Vitamins & Minerals

Vitamin D deficiency means that your body does not have enough vitamin D. Vitamin D is unique in that your skin actually uses sunlight to produce it. Fair-skinned and young people convert vitamin D to vitamin D much better than people over the age of 50 in the dark. Vitamin D is one of the many vitamins our body needs to stay healthy. This vitamin has many functions, including: Keep Bones Strong: Healthy bones protect you from a variety of illnesses, including rickets. Rickets makes children's bones weak and soft. It is caused by a deficiency of vitamin D in the body. Vitamin D is required to be able to use calcium and phosphorus for bone building. In adults, the presence of softened bone is a condition called osteomalacia.

Iron deficiency anemia is the most common type of anemia, and it occurs when your body doesn’t have enough of the mineral iron. Your body needs iron to make hemoglobin. When there isn’t enough iron in your blood stream, the rest of your body can’t get the amount of oxygen it needs. While the condition may be common, many people don’t know they have iron deficiency anemia. It’s possible to experience the symptoms for years without ever knowing the cause. In women of childbearing age, the most common cause of iron deficiency anemia is a loss of iron in the blood due to heavy menstruation or pregnancy. A poor diet or certain intestinal diseases that affect how the body absorbs iron can also cause iron deficiency anemia.

 Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients because they perform hundreds of roles in the body. There is a fine line between getting enough of these nutrients (which is healthy) and getting too much (which can end up harming you). Eating a healthy diet remains the best way to get sufficient amounts of the vitamins and minerals you need. Every day, our body produces skin, muscle, and bone. It churns out rich red blood that carries nutrients and oxygen to remote outposts, and it sends nerve signals skipping along thousands of miles of brain and body pathways. It also formulates chemical messengers that shuttle from one organ to another, issuing the instructions that help sustain your life. Vitamins and minerals are considered essential nutrientsbecause acting in concert, they perform hundreds of roles in the body. They help shore up bones, heal wounds, and bolster your immune system. They also convert food into energy, and repair cellular damage. Vitamins and minerals are often called micronutrients because your body needs only tiny amounts of them. Yet failing to get even those small quantities virtually guarantees disease. Here are a few examples of diseases that can result from vitamin deficiencies:

Fats are the body's most concentrated source of energy (37kJ/g). They also help to absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K, as well as other fat-soluble biologically active components. Because they are soluble in organic solvents and are absorbed and transported in a way comparable to fats, vitamins A, D, E, and K are known as fat-soluble vitamins. Vision, bone health, immunological function, and coagulation are just a few of the physiological processes that fat-soluble vitamins play a part in. The biochemistry, transport, and functions of these vitamins are discussed in this review, with a focus on deficient disorders and potential toxicities. They absorb in the lymph, are transported in the circulation via carrier proteins, and can be stored in the liver and fatty tissues since they are fat soluble

Vitamin deficiency is the condition of a long-term lack of a vitamin. When caused by not enough vitamin intake it is classified as a primary deficiency, whereas when due to an underlying disorder such as malabsorption it is called a secondary deficiency. An underlying disorder may be metabolic – as in a genetic defect for converting tryptophan to niacin – or from lifestyle choices that increase vitamin needs, such as smoking or drinking alcohol. Government guidelines on vitamin deficiencies advise certain intakes for healthy people, with specific values for women, men, babies, the elderly, and during pregnancy or breastfeeding. Many countries have mandated vitamin food fortification programs to prevent commonly occurring vitamin deficiencies. hypervitaminosis refers to symptoms caused by vitamin intakes in excess of needs, especially for fat-soluble vitamins that can accumulate in body tissues. The history of the discovery of vitamin deficiencies progressed over centuries from observations that certain conditions – for example, scurvy – could be prevented or treated with certain foods having high content of a necessary vitamin, to the identification and description of specific molecules essential for life and health. During the 20th century, several scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine or the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their roles in the discovery of vitamins. A number of regions have published guidelines defining vitamin deficiencies and advising specific intakes for healthy people, with different recommendations for women, men, infants, the elderly, and during pregnancy and breast feeding including Japan, the European Union, the United States, and Canada. These documents have been updated as research is published. In the US, Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) were first set in 1941 by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences. There were periodic updates, culminating in the Dietary Reference Intakes