Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients that your body needs in small or ‘micro’ amounts to function. Each vitamin and mineral fulfils many different functions in the body, but essentially, they are all needed for enzyme reactions for our individual biochemistry. No single food contains all of them, hence the importance of eating a healthy, balanced, and varied diet.
Vitamins and minerals are often referred to as ‘micronutrients’, meaning the body only needs small amounts from the diet, but it makes them no less essential to health and wellbeing. Indeed, a deficiency in just one vitamin or mineral can cause health problems.
Vitamins
Vitamins are produced from living things such as fruits and vegetables. Some are more fragile than others and can be easily destroyed.
There are 13 different vitamins, each with their own special role to play. They are classified into two groups: fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) and water-soluble (the eight B-vitamins and vitamin C).
As their names suggest, water-soluble vitamins are used as needed and then what is not needed is excreted from the body. Fat-soluble vitamins are stored by the body.
Vitamins are essential for our good health and without them our normal body processes would not take place. Vitamins, along with enzymes, function in the millions of biochemical reactions in the body taking place every day, including energy production.
Choline and inositol are often referred to as ‘unofficial’ B-vitamins.
Water-soluble vitamins
Vitamin C
Essential for collagen production, the body’s main structural protein, immune function, manufacture of nerve-transmitting and hormonal substances, absorption of other nutrients and works as a key antioxidant.
B-Vitamins
There are eight B-vitamins: Thiamin (B1), Riboflavin (B2) Niacin (B3), Pantothenic acid (B5), B6, Biotin (B7), Folate (B9), and B12. They have many and varied roles, but are all needed for the body to break down energy. Also essential for healthy skin, nerves, and blood cell production.
Fat-soluble vitamins
Vitamin A
Essential for collagen production, the body’s main structural protein, immune function, manufacture of nerve-transmitting and hormonal substances, absorption of other nutrients and works as a key antioxidant.
Vitamin D
Needed for the absorption of calcium for the bones and teeth and plays a key role in the immune system.
Vitamin E
A key antioxidant, protecting cells from damage, but also important for immune health.
Vitamin K
Helps the blood to clot but also important for bone health.
Minerals
Minerals are rather more robust than vitamins and are not as easily broken down. They are found in soil, water, plants, fish, and animals and enter the body through the food we eat. Each plays a number of roles in the body and are all essential to our health.
Key minerals
Calcium
The body’s most abundant mineral, it’s essential for building bones and teeth. It’s also needed for nerve function, regulation of our heartbeat and blood clotting.
Magnesium
Primarily needed for enzyme activation, for bones and muscles, the nervous system, and energy production.
Phosphorus
Works with calcium for healthy bones and teeth and is a key part of cell membranes.
Zinc
One of the busiest minerals, it is involved in all body systems. Zinc is essential for immunity, hormones, brain function and repair.
Iron
Critical to human life, it’s needed to produce haemoglobin, transporting oxygen around the body in the blood. Also essential for energy production.
Potassium
Known as an electrolyte, it’s needed for regulating fluid balance, essential for nerve and cellular functioning.
Sodium
Sodium works as a trio with potassium and chloride, regulating fluid balance at cellular level, helping keep blood pressure stable and supporting muscle and nerve transmission. Sodium and chloride are normally consumed together as salt.
Fluoride
Important for bones and teeth and primarily naturally occurring in drinking water. Additional fluoride is added to water in some geographical areas.
Trace Minerals
Whilst these minerals are only found in trace amounts in the body, and therefore needed in much smaller amounts, they are no less important for human health. Trace minerals include selenium, copper, manganese, molybdenum, and iodine.
