Vitamins and Minerals
What are vitamins and minerals ?
Our understanding of vitamins and minerals and their role in our body, has improved dramatically over the last decades. We now know that, "micronutrition" or the vitamins and minerals and other health giving components of our food is crucial to life and that by manipulating our nutritional intake, we can not only ensure good health and address ailments, but also prevent illness and some of the degenerative effects of aging.
What are vitamins and minerals ?
Awareness of vitamins and minerals and trace elements is relatively new. Until recently nutrition played a very small role in the conventional treatment of health problems. Today, the stresses of daily living and the assault on our bodies by environmental pollutants have led to an extraordinary array of health problems that has forced an investigation into the relationship between health and the elements of nutrition.
A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient
in tiny amounts by an organism
. A compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized
in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on the circumstances and the particular organism. For example, ascorbic acid
functions as vitamin C
for some animals but not others, and vitamins D
and
are required in the human diet only in certain circumstances. Vitamins are defined by their biological activity, not their structure. Thus, each "vitamin" actually refers to a number of vitamer
compounds, which form a set of distinct chemical compounds that show the biological activity of a particular vitamin. Such a set of chemicals are grouped under an alphabetized vitamin "generic descriptor" title, such as "vitamin A," which (for example) includes retinal
, retinol
, and many carotenoids
. Vitamers are often inter-convertible in the body. The term vitamin does not include other essential nutrients
such as dietary minerals
, essential fatty acids
, or essential amino acids
, nor does vitamin encompass the large number of other nutrients that promote health but that are not essential for life.
Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions, including function as hormones
(e.g. vitamin D), antioxidants
(e.g. vitamin E), and mediators of cell signaling and regulators of cell and tissue growth and differentiation (e.g. vitamin A). The largest number of vitamins (e.g. B complex vitamins) function as precursors for enzyme cofactor
bio-molecules
(coenzymes
), that help act as catalysts
and substrates
in metabolism
. When acting as part of a catalyst, vitamins are bound to enzymes
and are called prosthetic groups
. For example, biotin
is part of enzymes involved in making fatty acids
. Vitamins also act as coenzymes
to carry chemical groups between enzymes. For example, folic acid
carries various forms of carbon group - methyl
, formyl
and methylene
- in the cell. Although these roles in assisting enzyme reactions are vitamins best-known function, the other vitamin functions are equally important.