Do Vitamins Really Work? 
Are capsules better than tablets? Should vitamins be taken on an empty stomach? We answer your questions about supplements, whether you want to offset an imperfect diet or preventdisease. It shouldn't be this hard to buy a vitamin pill, but it is. Every month new products hit the market with assorted health claims, and new studies proclaim or warn against supplements.
What Can You Do? We can do one of two things--not
buy vitamins, or get informed. Many Americans are deciding on the latter, because it appears, from a fast-growing body of evidence, that taking vitamins and other micronutrients supports good health and prevents disease. Vitamin buying can be trying. Starbucks may brew a great cup of coffee, but the giant bean seller has turned ordering into a trying task, with choices of short or tall, skinny or fat, with or without whipped cream, ad nauseam.
What Kind Of Vitamins To Buy? The one with sodium ascorbate or calciumascorbate, both buffered forms that reduce the acidity of C? Esterified vitamin C (made up of "chains" of C), rose hip C (made partly from the seed pods of roses), or acerola C (drawn partly from acerola berries)? Vitamin C with bioflavonoids, biologically active plant chemicals? C in liquid, chewable, or time-release form? 100 mg? 500 mg? 1,000? Tablets or capsules? How about those foil packets with fizzy vitamin C? Vitamins can be dangerous.
What Is A Vitamin? Want to know what antioxidants to take to prevent cancer? Or perhaps you puzzle over when you should take your vitamins, and with what foods, if any. For answers to these and other questions, read on. The 13 essential vitamins are divided into two groups: water-soluble vitamins that need to be replenished daily (vitamin C and the B vitamins) and fat-soluble vitamins you may need less frequently because the body can store them (vitamins A, D , E, and K).
What Are The Essential Minerals?
The
essential mineral include calcium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc. Vitamins are organic compounds essential for health (in this sense, organic means they contain at least one carbon atom). Minerals are inorganic elements also essential for health; they're almost always consumed a; mineral-containing compounds, whether in food or supplements. Both vitamins and minerals function as coenzymes and cofactors that initiate and promote virtually all biochemical processes in the body, and recent research shows that many vitamins also influence the behavior of genes.
Why Do You Need Vitamins?
Basically, you need vitamins and minerals to calcium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc. Although bacteria in your body can make trace amounts of some vitamins, most have to come from the diet, as do minerals. I've been eating a good vegetarian diet with lots of organic foods for 20 years and I'm healthy. As a group, vegetarians certainly enjoy better health than meat eaters. One stud published in the Sept. 28, 1996, issue of the British Medical journal, found that vegetarians were far less likely than meat eaters to die from heart disease, stroke and cancer. There are probably two reasons for this. One is that fruits and vegetables provide large amounts of protective antioxidants (such as vitamin C and carotenoids).
Note: Image(s) the courtesy of http://www.dreamstime.com.