Vitamins and Natural Supplements

A Natural supplement is a manufactured product intended to add nutrients to your diet or to lower your risk of health problems, like osteoporosis or arthritis. Dietary supplements usually come in the form of pills, capsules, powders, gel tabs, extracts, or liquids. They might contain vitamins, minerals, fiber, amino acids, herbs or other plants, or enzymes. Popular supplements include vitamins D and E; minerals like calcium and iron; herbs such as echinacea and garlic; and specialty products like glucosamine, probiotics, and fish oils.

A mineral is a chemical element required as an essential nutrient by organisms to perform functions necessary for life. Your body needs certain minerals to build strong bones and teeth and turn the food you eat into energy. As with vitamins, a healthy balanced diet should provide all the minerals your body needs to work properly. Essential minerals include calcium, iron and potassium

Minerals are necessary for 3 main reasons:

• building strong bones and teeth
• controlling body fluids inside and outside cells
• turning the food you eat into energy

 Nutrition is the science of food and the ways in which the body uses it. Nutrients in the food provide us energy and help to form body tissues and they are a necessary part of healthy life and ageing. Health is a person’s physical condition in being free from illness or injury. The goal of healthy ageing is to help people develop and maintain the functional ability that enables well-being.

Amino acids are organic compounds composed of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, along with a variable side chain group. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. There are 20 different amino acids in nature.

Proteins are large, complex molecules that are critical for the normal functioning of the human body. They are essential for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs. Proteins are made up of hundreds of smaller units called amino acids that are attached to one another by peptide bonds, forming a long chain.

Bodybuilding supplements are dietary supplements commonly used by those involved in bodybuilding, weightlifting, mixed martial arts, and athletics for the purpose of facilitating an increase in lean body mass. There is no shortage of supplements that claim to boost muscle gains, but truly elite physiques are built by hard training and serious nutrition first and foremost. Supplements are just the icing on a cake.

A vitamin deficiency can cause a disease or syndrome known as an avitaminosis or hypovitaminosis. This usually refers to a long-term deficiency of a vitamin. When caused by inadequate nutrition it can be classed as a primary deficiency, and when due to an underlying disorder such as malabsorption  it can be classed as a secondary deficiency. An underlying disorder may be metabolic as in a defect converting tryptophan to niacin. It can also be the result of lifestyle choices including smoking and alcohol consumption.

Dietary supplements must comply with the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. The regulations describe a number of requirements including, but not limited to, labelling and maximum permitted daily doses for several vitamins and minerals.

A dietary supplement is defined as a product taken by mouth containing a dietary ingredient intended to supplement the diet. Dietary ingredients include vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, and amino acids. In 1994, Congress passed the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA), an important piece of legislation which provided a regulatory framework for assuring the safety of dietary supplements. DSHEA granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to establish regulations regarding dietary supplement manufacturing, regulating health claims and labeling of dietary supplements, and creating governmental bodies to encourage research on supplements (Office of Dietary Supplements) and dietary supplement label claims (Commission on Dietary Supplement Labels).

This medication is a multivitamin product used to treat or prevent vitamin deficiency due to poor diet, certain illnesses, or during pregnancy. Vitamins are important building blocks of the body and help keep you in good health.

It is commonly believed that taking mega-doses of certain vitamins will act like medicine to cure or prevent certain ailments. For instance, vitamin C is suggested as a cure for the common cold, and vitamin E is widely promoted as a beneficial antioxidant to help prevent heart disease.

After extensive research, however, neither of these claims has been shown to be true. Large-scale studies have consistently shown little benefit in taking mega-doses of supplements. In fact, there is some evidence that taking high-dose supplements to prevent or cure major chronic diseases, such as heart disease and cancer, may be harmful to your health.

Health is the ability to adapt and manage physical, mental and social challenges throughout life. As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), health is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This WHO definition has been subject to controversy, as it may have limited value for implementation

Nutrition is the science that interprets the interaction of nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. It includes food intake, absorption, assimilation, biosynthesis, catabolism, and excretion.

The diet of an organism is what it eats, which is largely determined by the availability and palatability of foods. For humans, a healthy diet includes preparation of food and storage methods that preserve nutrients from oxidation, heat or leaching, and that reduce risk of foodborne illnesses.

Food-based supplements are made by using enzymes to compound synthetic and natural vitamins with vegetable proteins, or blending natural and synthetic nutrients into a whole-food or herbal base. Neither process delivers a whole food's entire nutrient profile, but each integrates key vitamins and minerals.

Supplements can plug dietary gaps, but nutrients from food are most important. The fresh food you eat is loaded with nutrients necessary for good health, such as magnesium, calcium, and vitamins A and C. But many older adults aren't getting enough nutrients from their diets.