CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Vitamins: An Introduction

By Mel Possehl

Vitamins and minerals are part of our daily lives. But how much do we really know about them? This article will give you a brief introduction to some, a re-acquaintance to others.

Referred to as micronutrients, vitamins are best obtained from organic, whole foods. Often times though, supplementation is needed to get the required amount your body needs.

There are two types of vitamins, those that dissolve in fats and oils, and those that dissolve in water. These are called fat soluble or water soluble, depending on what they dissolve in.

A, D, E, F, & K are the fat soluble vitamins. Care must be taken with these as they are stored in the body, so this increases the risk for toxicity.

The water soluble vitamins, on the other hand, are not stored in the body. They are made of the B-group, C, & P, and are lost through perspiration as well as urination. It is necessary to maintain a daily intake of these vitamins in order to avoid deficiencies in them.

In the 1940's a system helping us to meet our minimum daily requirements was instituted. This system, however, is based on estimations, assumes we know all of the micronutrients there are, and differs from country to country. You may recognize it: our Recommended Daily Allowance, or RDA.

New standards have been proposed to update the RDA, this was back in 1993. This breaks vitamin requirements into different calculations, as follows: The RDA is still in there, but as Recommended DIETARY Intake, there's also the Adequate Intake Levels (AI), the Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), and the Tolerable Upper Intake Levels (UI). To learn about these in further detail, please follow the link!

About the Author:

0 comments: