Natural Energy Supplements are: Vitamins, Minerals and Essential Fatty Acids.

In this article the following questions are asked and answered:

- Exactly what are vitamins and what are minerals and is there any difference between vitamins and minerals?

- Is it beneficial to take lots of vitamins and minerals?

First some fundamentals about nutrition. Proper and sufficient nutrition is needed to sustain life, yield energy, and assist with tissue growth and repair. A healthy and nourishing diet includes six classes of nutrients:

1) carbohydrates

2) fats

3) proteins

4) vitamins

5) minerals

6) water

Carbohydrate, fat, and protein are required in larger quantitities for our bodies (grams per day) and they add energy. Hence carbohydrate, fat, and protein are known as macrontrients; we require more of them.

Vitamins and minerals are regarded as micronutrients; needed in lesser quantities (milligrams or micrograms/day). They do not provide energy, but they aid our bodies carry out necessary and important physiological processes. Around 40 of these nutrients are necessary for life because our bodies cannot synthesize enough to satisfy physiological requirements.

The difference between Vitamins and minerals

Vitamins ("vita" = life and "amine" = comprising of nitrogen) are organic (comprising of carbon, which is an element found in all living things) compound, containing atoms of many different elements.

Minerals are pure inorganic elements (containing atoms of similar element), that implies they are much more simple in chemical form as compared to vitamins. All vitamins are essential or required by our systems, while only a few minerals are basic nutrients. Vitamins are susceptible to high temperature, light, and chemical agents, so cooking, food preparation, producing, and storage have to be appropriate to conserve vitamins in food. Minerals, however, are more stable to food preparation, but mineral reduction could occur when they are bound to different substances in foods (such as oxalates found in spinach and also tea, and phytates present in legumes and grains), making them inaccessible for the body to utilize.

Vitamins are either water-soluble (water is required for absorption and are excreted in urine) or fat- soluble (requires fat for assimilation and are stored in fat tissue). There are actually 9 different water-soluble vitamins: vitamin C and the eight B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamins B6 and B12, folate, biotin, and pantothenic acid); and, 4 different fat-soluble vitamins: vitamins A, D, E, and K. Each of these vitamins have different roles and functions in our bodies.

Minerals are grouped as major or macro- (calcium, phosphorus, potassium, chloride, sodium, magnesium, and sulfur), and trace or micro- (iron, iodine, zinc, selenium, chromium, fluoride, molybdenum, copper, and manganese) minerals, the former needed in quantities of 100mg/day or more, and the latter needed in smaller, or "trace," amounts. These 16 essential minerals also play important roles in the body.

Instead of depending on health supplements, unless necessary due to a deficiency, work to fulfill your body's nutritional requirements by obtaining these nutrients from a varied and diverse diet with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Essential fatty acids, or EFAs, are fatty acids that human beings and animals must consume for good health as the body needs them but can't make them from other food components. The phrase refers to fatty acids needed for biological processes, and not those that only act as fuel.

In order to function properly, the body requires optimal quantities of all of the basic nutrients 60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids and 2 to 3 essential fatty acids. If we lack any of them in our eating routine then we may create health issues and ailments.

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