Multivitamins Are The Foundation Of Health and Nutrition
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The term vitamin (a contraction of vital amine) was coined in 1912 by Polish biochemist Kazimierz Funk; the "e" was later dropped once it was realized that vitamins need not be amines. Vitamins can act both as catalysts and substrates in chemical reactions. The role of a catalyst is to facilitate a chemical reaction without being altered itself. In essence, catalysts function like knitting needles which are capable of converting yarn into mittens, but do not undergo any change themselves.
The body typically assembles a vitamin-dependent catalyst from a variety of building blocks including amino acids, sugars, phosphates, and other vitamins. Each vitamin is typically used in multiple reactions and most have multiple functions. Many food sources contain different ratios of vitamins. Therefore, if the only source of vitamins is food, a seasonal, yearly or even daily change in diet also alters the ratio of ingested vitamins. Many vitamins can be stored by the body over a range of dosages so that short-term deficiencies (e.g. during a particular food growing season) does not always result in disease. Until the 1900s, vitamins were obtained solely through food intake. Since then, vitamins have been produced as commodities and made widely available as inexpensive pills or liquids for consistent supplementation to dietary intake.
As mentioned above, for the most part we rely on food or supplementation sources to meet our vitamin needs. However, there are a few vitamins that we obtain by other means: for example, microorganisms in the intestine - commonly known as "gut flora" - produce vitamin K and biotin, while one form of vitamin D is synthesized in the skin with the help of natural ultraviolet sunlight.
Although vitamins contain no calories, they are essential for normal growth and development. Using the genetic blueprint inherited from its parents, a child's body begins to build itself from the "food" it absorbs beginning at the moment of conception. Once out of the womb, the child continues on with this incredibly complex set of tasks using the building blocks it gets by eating and drinking. There is no other source for the raw materials, tools, and energy needed to build an adult human. We are literally made out of what we have ingested throughout our lives.
Once growth and development are completed, adults remain dependent upon vitamins to maintain good health. Vitamins are necessary to maintain proper functioning of the nervous system. Vitamins enable the body to use the calories provided by the food that we eat and to help process proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Vitamins are also involved in building cells, tissues, and organs - vitamin C, for example, helps produce healthy skin. Vitamins are classified as either water soluble, meaning that they dissolve easily in water, or fat soluble, and are absorbed through the intestinal tract with the help of lipids. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble, while the water-soluble vitamins include vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), vitamin B6, vitamin B12, biotin and folate .
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