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You've been hearing a lot about all the great things vitamins and minerals can do for your health, and you've decided to try them.

vitamins-and-mineralsGood decision. Now what? What you need now is information—the knowledge that will let you unlock the door to good health. The knowledge you need isn't a secret and it's not hard to understand. In fact, after you've learned the basics of vitamins, minerals, and other supplements, you'll easily be able to decide what's right for you. Your own good health, both for now and the future, is in your hands.

Walk into any health-food store or drugstore and you're faced with shelf after shelf crammed with vitamins, minerals, and supplements of all sorts. What is all this stuff? How can you choose? What's best for you?
To decide wisely for your health, you need to understand what each vitamin does—and why you need them all. You need to understand what minerals do for you—and why you need them all. You need to understand how the vitamins and minerals in your food affect you—and how everything else in your food affects you as well. You need to understand which of those other supplements are valuable to your health—and which aren't.
Although all those bottles on the shelves may seem confusing and a little scary, they're really not. Once you understand the easy basics of vitamins and minerals, you'll be able to pick the supplements that will help your health.

Do You Need Vitamin and Mineral Supplements?
We'd be the first to tell you that vitamin and mineral supplements aren't a substitute for healthy eating. They're also not a magic shield against the effects of bad health habits, like smoking or not getting much exercise. But we know that you can't always eat like you should—and that sometimes you need more of a vitamin or mineral than you can reasonably get just from your food. That's why vitamin and mineral supplements are so important. Taking a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement is sensible insurance—it makes sure you get everything you need. You may also need extra of one or more vitamins or minerals—more than you could get from your diet. Here too
supplements make sure you're getting enough.

Generally speaking, vitamin and mineral supplements are safe even in large doses. More isn't always better, though, and some supplements can be harmful in big doses. Use your common sense. Read what we have to say about the vitamins and minerals, talk it over with your doctor, and then decide which supplements are best for you.

• You rarely eat fresh fruits and vegetables. These are the best natural sources of vitamins and minerals.
• You've been going through a long period of high stress or overwork. You're probably not eating right, plus you're using up a lot vitamins and minerals to make extra stress hormones. Think of yourself as a battery running down.
• You're sick with something—bronchitis, say—or you're recovering from surgery. At a time when you probably don't feel much like eating, you need lots of extra vitamins and minerals to help you heal faster.
• You have a chronic disease such as asthma or diabetes. Low levels of a vitamin or mineral might be causing the problem or making it worse. Many people with asthma are low on magnesium, for example; many diabetics are very low on Vitamin C. Chronic diseases change how well your body absorbs and uses vitamins and minerals, so your needs change as well.
• You're pregnant or nursing. You need extra vitamins and minerals because you're passing some of your on to your baby.
• You're seriously depressed. When you're depressed, you don't eat well. That can make the depression worse, because marginal deficiencies of many vitamins and minerals cause depression.
• You smoke. Smoking sharply increases your need for vitamins, especially Vitamin C.
• You drink a lot of alcohol. Heavy drinkers are often marginally deficient in almost all the vitamins and minerals, especially B vitamins.


How do you know you have a marginal deficiency? Deficiencies can be hard to pin down. You might just be feeling a little below par, or more tired than usual. That's easy to blame on all sorts of things, so you might not think a vitamin or mineral deficiency is the problem. Even if you go to your doctor with other deficiency symptoms, like irritability, anxiety, or insomnia, you're more likely to come home with a prescription for Valium® than for a vitamin supplement. If you feel your health isn't what it could be—if you get frequent minor illnesses, for example, or bad colds you just can't seem to shake, ask yourself if you're getting enough of the vitamins and minerals you need.

The Antioxidant Revolution
You need vitamins and minerals to make all those thousands of enzymes, hormones, and other chemicals your body needs to work right. But vitamins and minerals have another crucial role in your body: They act as powerful antioxidants that capture free radicals in your body. It's only in the past few decades that we've begun to understand how damaging free radicals can be and how important it is to have plenty of antioxidants in your body to neutralize them.

When you drive your car, you burn gasoline by combining it with oxygen in the pistons of the engine. Your car zips along on the released energy, but it also gives off exhaust fumes as a byproduct. Something very similar happens in the cells of your body. When oxygen combines with glucose in your cells, for example, you make energy—and you also make free radicals, your body's version of exhaust fumes. Free radicals are oxygen atoms that are missing one electron from the pair the atom should have. When an atom is missing an electron from a pair, it becomes unstable and very reactive. That's because a free radical desperately wants to find another electron to fill in the gap, so it grabs an electron from the next atom it gets near. But when a free radical seizes an electron from another atom, the second atom then becomes a free radical, because now it's the one missing an electron. One free radical starts a cascade of new free radicals in your body. The free radicals blunder around, grabbing electrons from your cells—and doing a lot of damage to them at the same time.

Antioxidants are your body's natural defense against free radicals. Antioxidants are enzymes that patrol your cells looking for free radicals. When they find one, they grab hold of it and neutralize it without being damaged themselves. The antioxidant enzymes stop the invasion and remove the free radical from circulation.health-food
You have to have plenty of vitamins and minerals, especially Vitamin A, beta carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and selenium, in your body to make the antioxidant enzymes that do the neutralizing. If you're short on the right vitamins and minerals, you can't make enough of the antioxidant enzymes. That lets the free radicals get the upper hand and do extra damage to your cells before they get quenched.

Oxidation isn't the only thing that can cause free radicals in your cells. The ultraviolet light in sunshine can do it—that's why people who spend too much time in the sun are more likely to get skin cancer and cataracts. Toxins of all sorts—tobacco smoke, the natural chemicals found in our food, the poisonous wastes of your own metabolism, and man-made toxins like air pollution and pesticides—trigger free radicals as well.

On average, every cell in your body comes under attack from a free radical once every ten seconds. Your best protection is to keep your antioxidant levels high. How? That's what we're going to explain in just about every chapter for the rest of this book.

You Need to Know

• Vitamins (organic substances) and minerals (inorganic substances) are necessary for life and good health.
• Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble: They are stored in your body's fatty tissues.
• The B vitamins and Vitamin C are water-soluble: Your body can't store them, so you need some every day.
• Vitamins and minerals are needed to make the thousands of different enzymes your body needs to live.
• Free radicals are unstable oxygen atoms made in your body as part of normal metabolism. They are very reactive and can damage your cells.
• Antioxidant enzymes capture and neutralize free radicals.

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies

Today many doctors routinely check your blood for some vitamin and mineral deficiencies, especially iron and Vitamin B12 (cobalamin). There are blood and urine tests for most vitamins and minerals, but some are complicated or inconvenient, to say nothing of the costs. Generally there's no real reason to do them, unless you have a medical problem that affects your ability to absorb nutrients. Today many nutritionally oriented health practitioners think that your blood antioxidant level is a better test of your vitamin and mineral levels and overall health. That's because you need vitamins and minerals to make antioxidant enzymes. If you're low on the enzymes, you're also low on
their building blocks. If you're interested in antioxidant testing, discuss it with your doctor or nutritionist.

Nutritionally oriented doctors often describe their approach as functional medicine or sometimes orthomolecular medicine. They believe that fixing the underlying biochemical imbalance that is causing an illness is just as important as treating the symptoms. Vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, along with lifestyle changes, are important parts of functional medicine.

Prestigious institutions like the Harvard Medical School are now seriously studying the value of alternative treatments. Many doctors today have come to realize how important diet and vitamins and minerals are to the health of their patients. Sadly, many more haven't. If your doctor is among the unenlightened, you may want to consult a nutritionally oriented doctor, nutritionist, or other health care professional. We list several national professional organizations in Appendix B “Resources” at the back of this book. These groups can help you find a qualified professional in your area. Whenever you visit any health-care professional, be sure to bring along a list of everything you take—including all prescription and nonprescription drugs and all vitamins, minerals, and other supplements. Otherwise, you might end up with an accidental bad reaction to a drug.

Special Needs of Older Adults
As you get older, your nutritional needs change. By the time you're 65, for instance, you just don't absorb Vitamin D and some B vitamins as well as you used to. If you're an older woman, you need more calcium and less iron. And by the time you're 65 you may well be taking at least one prescription drug to treat some sort of chronic condition. In fact, nearly half of all people over age 75 take three or more prescription drugs every day. As you'll learn in the chapters of this book, some common prescription drugs can seriously affect your vitamin and mineral levels—and some vitamins and minerals could keep the drugs from working right.

Many older people just don't eat right or eat enough. Many older women eat only 1,250 to 1,500 calories a day, while many older men eat only about 1,600 to 1,900 calories daily. Even worse, studies show that 30 percent of the elderly regularly skip at least one meal a day. If you're not taking in enough good, nutritious calories, you're not taking in enough vitamins and minerals from your food.
If you're over age 65, discuss your vitamin and mineral needs with your doctor. Look carefully at your diet and be sure you're getting of all the B vitamins, but especially thiamin (Vitamin B1), riboflavin (Vitamin B12), pyridoxine (Vitamin B6), and cobalamin (Vitamin B12). Because your ability to absorb the B's drops with age, talk to your doctor about taking a complete B vitamins supplement. You also need to be sure you're getting enough Vitamin E, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. Supplements could help here as well.

Vitamins for Kids and Teens
Kids and teenagers grow fast. To fuel that growth, they need good nutrition, including plenty of vitamins and minerals. Unfortunately, kids today don't always get what they need. One out of every ten toddlers is low on iron, for example, and teenage girls need extra. Many teens, male and female, are low on zinc.
How can you be sure your kids are getting their vitamins? The standard answer is to make sure they eat a variety of foods, including lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. That's easy for the nutritionists to say. Anyone who's ever been a parent knows that it's a lot harder to do. It's tough enough to get a six-year-old to eat vegetables—just try getting a sixteen-year-old to eat them! Vitamin and mineral supplements can be very helpful here. Give children under age two vitamin and minerals supplements only if your doctor recommends them. Many doctors do suggest an iron supplement or a formula containing iron for babies under 24 months, especially if you are breastfeeding. For young children over age two, liquid multi supplements are convenient—all you have to do is add a squirt to their morning milk or juice. Older kids like chewable tablets and you might even be able to get your teenagers to swallow a daily supplement. There are a lot of different brands from which to choose. We suggest looking for one that has the RDA for your child's age group and is made without artificial colorings and preservatives. As a rule, there's no real reason to give a child or teen supplements of individual vitamins and minerals—stick to a good multi instead.

Vitamins for Vegetarians
Because they don't eat meat—and sometimes don't eat any animal foods at all—vegetarians and vegans need to be sure they're getting enough vitamins and minerals from their food. This is fairly easy to do with a little planning and a good understanding of what's in their foods. Even so, vegetarians and vegans may end up on the low side for some nutrients, especially the B vitamins, calcium, and iron. To be on the safe side, we recommend a good daily multi supplement, especially for kids who don't eat animal foods.

Taking Your Vitamins
Many people like the convenience of taking a one-a-day supplement—a pill you can pop first thing in the morning and not have to think about again. One-a-days have some drawbacks, though. First, many one-a-days just don't have enough in them. To keep them small enough to swallow easily, they don't have the RDAs for calcium, magnesium, or potassium. Most don't have the RDA for selenium, either. Another problem is that the water-soluble B vitamins and Vitamin C will be washed from your body fairly quickly if you take them all at once.

It's much more effective to take your vitamins and minerals in divided doses throughout the day. That way, you can easily get the full RDAs for calcium and other minerals without having to swallow big pills, and your levels of the water-soluble vitamins remain high throughout the day. You'll get the most from your supplements if you make a habit of taking them with meals. Check the freshness and potency guarantee date on supplements before you buy them. Pass on products that are near or past their expiration. To keep supplements fresh after you open them, buy only as much as you normally use in a month and put the lids back on tightly.

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Disclaimer: This website is for information purposes only. By providing the information contained herein we are not diagnosing, treating, curing, mitigating, or preventing any type of disease or medical condition. Before beginning any type of natural, integrative or conventional treatment regime, it is advisible to seek the advice of a licensed healthcare professional.

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