Vitamin A through Vitamin K Facts

Vitamins are essential for your health, but since they cannot be synthesized in adequate quantities by the body, vitamins must be obtained through one’s diet and the right supplements.  As we all know, it is hard to get everything you need on a daily basis from your diet, and so by taking the right supplements you can help yourself immensely.  Everyday, your 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.

But to do all this, your body requires some raw materials. These include vitamins, minerals, and other dietary components that your body needs but cannot manufacture on its own in sufficient amounts. Vitamins and Minerals are considered essential nutrients—because 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.  But trying to keep track of what all these vitamins and minerals do can be confusing. If you have read enough articles on the topic, your eyes may swim with the alphabet-soup references to these nutrients, which are known mainly be their initials (such as vitamins A,B,C,D,E, and K—to name the main ones).

Micronutrients with a big role in the body

• Scurvy. Old-time sailors learned that living for months without fresh fruits or vegetables — the main sources of vitamin C — causes the bleeding gums and listlessness of scurvy.
• Blindness. In some developing countries, people still become blind from vitamin A deficiency.
• Rickets. A deficiency in vitamin D can cause rickets, a condition marked by soft, weak bones that can lead to skeletal deformities such as bowed legs. Partly to combat rickets, the U.S. has fortified milk with vitamin D since the 1930s.

Just as a lack of key micronutrients can cause substantial harm to your body, getting sufficient quantities can provide a substantial benefit. Some examples of these benefits:

• Strong bones. A combination of calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K, magnesium, and phosphorus protects your bones against fractures.
• Prevents birth defects. Taking folic acid supplements early in pregnancy helps prevent brain and spinal birth defects in offspring.
• Healthy teeth. Various Minerals help bone formation but also keeps dental cavities from starting or worsening.

The difference between Vitamins and Minerals

Although they are all considered micronutrients, vitamins and minerals differ in basic ways. Vitamins are organic and can be broken down by heat, air, or acid. Minerals are inorganic and hold on to their chemical structure.

So why does this matter? It means the minerals in soil and water easily find their way into your body through the plants, fish, animals, and fluids you consume. But it’s tougher to shuttle vitamins from food and other sources into your body because cooking, storage, and simple exposure to air can inactivate these more fragile compounds.  This is why we have focused BUICED on giving you 100% the daily value of ALL your vitamin needs, but also providing a a nice complimentary blend of 9 essential minerals.  It is also much easier to get minerals from your diet, than the proper vitamins.

A closer look at water-soluble vitamins

Water-soluble vitamins are packed into the watery portions of the foods you eat. They are absorbed directly into the bloodstream as food is broken down during digestion or as a supplement dissolves, which we make MUCH easier because BUICED is in liquid form.

Because much of your body consists of water, many of the water-soluble vitamins circulate easily in your body. Your kidneys continuously regulate levels of water-soluble vitamins, shunting excesses out of the body in your urine.

What they do

Although water-soluble vitamins have many tasks in the body, one of the most important is helping to free the energy found in the food you eat. Others help keep tissues healthy. Here are some examples of how different vitamins help you maintain health:

• Release energy. Several B vitamins are key components of certain coenzymes (molecules that aid enzymes) that help release energy from food.
• Produce energy. Thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, and biotin engage in energy production.
• Build proteins and cells. Vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid metabolize amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and help cells multiply.
• Make collagen. One of many roles played by vitamin C is to help make collagen, which knits together wounds, supports blood vessel walls, and forms a base for teeth and bones.

Words to the wise

Contrary to popular belief, some water-soluble vitamins can stay in the body for long periods of time. You probably have several years’ supply of vitamin B12 in your liver. And even folic acid and vitamin C stores can last more than a couple of days.

Generally, though, water-soluble vitamins should be replenished every few days.  Just be aware that there is a small risk that consuming large amounts of some of these micronutrients through supplements may be quite harmful. For example, very high doses of B6 — many times the recommended amount of 1.3 milligrams (mg) per day for adults — can damage nerves, causing numbness and muscle weakness.  This is why in BUICED, we provide you with 100% of the daily value in each 1 ounce shot... no more, no less.

A closer look at fat-soluble vitamins

Rather than slipping easily into the bloodstream like most water-soluble vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins gain entry to the blood via lymph channels in the intestinal wall (see illustration). Many fat-soluble vitamins travel through the body only under escort by proteins that act as carriers.

Fatty foods and oils are reservoirs for the four fat-soluble vitamins. Within your body, fat tissues and the liver act as the main holding pens for these vitamins and release them as needed.

To some extent, you can think of these vitamins as time-release micronutrients. It’s possible to consume them every now and again, perhaps in doses weeks or months apart rather than daily, and still get your fill. Your body squirrels away the excess and doles it out gradually to meet your needs.

What they do

Together this vitamin quartet helps keep your eyes, skin, lungs, gastrointestinal tract, and nervous system in good repair. Here are some of the other essential roles these vitamins play:

• Build bones. Bone formation would be impossible without vitamins A, D, and K.
• Protect vision. Vitamin A also helps keep cells healthy and protects your vision.
• Interact favorably. Without vitamin E, your body would have difficulty absorbing and storing vitamin A.
• Protect the body. Vitamin E also acts as an antioxidant (a compound that helps protect the body against damage from unstable molecules).

Words to the wise

Because fat-soluble vitamins are stored in your body for long periods, toxic levels can build up. This is most likely to happen if you take supplements that have these in larger amounts than the recommended daily value. Again, This is why in BUICED, we provide you with 100% of the daily value in each 1 ounce shot, no more, no less.It’s very rare to get too much of a vitamin just from food.

A closer look at major minerals

The body needs, and stores, fairly large amounts of the major minerals. These minerals are no more important to your health than the trace minerals; they’re just present in your body in greater amounts.

Major minerals travel through the body in various ways. Potassium, for example, is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream, where it circulates freely and is excreted by the kidneys, much like a water-soluble vitamin. Calcium is more like a fat-soluble vitamin because it requires a carrier for absorption and transport.

What they do

One of the key tasks of major minerals is to maintain the proper balance of water in the body. Sodium, chloride, and potassium take the lead in doing this. Three other major minerals — calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium — are important for healthy bones. Sulfur helps stabilize protein structures, including some of those that make up hair, skin, and nails.

Words to the wise

Having too much of one major mineral can result in a deficiency of another. These sorts of imbalances are usually caused by overloads from supplements, not food sources. Again, this is why BUICED was scientifically formulated to not all for this overload to happen.  Here are two examples:

• Salt overload. Calcium binds with excess sodium in the body and is excreted when the body senses that sodium levels must be lowered. That means that if you ingest too much sodium through table salt or processed foods, you could end up losing needed calcium as your body rids itself of the surplus sodium.
• Excess phosphorus. Likewise, too much phosphorus can hamper your ability to absorb magnesium.

A closer look at trace minerals

A thimble could easily contain the distillation of all the trace minerals normally found in your body. Yet their contributions are just as essential as those of major minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, which each account for more than a pound of your body weight.

What they do

Trace minerals carry out a diverse set of tasks. Here are a few examples:

• Iron is best known for ferrying oxygen throughout the body.
• Fluoride strengthens bones and wards off tooth decay.
• Zinc helps blood clot, is essential for taste and smell, and bolsters the immune response.
• Copper helps form several enzymes, one of which assists with iron metabolism and the creation of hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in the blood.

The other trace minerals perform equally vital jobs, such as helping to block damage to body cells and forming parts of key enzymes or enhancing their activity.

Words to the wise

Trace minerals interact with one another, sometimes in ways that can trigger imbalances. Too much of one can cause or contribute to a deficiency of another. Here are some examples:

• A minor overload of manganese can exacerbate iron deficiency. Having too little can also cause problems.
• When the body has too little iodine, thyroid hormone production slows, causing sluggishness and weight gain as well as other health concerns. The problem worsens if the body also has too little selenium.

The difference between “just enough” and “too much” of the trace minerals is often tiny. Generally, food is a safe source of trace minerals, but if you take supplements, it’s important to make sure you’re not exceeding safe levels.  Once again, we have made sure of this with BUICED.

Key Points

• 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.
• Taking the proper supplements to help with your diet is a fantastic compliment to your healthy diet.  This is where BUICED comes in...

From these Trusted Sources:

Harvard Health Publications:

• Adapted with permission from The Truth About Vitamins and Minerals: Choosing the Nutrients You Need to Stay Healthy, a special health report published by Harvard Health Publications.

MedlinePLUS:  

• The National Library of Medicine, a part of the National Institutes of Health, created and maintains MedlinePlus to assist you in locating authoritative health information.

The Office of Dietary Supplements - National Institute of Health:

• The Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) fact sheets give a current overview of individual vitamins, minerals and other dietary supplements.