You Need To Know This Vitamin Info

By Dr. B

The basic building blocks of a healthy balanced diet are vitamins. The body needs them to function normally, as a matter of fact you could not live without them. You must take in small amounts of vitamins on a daily bases to stay healthy.

Our bodies have many specific functions and activities that require as specific nutrients to fuel the many reactions that take place every minute of every day. A very complicated and diverse chemical structure called a vitamin is what the body uses as fuel to function. One of the unique qualities of a vitamin is that our bodies can not produce them, so even though we only need them in very small quantities, we must get them from diet through ingestion.

The worth of vitamins and the need for their presence in the daily diet of humans became evident from a number of vitamin deficiency diseases that were fairly common in the old days. Diseases like scurvy and night blindness and their connection with the amount of intake of some particular type food has always been a subject of great interest to doctors and biologists. After consistent research and experiment, the existence of vitamins was established, and so was their importance for the human system.

There are two main classifications of vitamins, those that are water soluble and the ones that are oil or fat soluble. These classifications are not base on the chemical structure of the vitamins, but rather in terms of what they do for the body. Vitamin A,D, E and K are in the fat soluble family and vitamin B and C are both water soluble vitamins.

Vitamins by definition are compound that are gotten from outside the body. But that does not mean the only way to get a vitamin is to ingest it. We get a very important vitamin, vitamin D from exposure to sunlight and the ultraviolet rays it contains.

Vitamin deficiencies are a major contributor to diseases and malfunctions of the intricate machinery that the human body is. Since vitamins perform different important functions in the body, their absence upsets the normal routine of the system, and invites diseases, some of which can also be fatal. Night blindness, beriberi, rickets and scurvy are some of the dreaded diseases that can inflict a person who is not taking enough vitamins.

To eliminate the risk of diseases caused by vitamin deficiency, it is recommended to take a balanced nutritious diet which makes sure one gets the daily need of vitamins through food. In more recent times, the use of vitamin supplements is on the rise. These come in the form of capsules or tablets and take care of the regular daily need of vitamins in the human body.

Vitamins are therefore essential to the overall well-being of an organism. With judicious quantities of vitamin taken in daily, be it through food or form supplements, one can ensure a healthy life and eliminate the risk of a number of diseases.