Vitamins and minerals help maintain your body and play a role in a variety of bodily functions. Without some vitamins, the oxygen you breathe could not get circulated throughout the rest of your body and your hair wouldn't grow. Some vitamin deficiencies can leave your tongue painfully swollen.
Birth Defect Prevention
You might think of how vitamins help you at the current moment, but vitamins played a role in your life before you were even born. Folic acid, also known as folate, helps prevent birth defects. Pregnant women are advised to take 400 mcg of folic acid during pregnancy. If you've had previous pregnancies and your infant suffered from a neural tube defect, you may need up to 4 mg of folic acid. Ask your health care provider what's right for you, because this is a huge increase as this is more than twice as much as the normal amount pregnant women take.
Bone Health
Again, going back to the time of conception until now, some vitamins and minerals such as calcium, iron and vitamin D have played a crucial role in working together to form and maintain your bones and help them grow. As you age, they will become even more important as your bones wear down and the demand for these vitamins and minerals increases. Without these vitamins and minerals, you would have weak bones and could become more susceptible to fractured and broken bones. All of these specific vitamins and minerals can be obtained from food sources, but your body can also make vitamin D. After you've been exposed to sunlight, your body will begin to make vitamin D.
Healthy Blood and Tissues
Vitamins, minerals and oxygen circulate throughout your blood. Everything in your body requires oxygen to live. When you breathe, your blood carries oxygen from your lungs to your blood and distributes oxygen to vital tissues and organs throughout your body. Your body needs iron to aid in the production of hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a special protein that helps your blood carry oxygen. Without oxygen, tissues and organs within your body would begin to shut down and die.
Electrical Impulses
When you pick up a glass of water, your brain sends signals -- electrical impulses -- to your hand to tell it to grip the glass and bring it to your mouth. Breathing and blinking also require electrical impulses, but these are involuntary actions. Your brain tells your body when to breathe, when to blink and when to pick up your foot while walking. Potassium helps conduct these electrical impulses, which help skeletal and smooth muscle contraction.
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