Vitamins and Minerals

 

 

Vitamins are natural substances found in living things like plants. A vitamin is a nutrient that is necessary for the normal functioning of the body but is not produced by the body and must be obtained from food. A few vitamins can be stored in the body, but most cannot and so we need a fresh supply of vitamins daily.

 

 

Minerals are foundin plants. Plants get minerals by absorbing them from the soil – soil gets minerals from water washing over rocks. Many animals eat plant food so you can get some vitamins and minerals from eating meat.

 

Critical to our understanding of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants and how to create dynamic health; is to realize that the body IS creating every millisecond of every day we are alive. These millions of chemical processes require a whole network of nutrients at ALL times.

 

Eventhough we may believe that we eat for pleasure (which of course, eating can beone of the greatest pleasures) the reason we feel hungry is a signal to cause us to eat… because ourbody needs US to give it the resources to perform a function. It is not for survival it is for creation!

 

It is quite possible however, at any given time, to create positively toward dynamic health or create negatively against dynamic health.

 

 

View it this way - our bodies function because of nutrients and other naturally occurring compounds derived from food. When specific nutrients are not available to the body, it can't perform the function which requires that nutrient.

 

“A deficiency of a vitamin or mineral will cause a body part to malfunction and eventually breakdown – and, like dominos, other body parts will follow.”

James F. Balch, MD.
Prescription for Nutritional Healing

 

 

If we were born having access to the specific nutritional blueprint for each of our bodies, and we precisely followed that blueprint, it could be theorized that we might be incapable of becoming sick or developing disease. The study of how foods and nutrients affect our genes, health and our longevity is called Nutrigenomics.

 

It may be that one day in the future, scientists will be able to locate and decode the parts of our genome (the manual) that provides each of us our nutritional blueprint to follow. Given that we are probably many years’ away (possibly lifetimes) from this discovery…we must attempt to provide our bodies with as many nutrients as possible, in a consistent manner. It is logically the only way you can create dynamic health.

 

“Vitamins and minerals in your body should not be viewed as independent substances, but rather as a cooperative network of nutrients working together. If one nutrient is missing, it throws the entire network of nutrients out of balance”

 Health Awareness Foundation

 

Let me highlight just a few cases where nutrient deficiency was evidenced as the total cause ("cause" being the reason something DOES or DOES NOT happen) that a disease existed. Scurvy, Beriberi and Pellagra are just a few examples of nutrient deficiency caused diseases.

 

Scurvy is the result of a lack of vitamin C; if it is not cured through the consumption of vitamin C, it is a fatal disease. Symptoms include swollen joints, inflamed and bleeding gums, weakness and nosebleeds to name a few. Vitamin C is found in particularly high concentrations in oranges, lemons, and limes.

 

Scurvy was a serious problem in the past, when fresh fruits and vegetables were not available during the winter in many parts of the world. It was especially common among sailors in the days when only non-perishable foods could be stocked aboard ships. More than half the crew of the Vasco da Gama died from Scurvy on the first sailing (1497-99) around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1747 the Scottish naval surgeon James Lind treated scurvy-ridden sailors with lemons and oranges and obtained dramatic cures. In1795 the British navy began to distribute regular rations of lime juice during long sea voyages to their sailors (hence the name “limeys” for British sailors.) This was a measure that was largely successful in preventing scurvy. It is considered to be the first disease definitely associated with a nutrient deficiency.

 

However, when these discoveries were first made, those that pioneered the research were often ridiculed and condemned as quacks and charlatans. It took the medical community many years after the discovery that Scurvy was simply a deficiency in vitamin C, to accept this treatment as a cure.

 

Beriberi is caused from a deficiency in the vitamin thiamine (vitamin B1). A myriad of health problems are evidenced from a deficiency of thiamine in the diet, ranging from emotional disturbances, weight loss, and paralysis, to heart failure and death. Unprocessed grains, legumes, Kale, Asparagus, along with other foods, supply thiamine to the body.

 

As severe as the effects of Beriberi are, it is also worth noting that when thiamine is administered to a person suffering from Beriberi, the symptoms begin to disappear within an HOUR!

 

Pellagra is the result of a deficiency of Niacin (vitamin B3) and results in symptoms of aggression, insomnia, dermatitis, diarrhea, mental confusion and dementia - to name a few. Symptoms of Pellagra are common in societies where corn makes up of a high percentage of their diet, caused by the modern day processing of corn.

Similar to the delay by the medical community in accepting Vitamin C as both prevention and cure for Scurvy, the same is true with Pellagra. It was thirty years after it was discovered that eating liver or yeast could prevent the disease, that the medical profession accepted that the cause was a deficiency in Niacin.  

 

When you review the symptoms of the diseases highlighted above, it is easy to see how many of these symptoms are usually experienced by most people, at some point in their lives. While death from Scurvy is now rare (in developed countries)… could it be that when we get a nosebleed, or we feel depressed, anxious or experience aching joints, etc, instead of accepting it as an inevitable part of life and aging (looking to treatment through drugs) - that instead we stop to ask ourselves "are we feeding our bodies thenecessary nutrients it needs"?

 

There are THOUSANDS of examples of how by simply providing our bodies with the proper nutrition, we are able to prevent disease, cure aches and pains, prevent allergies, reverse sicknesses and disease, and live dynamically healthy lives.

 

In the case of Scurvy, as with many diseases, what once appeared as a mysterious (being defined as something that appeared impossible or difficult to explain), incurable and deadly disease was SIMPLY a deficiency in vitamin C. It is so widely understood and accepted today, that we take it for granted that vitamin C is vital to our bodies.

 

Financially, the prevention of sickness and disease through nutrition can be accomplished for PENNIES, when compared to the cost of pharmaceutical drugs, doctor’s visits and longterm health care.

 

Discover the answer in the next section...