Vitamins in General

vi-ta-min
n.

Vitamin is a general definition of some organic compounds, which contain carbon atom. They are either water-soluble or fat-soluble. Small amount of these compounds can be found from our regular daily food supplies.

Why Vitamin? Enzymes and Hormones!

First, you must know, Vitamin does not provide energy for you. However, it is an important element when your body converts food to energy. You need vitamins to generate enzymes and hormones. These two things are needed for your body to control many metabolic functions (chemical reactions) such as your digestibility, body energy balance, fat burning ability, sexuality and much more.

Where can one get enough vitamins?

Theoretically speaking, most of the vitamins should come from our daily food source. However, now days, in order to have enough daily vitamins, just relying on the food source is not enough. One needs extra vitamin supplements to keep a healthy life. Here is why:

Most of the farms around the world have been in the same location over the past hundreds and thousands of years. This means, most of the farm soil are used to grow crops again and again over the long time of our history. This also means the energy in the soil are becoming weaker and weaker. Instead of relocating the farms and let the over-used soil to take a break and regain the minerals and energy, people use human made fertilizers to accelerate the growth of the vegetables and fruits. The fruits and vegetables in most of the super market are grown from the fertilizers. Therefore, the vitamins and minerals within these crops may not be as rich as the pure naturally grown crops. Addition to this, the limited amount of vitamins and minerals can also be lost during the following process:
1). The storing process of the vegetables and fruits (heat, light and exposure to air all accelerate the loss of vitamins in the fresh crops).
2). The cutting, grinding and washing process of the vegetables and fruits (this process breaks down the fibre structure of the crops and sometimes catalyze the vitamin loss.)
3). The cooking process of the vegetables (BBQ, boiling or deep frying all destroy a large amount of vitamins and minerals, plus the salts or sugar may also trigger chemical processes within the natural food one intakes).
4). Weak digestion systems in many human bodies may not absorb all of the natural vitamins and minerals from the vegetables and fruits before they are washed out of the body as un-digested waste.

Now, let's think this way, according to American scientific research reports, most of the vegetables and fruits are stored 3-5 days before they get on to the shelves in the super markets. This means over 25% of the vitamins and minerals have been lost. During the preparing process, another 5% of the vitamins and minerals are lost. Then the fancy cooking process (Chinese, Italian, Greek... you name it) will destroy extra 30% of vitamins from the original food products. Therefore, if you are a perfect healthy adult, without any bias on food (which over 80% of us are picky on certain vegetables and fruits), you will only be able to digest 40% of the small amount of the vitamins and minerals within the natural crops, that is, assuming your digestion system is functioning in the full power mode.

Therefore, certain additional vitamin supplements and mineral supplements are essential to you. This is because you cannot always eat as you should in the first place, and most often you need more of a vitamin or mineral than you can get just from your food. You may also need extra of one or more vitamins or minerals; this depends on your living environment, your living habit, your age, gender, current health condition and more factors. This is why you need to go over all of the categories we have on the right hand side, and use your own judgment to decide what extra vitamins you need. However, taking a daily multi-vitamin and mineral supplement is sensible insurance. If you do not have special health conditions, taking the multi-vitamin supplements will be able to guarantee you have a healthier, more energetic life. Among hundreds of brand names in the market, Rainbow Light 40+ Complete Multivitamin is one of the best multivitamin supplements on the market today. Many uses it because of the great price and also great results.

Click here for Rainbow Light 40+ Complete Multivitamin

For people who are concerned in excess intakes in minerals which will hurt your health more than it benefits. Just Vitamins Sustained Release Multi-Vitamin is a supplements simply does NOT contain anything other elements other than the essential vitamins you need for a healthy life.

Click here for Just Vitamins Sustained Release Multi-Vitamin

I understand it is sometimes hard to choose the right supplement, there are just too many things to consider: all the brand names, different prices, natural / not natural, hard caps / soft gels etc... For all the nutrients we introduce on this site will come with an supplement review page, go there and you will be more clear with which vitamin you should pick and why.

Click here to read our multi-vitamins supplement reviews

What are water-soluble vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins?

Water-soluble vitamins can be easily dissolved in water or other kind of liquids in the human body. Because of this, therefore they can't really be stored in your body for very long. Your body needs certain amount of the water-soluble vitamins per-day to function; the extras can be washed out of your body harmlessly. Because you can't store these vitamins, therefore you need to get a fresh supply every day. This is probably why you see more of Vitamin C and B Vitamins products on the market. The good news is, you can't really overdose on this kind of vitamins, therefore, having some extra water-soluble vitamin intakes are well recommended.

Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in your body, mostly in your fatty tissues and in your liver. That is, they dissolve in fat but not water. Because you can store these vitamins, you don't have to get a supply of them every day.

How much vitamins does one need, say, every day?

Actually, you should be the best person to answer this question. Don't worry, it is not hard to figure out how much vitamins does one exactly need daily. Just click on the different vitamin sections on the right side of this page. From reading those pages, you will get much detailed knowledge on the specific vitamin. In each different vitamin category, you will find a suggested intake quantity table for all different kinds of people. From these given information, you should be able to figure out the exact amount of vitamin you need. If you still have doubt on how much you need to take with the particular vitamin, please email our editors (editors) and they will help you to figure out the amount. But first, let's look at how do we measure the amount of vitamins one takes.

Ground Stones of Vitamin Science

Before we dive into the world of vitamins, there are some ground stones we must lay down first. Let's straight out the units first. When people talk about vitamins, most of them use IU, which stands for International Units. However, many scientists still like to calculate vitamins in their "standard unites" - gram (g), milligram (mg) and micrograms (mcg). From the following exchange table, one can easily translate the vitamin quantities from one unit to another. Through out the site, we are introducing some other units towards different kind of vitamins. But whenever we introduce a new unit, we will refer back to one of the units in the following table.