Vitamin basics

When it comes to vitamins people have extremely different opinions. Some think that they aren’t necessary and that you can live just fine with what you get from food, while others tend to exaggerate and think of them as all around “fixers”. As in most cases the truth is somewhere in the middle. Vitamins are organic substances, meaning they are carbon based. They don’t have any calories although I’m sure you’ve heard people complain that they have gained weight after taking a complex of vitamins (we’ll tackle ridiculous myths like this one in future articles). Vitamins can’t be produced internally so your body must get them from food or supplements. Exception to this rule is vitamin D.

            There are about 13 different vitamins which can be classified in 2 categories:

-          Fat soluble. They are dissolved and remain in the body’s fat store. Because of this, their need on a day to day basis is a little lower. Excess of these vitamins are usually toxic. You might find on a nutrition label, next to vitamin A part of it in the form of beta-Carotene just because of this possible toxicity (beta-Carotene is a precursor). These vitamins are:

o       Vitamin A

o       Vitamin D

o       Vitamin E

o       Vitamin K

-          Water soluble. They are not stored in your body and must be replaced each day. Although they are lost in urine it doesn’t mean they can’t have side effects. Too much of a good thing is not always that good. They act as co-enzymes (they combine with a larger compound to form enzymes) and thus help you use your metabolic machine a little bit better. There some exceptions to the rules here as well. Although it’s a water soluble vitamin, B6 can be toxic for you in large quantities and B12 can actually be stored in the liver for long periods of time. These vitamins are:

o       Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)

o       Vitamin B1 (thiamin)

o       Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)

o       Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)

o       Niacin (nicotinic acid)

o       Pantothenic acid

o       Biotin

o       Folic acid (folacin or folate)

o       Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)

If you’re having less than 40-50% of daily recommended values of these vitamins signs of deficiency can be seen after only 4 weeks. A term which you should always consider when talking about vitamins is bio-availability, because it shows how much of these substances are actually absorbed. This is important because people usually think of vitamins as a singular compound. In fact they are found in many different forms, not all having the same effectiveness. For example vitamin E can be found in 8 such molecular forms. Bio-availability is also affected by other food components. For example most of the vitamins are better absorbed if taken with a meal but folic acid is recommended on an empty stomach. The absorption of iron is stimulated in the presence of vitamin C and so on… in general there are all dependent on “shared variables” which means that a gain in one can be a loss for another.

Posted in: Micronutrients