but if you aren’t eating correctly and are unable to get the food that you need in order to get the vitamins, you are going to have to turn to nutritional supplements to make sure that you are getting all of the vitamins and minerals that your body is going to need.