What Vitamins & Minerals Do

Vitamins and minerals are nutrients your body cannot produce and must get from foods in your diet. Each vitamin and mineral plays a unique role in growth and development, health promotion and disease prevention. These substances support the health of your bones, cardiovascular system, blood, immune response and other systems and functions of your body. Consult your doctor about how vitamins and minerals help you sustain your health.

Bone Health

Bone is an organ that forms your skeleton and connective tissues, protects your internal organs, such as the heart and lungs, and produces blood cells. Bones are made of protein and minerals, particularly calcium, magnesium and phosphorous. Vitamin D helps you absorb calcium into your body from foods and build bones and cartilage. When you are deficient in calcium or vitamin D, you can develop osteoporosis and increase your risk of bone fractures. A vitamin D deficiency can also cause rickets, a disease in which your bones soften and deform because your body is less able to absorb calcium.

Red Blood Cell Health

Vitamins and minerals play an integral role in maintaining the health of your red blood cells. Red blood cells contain a compound called hemoglobin, which carries oxygen from your lungs to the cells throughout your body and carries back carbon dioxide, a waste product, from your cells to your lungs. Vitamin B12 is involved in the production of hemoglobin. Iron is a mineral that is part of the hemoglobin compound and plays a vital role in red blood cell formation. About two-thirds of the iron in your body is present in red blood cells. Deficiencies of vitamin B12 or iron can cause anemia, a condition of an insufficient amount of red blood cells that is characterized by heart palpitations and shortness of breath.

Immune System Health

White blood cells are part of your immune system that travel in the blood to fight infections and protect your body from foreign invaders and toxins. Certain vitamins and minerals can stimulate and support the response of your white blood cells to infections from bacteria, parasites, fungi and viruses. Vitamin C boosts your immune function by stimulating the production of white blood cells, particularly neutrophils, lymphocytes and phagocytes. Zinc stimulates immune cell proliferation. Zinc depletion causes impairment of all types of immune cells, such as natural killer cells, B cells and T cells, according to research by scientists at the Institute of Immunology at Technical University of Aachen in Germany and published in the "Journal of Nutrition" in 2003.

Anti-Aging and Cell Protection

Antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, copper and selenium, protect your cells from chemicals and toxins that damage cells and cause cancer and other diseases. One of the ways they protect your cells is by preventing the formation of free radicals, substances that cause aging. They also protect your cell membranes from lipid peroxidation, a process that can cause structural changes.