Vitamins Are Nature's Power Pack for a Healthy Life

Every day around the world, millions of people spend their limited spare cash on bottles of vitamins in the belief they are helping to achieve good health. While no one will deny there is limited benefit in those bottles, there is also much in them that the unsuspecting public may not realize they really don't need.

What Are Vitamins and How Do They Help Us?

Naturally occurring vitamins are nature's gift to us. They are essential to life providing the body with the fuel it needs to grow and develop, protect and repair itself, resist infection and carry out normal every day functions like digest and store food and create red blood cells. They are found naturally occurring in all organic matter such as plants and animals. If vitamins are lacking from a person's diet they will begin to feel rundown and be more susceptible to infection and serious diseases like heart disease, gastric problems and even cancers.

Vitamins occur in two forms, those that are fat soluble and those what are water soluble. Fat soluble vitamins are stored in the body and can be used when we don't ingest enough of these vitamins in our diet. Water soluble vitamins however cannot be stored and must be replaced daily. Fat soluble vitamins include Vitamin A, D, E, and K and we absorb those from the healthy fats that we eat daily. Water soluble vitamins include the Vitamin B group of vitamins and Vitamin C. These are found in foods such as vegetables and fruit. Each group interacts with other vitamin groups and this aids their absorption in the digestive system and their use by the body.

The body can usually absorb enough vitamins through the foods we eat each day for its daily needs. Fat soluble vitamins can be stored in the body for future use, but we excrete excess amounts of water soluble vitamins and we need to replenish each day to maintain adequate levels in the body. When a person feels generally lethargic or otherwise unwell, they will often be prescribed vitamin supplements to give them more energy and to boost their immune system.

While there is nothing wrong with taking extra vitamins, it's essential to know how individual vitamin groups are absorbed by the body and how the body uses them. It is also important to know how we can increase our absorption of naturally occurring vitamins rather choosing substitutes that are often coated in sugar and are prepared in a way that our bodies cannot always absorb particularly well. Research shows that we only absorb as little as 10 percent of these bottled vitamins compared to using 100% of naturally occurring vitamins we eat as part of a healthy diet.

How to Increase Vitamin Absorption and Use By Our Bodies

A healthy digestive system is the single most important factor in ensuring we absorb adequate levels of vitamins in our diet. Food is digested and vitamins extracted and either absorbed, stored or excreted from the body through the actions of enzymes that naturally occur in our digestive systems. Increasing the amount of fiber in our diet, reducing simple carbohydrates that increase blood sugar levels and reducing foods high in fat and heavily processed will improve our general digestive health and function.

For extreme cases of deficiency you can talk to a health store who will recommend natural and herbal forms of these vitamin groups. If you are generally healthy, ensure you improve your general knowledge on the foods that are high in each group and plan your diet to include adequate amounts of each of the vitamin groups every day.

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