Essential Nutrients of Natural Vitamins and Minerals and Amino Acids Health

Don’t forget the vital nutrients of vitamins and minerals!  They are just as essential to life, as water, carbohydrates, protein, and fats.  These guys are nutrients too!  Although you may hear them referred to as micronutrients because they are needed in much smaller amounts than the four basic nutrients, it doesn’t mean they are smaller in importance. 

Vitamins are critical to your life!  Vitamins contribute to your good health, by regulating your metabolism and assisting the biochemical processes that release energy from digested food. Vitamins also act as coenzymes, which work with enzymes, allowing all the activities that should occur within your body.  These enzymes are essential chemicals that are the foundation of human bodily functions.  Enzymes are catalysts (activators) in the chemical reactions that are always taking place in the body, making their vitamin partners very important!

• Regulate metabolism
• Assist the biochemical processes to release energy
• Act as coenzymes, for all bodily functions

There are two categories of vitamins, water-soluble and fat-soluble.

1. Water-soluble vitamins must be taken into your body everyday. They cannot be stored and are excreted within one to four days, through urine and sweat. Water-soluble vitamins are vitamin C and B-complex vitamins. If you drink plenty of water or exercise a lot, you may need more of these vitamins!
2. Fat-soluble vitamins can be stored for longer periods of time, in your body’s fatty tissue and the liver. Since fat-soluble vitamins are stored, they can build up in your body causing toxicity. So you want to be careful in not taking too much! Fat-soluble vitamins are A, D, E, and K. Your body needs both types of these vitamins, for proper functioning.

Did you know that every living cell on this planet depends on minerals, for proper function and structure? Look at all they do! Minerals are needed for the proper composition of your body fluids, the formation of blood and bone, the maintenance of healthy nerve function, and the regulation of body tone, including the cardiovascular system. Similar to vitamins, minerals also work as coenzymes! These coenzymes enable the body to perform its functions, of energy production, growth, and healing. Because all enzyme activities involve minerals, minerals are even essential for the proper utilization of vitamins and other nutrients throughout your body!

• Needed for proper bodily function and structure
• Act as coenzymes, for energy production, growth and healing

Minerals are vital in helping the human body maintain its proper chemical balance! This chemical balance depends on the level of different minerals in the body and especially the ratios, of certain mineral levels to one another. Here’s another domino effect because the level of each mineral has an effect on every other, so if one is lacking all minerals are affected! If this imbalance is not corrected, this can start a chain reaction of imbalances that leads to illness.

• Minerals maintain proper chemical balance
• If one mineral is lacking, all minerals are affected
• Imbalance of minerals can cause a chain reaction of imbalances leading to illness

Where do minerals come from?  You’re right!  Minerals are naturally occurring elements found everywhere, in the earth.  Minerals begin with rock formations that are made up of mineral salts. These rocks and stones are gradually broken down into tiny fragments by erosion, a process that can take millions of years.  As it does this, dust and sand accumulate forming the basis of soil.  The soil is filled with microbes that utilize these tiny crystals of mineral salts, which are then passed from the soil to the plants.  Naturally, herbivorous animals eat the plants!  The way we obtain these minerals is by consuming the plants or the herbivorous animals.

• Minerals are naturally occurring elements in the earth
• Rocks consist of mineral salts
• Erosion of rocks causes dust and sand to form soil
• Mineral salts are passed from the soil to the plants
• Herbivorous animals eat the plants
• We get minerals by eating plants or herbivorous animals

 There are two groups of minerals:

1. There are bulk minerals (also called macrominerals) that include calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and phosphorus.  Bulk minerals are needed in larger amounts than trace minerals.
2. There are trace minerals (also called microminerals) that include boron, chromium, copper, germanium, iodine, iron, manganese, selenium, silicon, sulfur, and zinc.  Although only a very small amount of trace minerals are needed-just a trace-they are vitally important for good health!

Be careful not to consume too much!  Minerals are stored primarily in your body’s bone and muscle tissue.  This does make it possible to develop mineral poisoning.

There are about twenty-eight commonly known amino acids that combine to create the hundreds of different proteins present in all living things. These are divided into two different types of amino acids. Both kinds of amino acids are equally vital for life!

• There are 28 commonly known amino acids
• Amino acids are divided into two types, nonessential and essential

1) There are nonessential amino acids that can be manufactured by the body, from other amino acids obtained from dietary sources. Nonessential amino acids are obtained only from the diet. Twenty percent of the total amino acids needed by your body are nonessential amino acids.

2) The liver produces the remaining eighty percent of the amino acids needed by your body. This kind of amino acids is called essential amino acids.

Let’s look a little deeper at what amino acids are! They are the "building blocks" that make up protein. Amino acids contain about sixteen percent nitrogen, which is what distinguishes them from the two basic nutrients sugars and fatty acids that do not contain nitrogen.

•  The “building blocks” that make up protein
•  Build specific proteins for each specific bodily need
•  Neurotransmitters that carry information from one nerve cell to another
•  Allow vitamins and minerals to perform properly

It’s important to know that proteins are a vital part of every living cell in the body! Next to water, protein is what makes up the greatest portion of our body weight. But, the proteins that make up the human body are not obtained directly from the diet. First, the dietary protein has to be broken down into amino acids. Then the body uses these amino acids, to build the specific proteins for each specific need! Actually, it is the amino acids rather than the protein that are the essential nutrients.

Besides combining to form the body’s proteins, some amino acids act as the chemicals that carry information from one nerve cell to another. These chemicals are called neurotransmitters. Also, amino acids allow the vitamins and the minerals to perform their jobs properly. Even if vitamins and minerals are absorbed and assimilated by the body, they cannot be effective unless amino acids are present. Thus is the vital role of amino acids, in helping to nourish your body!