Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
Everyone knows what vitamins and minerals are: They’re in those little pills that you take with your morning orange juice. But what are they, really?
Vitamins and minerals are organic compounds that your body needs to function properly and stay healthy. Unlike foods, vitamins and minerals do not provide calories and energy. But they do play key roles in regulating metabolism and many other biochemical reactions.
You need only tiny quantities of vitamins and most minerals, which is why supplement manufacturers can pack so many different nutrients into multivitamin/mineral pills. Some supplements are natural, meaning that their vitamins and minerals have been extracted from plants-for example, vitamin C from rose hips. Others are synthetic laboratory creations.
Until the 1990s, mainstream medicine scoffed at supplements. Critics insisted that a balanced diet would supply all of the nutrients that a person could need. They charged that except for preventing vitamin deficiency diseases (such as scurvy, rickets, and beriberi), supplements were medically worthless and a waste of money.
There are still a handful of naysayers who offer the media an “I told you so” whenever the occasional study raises questions about some supplement’s safety or effectiveness for some condition. But by and large, mainstream medicine has come around to what a few M.D’s and alternative practitioners have been saying-and documenting-for decades: Vitamin and mineral supplements are key elements in optimum health.
The evidence has become almost impossible to ignore, as a growing body of research substantiates the value of supplementation. Various studies have suggested that supplements of one kind or another can prevent heart attacks, boost immunity, enhance mental function, alleviate depression, and slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and osteoarthritis. And that’s just the beginning.
As scientists learn more about the health benefits of supplementation, public interest has blossomed, too. An estimated 150 million Americans take supplements, with sales topping $4 billion a year.
