Vitamins and minerals are probably the most important components of the food you eat. While in older days, people used to get most of their vitamins from the food itself, today, the situation is such that humans have started depending more and more on pills to complete their vitamin requirements, partly due to factors such as pollution and genetic modification in vegetable and fruit crops, rendering many vitamins useless for the human body.
Role of Vitamins in the Body
There are 13 essential vitamins that you need to lead a healthy life, and each has an essential role to play in your body. Some help regulate cell growth and repair functions, while others aid in reproduction and other processes in the body.
Common Deficiencies
The importance of vitamins and minerals is understood when you end up with a deficiency of a particular vitamin. Deficiencies of vitamins may result in night blindness, liver diseases and inability to heal properly, among other conditions. Some common symptoms that indicated a vitamin deficiency include eye pain or inflammation, blurred vision, hair loss, dandruff, bleeding gums, tooth discoloration, nail ridges, and brittle or blue nails.
Types of Vitamins
Many different types of vitamins are out there, and each type has a different role to play in the body. Vitamins generally come in two broad categories of vitamin supplements: dry types and the tender or wet types. The dry type of vitamin contains the vitamin in a powder form inside a capsule, whereas the wet or tender vitamin is an oil-based solution.
Best Choice
While there are many views on this debate, according to Dr. Umesh Jindal, because the tender vitamins are in an oil-based gel, most of the vitamin remains unabsorbed by the body. Therefore, try to purchase most of your vitamins in a dry powder form inside the capsule. If you are unsure, ask your pharmacist about the types of vitamins the store is selling.
Best in Dry Form
If you purchase vitamins A, D, E and K in tender form, they will not get absorbed in the body at all. Therefore, to get the maximum benefit from the vitamin supplement you buy, ensure you are getting the dry form of the above-named vitamins.
References
- Dr. Umesh Jindal
- Kids Health: Vitamins
- U.S. National Library of Medicine: Vitamins
