Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, Vitamin B6, Folate, Vitamin B12. B vitamins, also known as B-Complex, include eight water-soluble vitamins commonly found in foods. Thiamin Functions Thiamin, also known as vitamin B1, helps...
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble vitamin that has many important functions in the body: Vitamin C: • Helps produce collagen, a protein that holds bones and other tissues together...
Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin needed by the liver to help it create several proteins required to help the blood clot. It also supports proteins involved in bone metabolism and cell growth. Several...
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that helps control the level of calcium and phosphorus in the blood to help the body build and maintain strong bones and teeth. It also helps increase the...
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that performs several key functions in the body: • Helps create and maintain healthy teeth, bones, and soft tissues in the body • Preserves your skin and mucous...
Your body needs small amount of vitamins to help it grow, develop, and function properly. Although vitamins are micronutrients and don’t provide calories or energy to the body the way the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats,...
Several types of plants are referred to as ginseng: Both American and Asian ginsengs belong to the genus Panax, while Siberian ginseng, or Eleutherococcus senticosus, is a different species in the same family. All...
Folic acid is a B vitamin that is essential for helping your body make new cells. It is found in its natural form (called folate) in many foods, including leafy green vegetables, fruits, dried...
Vitamin C, which is also called ascorbic acid, is a vitamin that your body requires for good health. Your body uses it to form collagen in bones, cartilage, muscle, and blood vessels and to...
Scurvy, a fatal vitamin C deficiency that ravaged the British navy in the eighteenth century, caused extensive suffering and death for sailors at sea. But one valuable thing did come out of the epidemic:...
Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that your body requires for optimal health. It’s needed to make red blood cells, to help your nervous system work properly, and to synthesize DNA, which is the genetic...
Can vitamin D help with the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS)? Will vitamin D supplementation delay the progression of MS in someone who has MS? Patients with multiple sclerosis are often vitamin D deficient....
Once you are diagnosed with cancer, does it help to take vitamin D supplements? We don’t know whether increasing vitamis D once a diagnosis of cancer is made provides any benefit in reducing the...
Consult Your Doctor BEFORE taking any recommended Vitamin D on your own. What are the recommendations for vitamin D during pregnancy? It is recommended that all pregnant women take the prenatal vitamins that contain...
Vitamin D toxicity is often difficult to diagnose. The diagnosis is made based on the blood biochemistries that include elevated blood calcium (usually above 10.4 milligrams per deciliter) along with a markedly elevated level...
The major issue with obtaining vitamin D from a pill is that you have to remember to take the pill. Nowadays, it’s easy to find supplements with 1,000 IU or even 2,000 IU per...
Virtually everyone can recite the milk industry’s campaign slogan: It does a body good. Much of this goodness no doubt hinges on the calcium content of milk. Calcium is the most abundant mineral in...
Naturally, we’re disposed to think about vitamin D as vitamin – a substance that we get from our diets, like vitamin C or niacin, and that participates in biological reactions to help the body...
How long does it take to increase 25-vitamin D levels after starting supplementation? Healthy adults taking 1,000 IU of vitamin D a day reach their peak blood level within five to six weeks. When...
What happens when you cook foods rich in Vitamin D, like wild salmon? Do you lose their potency? Vitamin D is relatively stable in foods. Storage, processing, and cooking have little effect on its...
Vitamin B12 is composed of several compounds that are given the generic name cobalamins because all of them contain cobalt. Vitamin B12 cannot be synthesized by plants and is found primarily in meat and...
The terms folate and folic acid are used interchangeably when referring to vitamin B9. Folic acid is the most stable of the two forms and is often found in supplements and fortified foods. Folate...
Biotin acts as a coenzyme that helps transport carbon dioxide between compounds. Biotin also plays a role in protein synthesis, the formation of long-chain fatty acids and the Krebs cycle, the basic biological process...
There are three forms of vitamin B6: pyridoxine, pyridoxal and pyridoxamine. All three are present in most body tissues, with the highest concentration being in the liver. Of the three, pyridoxine is the most...
Vitamin B2 – Riboflavin Riboflavin participates in the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the body’s basic energy currency. The body uses ATP any time energy is needed – to move muscles, digest food, breathe,...
To better understand what thiamine does in the body, consider the word that describes thiamine deficiency: beriberi. This Sinhalese word means, “I can’t, I can’t”. And people suffering from beriberi can’t do a lot....
The B vitamin family comprises eight water-soluble nutrients that are essential for functions and processes throughout the body. Most of us probably take the B vitamins for granted, but if we understood how important...
The U.S. government recently raised the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin C for adults from 60 milligrams to 80 milligrams. The following table offers RDAs for specific age and risk groups: It’s important...
Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that the body uses for blood clotting and bone formation. The “K” in vitamin K comes from the German word koagulation, because the vitamin is essential for the...
Parkinson’s disease is a serious, debilitating health condition that causes stiffness, tremors, and lowness of movement due to inadequate levels of dopamine in the brain. In a 2008 study, researchers at the Emory University...