Vitamins - Selecting The Best Vitamin For Improved Health
Get the very best vitamins for improved health. Learn about raw material sources, manufacturing and testing standards, along with the latest family health applications for vitamin supplements.
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Keys To Total Health
Vitamins play a role in every aspect of your health, including your sense of well-being, alertness, energy level and stamina. They help give you smooth, clear skin, strong bones, joints and muscles, healthy teeth and gums and resistance to colds, flus and other diseases. Vitamins can help you achieve higher levels of physical and sports performance, manage your weight and even help prevent hair loss.
A deficiency can result in numerous health problems. Since the discovery of discrete vitamins in 1912, health researchers have sought to understand how each of these essential nutrients support health, what specific range of health problems result from deficiencies and how much of each is needed each day by infants, children, adults, males and females.
The way for you to understand vitamins is to treat these nutrients as building blocks supporting the healthy functioning of all living things, plants and animals, not just humans. The human body cannot manufacture most vitamins, so you must consume them in food. Or, you can add them to your diet by taking supplements. Remember that eating a healthy diet is not just a matter of getting an appropriate balance of carbohydrates, fats and protein, but of ensuring the adequate intake of nutrients, including vitamins and minerals.
Vitamins In Water Soluble And Fat Soluble Form
There are two general types of these essential nutrients, those that are water-soluble such as vitamin b (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12) and vitamin C . and those that are fat-soluble (A, D, E and K). These are important distinctions. Water-soluble nutrients must be replaced daily. Fat-soluble nutrients are stored in the body and do not usually need daily replacement.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) publishes a set of guidelines for minimum daily intake of these and other nutrients. Many scientists and health advocates believe the USDA recommendations are conservative and that, for optimum health, one needs to consume more of these essential nutrients through concentrating the diet on nutrient-rich foods and/or by taking supplements.
Vitamin supplements are sources of these nutritional building blocks added to the diet in the form of a pill, liquid or powder. Multi vitamin supplements provide the most comprehensive source. Many of these supplements are of the 'one a day' type and include minerals and other nutrients. Several manufacturers provide specialized formulations designed to support men's, women's, and children's health or formulas designed to address specific issues ranging from acne, and hair loss to sports performance.
Vitamins found in supplements may be 'natural,' sourced from actual foods or 'synthetic,' synthesized in a laboratory. A natural source may be either concentrated whole food, such as concentrated freeze-dried citrus fruit, or isolated or derived through manufacturing or chemical processes where the nutrient is extracted from a food source. Synthesized vitamins are manufactured from raw chemical ingredients. There is no consensus among medical and health professionals whether natural or synthetic is better when it comes to supplementation.
There are many fine manufacturers of vitamin supplements that produce products meeting the most rigorous standards of purity and potency. It is possible to take too much. Before taking supplements, it is always a good idea to consult your health professional to determine a proper course of action.
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