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VITAMINS
AND MINERALS
Jo Rawlinson from The Nutri Centre
Vitamins and minerals are as essential to life as water, and a requisite
for good health. They enable the body to perform many vital functions,
including energy production, growth and healing.
For some years now governments have been prescribing Recommended Daily
Allowances (RDA), in recognition of the importance of vitamins and
minerals for good health. These RDAs were designed for use as dietary
guidelines, and are merely the bottom line in what’s needed
to avoid a deficiency disease such as scurvy or rickets. They don’t
represent the true amount needed to promote optimum, vibrant health.
There is strong scientific evidence to show that taking vitamins and
minerals above the RDA helps our bodies to work better to achieve
vibrant good health.
Most of us have been indoctrinated into the belief that eating a well-balanced
diet is enough to ensure our bodies’ nutritional needs are met.
This, however, is much harder to achieve today than it might at first
seem. Most of us are eating fewer than the recommended five daily
servings five fruit and vegetables, three of whole grains and regular
oily fish throughout the week, due in part to our busy lifestyles
and a prevalence of pre-packaged convenience foods.
Even if we do eat as recommended, the demands of a chemically polluted
and stress-filled world are rigorous. Apart from genetic manipulation
aimed at producing longer-lasting fruit and vegetables to a uniform
size and colour, intensive agricultural and farming methods often
leave the soils in which crops are grown and livestock reared, deficient
in vital trace elements.
The use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers only adds to the well-versed
argument that many foods don’t carry the same nutritional value
they had perhaps twenty years ago. Convenience and pre-packaged foods
are laden with a huge amount of additives, and are often deficient
in the true vitamin and mineral content we need. Exercise, stress,
restricted diets, mental or physical illness, smoking, drinking and
medication can all deplete vitamin stores too.
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Some of the greatest
scientific advancements over the past two decades have taken place
in the field of nutrition, enabling us to better understand the intricacies
of vitamin and mineral ingestion, and the functioning of the body.
GP’s are now referring patients to nutritional therapists for
a far-reaching variety of health issues, including fatigue, eating
disorders, digestive disorders, food allergies, stress, hormonal problems,
and skin disorders - to name but a few.
Apart from illness, with age, your need for particular vitamins and
minerals will change, and with it, there will be a decline in the
amount of nutrients that can be absorbed from your intestines. So
it can be very helpful to take a vitamin and mineral supplement specifically
designed to meet the needs of your particular age group.
Vitamin and mineral supplements come in a vast, and often bewildering
array of differing forms, combinations and amounts. A qualified practitioner
will best be able to advise on recommended formulations and amounts,
as there are variations in how rapidly they are absorbed and assimilated
into the body, and the needs of the individual. Products for health
maintenance needs for example would be very different from, say, the
need to overcome a specific disorder.
Nutritionists often refer to vitamins and minerals as micronutrients
because they are needed in relatively small amounts compared to the
four basic nutrients – water, carbohydrates, protein and fats.
Vitamins regulate the metabolism and assist the biochemical processes
that release energy from digested food. Of the major vitamins, some
are water-soluble and some oil soluble. The body needs both types
to function properly. Water-soluble vitamins must be taken into the
body daily, as they can’t be stored. They are excreted within
four hours to one day. These include vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins.
Oil-soluble vitamins can be stored for longer periods of time within
the body’s fatty tissue, and the liver. They include vitamins
A, D, E, and K.
All vitamin supplements work best when taken in combination with food,
but oil-soluble vitamins are best taken after meals, whereas the water-soluble
variety are best taken before eating. Remember never to wash down
vitamins with coffee or tea, as these may interfere with absorption.
Minerals are naturally occurring elements found in the earth, needed
by every living cell on the planet for proper function and structure.
They exist naturally in the basis of soil – the dust and sand
accumulated from rock and stone being broken down by erosion over
millions of years. All enzyme activities involve minerals, so they
are essential for the proper utilization of vitamins and other nutrients.
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Our bodies need
them to ensure the proper composition of body fluids, formation
of blood and bone, maintenance of nerve function, and the regulation
of muscle tone – including that of the heart. Examples of
minerals are calcium, chromium, iron, magnesium, and zinc, although
there are many others. As with vitamins, it can be difficult, if
not impossible, to obtain the amounts of minerals needed for optimum
health through diet alone.
Minerals help the body to maintain its proper chemical balance.
The level of each mineral within the body has an effect on every
other, so that if one is out of balance, all mineral levels are
affected. If not corrected, this can lead to a chain reaction of
imbalances, which in turn can lead to illness. Once they have entered
the body, minerals compete with one another for absorption. This
means, for example, that too much zinc can deplete the body of copper,
and too much calcium can affect magnesium absorption. So, it is
important that minerals are taken in balanced amounts.
Minerals fall into two nutritional groupings: bulk (or macrominerals)
and trace (microminerals), the former being needed in larger quantities
than the latter. Although trace minerals are only required in minute
amounts, their importance for good health must not be underestimated.
Minerals are often found in multivitamin formulas but they are also
available as single supplements. Taken with a meal, they are automatically
chelated in the stomach during digestion, although you can now buy
ready-chelated versions. There is some discussion over which are
the more superior.
So, there is a great deal more to vitamin and mineral nourishment
than meets the eye, with the most important factor being a correct
balance to ensure they are truly effective. The best results will
be obtained via consultation with a fully qualified practitioner
who is trained in the co-operative catalytic action between certain
vitamins and minerals, and fully understands how they work synergetically.
Working synergetically means that when two or more vitamins combine
to create a stronger vitamin function is than the sum of their individual
effects. For example, in order for bioflavonoids to work properly
(they prevent bruising and bleeding gums), they must be taken in
conjunction with vitamin C.
Scientific research has proven that excesses of isolated vitamins
or minerals can produce the same symptoms as deficiencies of vitamins
and minerals. For example, too much of isolated vitamin B can deplete
other B vitamins. Or if zinc is taken in excess, symptoms of zinc
deficiency can result.
Another example
is that minerals are stored in the body’s bone and muscle
tissue, so it is possible to develop mineral toxicity if extremely
large quantities are consumed (although this is very rare as they
would have to be consumed in enormous proportions for long periods
of time.)
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It must be considered
too that certain substances can block absorption and effects of vitamins.
For example vitamin C is greatly reduced by antibiotic drugs and coffee
can reduce iron absorption from the gut by up to 80 per cent if drunk within
an hour of a meal. Fibre decreases the body’s absorption of minerals
and therefore supplements of fibre and minerals should be taken at different
times.
Always seek professional advice from one of our registered members before
taking any nutritional supplements.
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