Vitamins and minerals are micronutrients necessary for the body to carry out a number of normal functions. These micronutrients are not produced by our bodies and must be obtained from the food we eat.
Vitamins
Vitamins are organic substances that are generally classified as fat-soluble or water-soluble.
Fat soluble vitamins:
- Vitamins: A, D, E, K
- They dissolve in fat and tend to accumulate in the body.
Water soluble vitamins:
- Vitamins: C and B complex (eg vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folate)
- They must be dissolved in water before they can be absorbed by the body and cannot be stored.
- Any water-soluble vitamins not used by the body are lost primarily through the urine.
Minerals
Minerals are inorganic elements present in soil and water, which are absorbed by plants or consumed by animals.
- Known minerals: Calcium, sodium, potassium
- Trace minerals: Needed in very small amounts (eg copper, iodine, zinc)
Multivitamins
A healthy diet, which includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, good protein and healthy fats, should provide most of the nutrients needed for good health. However, not everyone manages to have a healthy diet. Multivitamins can play an important role when nutritional requirements are not met through diet alone.
Historical and interesting facts
- The exact requirements of vitamins have been controversial since their discovery in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
- It was the combined efforts of epidemiologists, physicians, chemists, and physiologists that led to today's understanding of vitamins and minerals.
- They recognized that some illnesses were caused by vitamin deficiencies rather than infections or toxins, a common belief at the time.
- Chemists identified the chemical structure of vitamins to replicate them, and researchers determined specific amounts of vitamins needed to avoid deficiency diseases.
- In 1912, biochemist Casimir Funk coined the term "vitamin", derived from "vita" (life) and "amine" (nitrogenous substance essential for life).
- Funk identified nutritional components that were missing in deficiency diseases such as scurvy (vitamin C deficiency), beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency), pellagra (vitamin B3 deficiency), and rickets (vitamin D deficiency).
Vitamin supplements
Vitamins were obtained only from food until the 1930s, when commercial supplements of some vitamins became available.
The US government began fortifying foods with specific nutrients to prevent deficiencies common at the time, such as adding iodine to salt to prevent goiter and adding folic acid to cereal products to reduce birth defects during pregnancy.
By the 1950s, most vitamins and multivitamins were available for sale to the general public to prevent deficiencies, some receiving a good amount of marketing in popular magazines, such as promoting cod liver oil containing the vitamin D as "sunshine in a bottle".
