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Time: 10 hours
Level: Introductory
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 Introduction Resource- Both vitamins and minerals are essential in the diet in small quantities.The term ‘vitamin’ was not coined until early in the 20th century, to describe those chemicals in food without which a pattern of...
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- Introduction to vitamins and why we need them Resource
- Before the 19th century, one of the hazards of long sea voyages was a condition called scurvy, whose symptoms were loss of hair and teeth, bleeding gums, very slow healing of wounds, and eventually death....
- Vitamin A Resource
- Look back at Table 1 and identify the foods that contain vitamin A. On the basis of this information, try to predict where vitamin A is stored in the human body.
- Vitamin D Resource
- The main role of vitamin D is to facilitate the uptake of calcium from food, through the lining of the small intestine into the blood. It also controls the deposition of calcium in the bones during growth...
- Vitamin E Resource
- Vitamin E is not a single compound, but consists of a group of eight closely related chemicals, of which the most important, responsible for about 90% of its activity in the body is alpha-tocopherol. Since,...
- Vitamin K Resource
- Like vitamin E, vitamin K is fat-soluble and composed of a series of related compounds. Vitamin K is widely distributed in the diet (see Table 1) and it is absorbed from the small intestine with the assistance...
- Vitamin B Resource
- Vitamin B, often called the vitamin B complex, consists of a whole range of different compounds, some of which have similar functions and work together. However, unlike the families of compounds forming...
- Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) Resource
- What is the condition that results from vitamin C deficiency and what are its symptoms?
- Key points about vitamins Resource
- Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble; the remainder are water-soluble.
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| | Minerals, electrolytes and fluids
- Introduction to minerals and why we need them Resource
- Both vitamins and minerals are essential in the diet in small quantities and so they are often grouped together as micronutrients.
- Major minerals Resource
- The major mineral elements, defined here as those where 25 g or more is present in the body, are listed in Table 4.
- Calcium (Ca) Resource
- About 40% of the total mineral mass of bones is calcium, making it the most abundant mineral in the body. In bone, it is combined with phosphorus, as well as oxygen and hydrogen, in a mineral compound...
- Phosphorus (P), magnesium (Mg) and sulphur (S) Resource
- Like calcium, phosphorus is important in the structure of bones and teeth. It is vital in the body as part of the molecules ATP and DNA, and is also a component of phospholipids, lipoproteins and many...
- Sodium (Na), chlorine (Cl) and potassium (K) Resource
- The element sodium is a soft silvery metal and the element chlorine is a greenish gas that is poisonous to humans and many other animals. Yet when these two elements are combined together in a compound...
- Trace elements Resource
- The trace elements (also known as minor minerals or microminerals) are those that occur in quantities of less than about 5 g in the body. The more important ones are listed in Table 5, though not all of...
- Fluorine (F) Resource
- Fluoride ions (F−) are rare in foods, though some are found in tea and in seafood. However, fluoride does occur naturally in some water supplies, derived from the rocks through which the water flows. Its...
- Iodine (I) Resource
- Iodide ions (I−) derived, like all mineral elements, from the breakdown of rocks, is present in some soils, but much of it has been dissolved out by water over millions of years and washed down into the...
- Iron (Fe) Resource
- The ability of blood to carry oxygen is due to the presence of the red pigment, haemoglobin, present in red blood cells. Haemoglobin is a protein formed from four polypeptide chains called globins, in...
- Selenium (Se) Resource
- Selenium is found in the body in an important group of enzymes (glutathione peroxidases) which have important antioxidant properties and work in conjunction with vitamins C and E to destroy free radicals...
- Zinc (Zn) Resource
- Zinc is involved in many metabolic processes in the body, due to its importance in the functioning of more than 100 enzymes. These control, amongst other things, metabolism of foods, production of energy,...
- Fluid balance Resource
- Although a person can survive for several weeks without food, without fluids, someone can survive for only a few days. A loss of water equivalent to just 1% of body weight is enough to make someone feel...
- Key points about minerals Resource
- Certain minerals are required in the body.
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| | References and Acknowledgements | |
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