Vitamins Facts :: essays research papers

     VITAMINSVitamins, a group of organic substances required in our diets in small amounts for growth and nutrition, are usually found in foodstuffs or letn as supplements. Yet vitamins probably present a wider gap surrounded by myth and reality in the laymans understanding than almost any other area of our diet. Surveys have found that while a majority of Americans do take vitamin supplements on a regular or occasional basis for reason of health concerns, on that point exists enormous confusion about the actual purpose and benefits of this normal ("Use of Vitamin and Mineral Supplements in the United States," 1990161). Most people have a recognition that Vitamin C prevents scurvy, that Vitamin A is found in fish-liver oils, or that Vitamin D is found in dairy products many people believe that Vitamin E preserves youth and prevents sterility, or that Vitamin C can present colds and cancer. Beyond this, however, there is still considerable ignorance a nd widespread myth.The reality behind the common practice of taking vitamin supplements is less dramatic, although vitamins do represent an important component of the necessary mankind diet. The word vitamin was formed from the Latin word for life, "vita," and the Greek word "amine", because 19th century scientists believed that they were formed only from amino acids. Amino acids are the xx essential code elements which arrange themselves in varied sequences or chains to form complex proteins, the basic foodstuff of life. These organic acids (containing the essential ingredient NH2), in conjunction with the nucleic acids (DNA material being composed of the four bases adenine, guanine thymine and cytosine), "translate" the genetic instructions from the DNA of the chromosome to the RNA transcript, and in turn absent these instructions from the transcript to proteins.If proteins are the building blocks of life, then amino acids are the building blocks of prot eins. Plant cells form amino acids from the compounds which the plant draws up from the ground, such as the nitrates and ammonia salts. Animals, however, cannot perform this conversion of simple inorganic substances to amino acids, so they must ingest them in the form of food-- with herbivorous animals consuming plant proteins in vegetables and carnivorous animals consuming animal proteins in the bodies of their prey. Vitamins are essential aids in many body processes, converting food the energy, building and maintaining cells, and other functions.Vitamins can so be looked at as a crucial ingredient in a the long-term maintenance of health.