5 December 2007 130 views 4 Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

Lack of vitamins or micronutrients becomes an important problem now. Besides to protect body from severe disease such as cancer, vitamin can also improve our quality of life.

The only reason that often described by health experts why we need extra and various vitamins or multivitamins is that our body cannot produce these nutrients by itself. That’s why supplementation is not only crucial for the people who is in sickness to accelerate the healing, but also vital for healthy people.

The problem is how to get those vitamins effectively and easily. Idrus Jus’at PhD, nutritionist from Universitas Indonusa Esa Unggul suggests that consumption of vitamins is better if acquired from natural sources. Another nutritionist, Dr Samuel Oetoro MD, suggests the usage of supplementation.

“If you want to get natural vitamins you have to consume many natural resources. Nowadays, the ideal requirement for body is at least to get 10 varieties with 10 colors of fruits and vegetables”, Dr Samuel said. Who can eat as much fruits and vegetables as that in every meal to get enough natural vitamins?

Minimizing Stroke
Lack of vitamin is really a big problem nowadays. At one side, the consumption of fruits and vegetables does not meet our daily needs. Also, the way of proceeding or preparing the food makes the vitamins damaged or reduced. Obstacles can also comes from the disability of body to absorb vitamins from natural sources.

At the other side, supplement that is sold in the market is not cheap enough for most of the people. And the habit to consume supplement is still relatively low. The tendency like this is not only happened in developing countries like Indonesia.

In modern countries like United States of America that’s also happened. According to the report from Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee on August 2004, more than half of people in USA do not get adequate vitamin E, calcium, fiber, and potassium. Even most of the adult people are lacking of vitamin A, C, and magnesium. Let’s think about that!

Whereas according to the research of experts from The John Hopkins University in Baltimore, on 2004, the old people, who diligently consume vitamin E and C will significantly has lower risk of Alzheimer compare dot who don’t.

Another proof that should make us concern. This proof shows that the consumption of vitamins and minerals in good balance will give significant protection.

One element that can be used as standard that someone has risk to get heart disease and stroke is the increasing of protein C-reactive rate in blood. The rate of this protein will increase when the wall of artery has inflammation.

In Cooper Institute in Dallas, Texas, AS, the scientists examine about 87 volunteers from age range 50’s. Their blood sample is taken and every day they have to consume vitamin. Six months later, blood test shows the significant decreasing of protein C-reactive rate. Another study that was done in Harvard University, Boston, on 2003 proved that importance of vitamin in protecting body. These scientists found, from 83000 women that were examined at Nurse’s Health Study, 30 percents has lower risk of coronary heart disease because they regularly consumed high dosage of vitamin C.

Energy Conversion
The importance of multivitamins is described clearly by Prof. Bruce Ames, Ph.D, from Children’s Hospital of Oakland Research Institute in Oakland, California, USA. In body cells there are mitochondria (cell center) that functions as battery. Its function is to convert fat and carbohydrate into energy. This conversion process needs mitochondria to take electrons and molecules of oxygen and place them around the cell forming a chain with other molecules.

In normal situation, this process is very efficient because there is only a few molecules of oxygen that are detached and become free radical. But, if some of nutrition is decreasing, something bad will happen.

“Suddenly the mitochondria start to release molecules of radical oxygen into the cell and will make corruptness in it”, says Ames. Ames continued, mitochondria need various multivitamins and multi-mineral such as zinc, iron to create enzyme that will be needed in the process of energy conversion. If there is malfunction occurred in mitochondria, there will be much oxidant that will released into the cell. The consequence is that body will get older more quickly.

The death of mitochondria is an important sign that aging is happening. “And one of the main cause of early aging is the lack of nutrition and vitamin,” says Ames. So, protecting body from various health problems with multivitamins is a mandatory thing today. Besides to increase body immune, these various vitamins also have various benefits to increase the quality of your family life.

(translated from an article in http://www.kompas.com/kesehatan/news/)