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Hinweis der Redaktion
Hi everyone. My name is Catherine Ingebrand. I’m a student at Kaplan University, here today to talk to you about vitamin supplements and how you can safely and effectively use vitamins to increase your health and wellness. I’m handing out a list of the sources of information used in this presentation so you can reference the sources later. Can everyone hear me okay? Good, let’s begin.
Today we will discuss what vitamins are, how we get them into our systems, how vitamins are regulated, safe usage and how vitamins affect our health. Any questions so far? Often times vitamins are thought to be quick fixes or that they provide a quick route to health. As though we could exist on junk food and as long as we are popping enough vitamins into our mouths we can still be “healthy”. I would like to inform you not only about vitamins but also discuss how vitamins can be one piece of being healthy. Health and wellness doesn’t come overnight and it doesn’t come in the form of a pill. Beyond vitamins, supplements and quick fixes, health and wellness is a daily choice and the result of all of our choices. Vitamins can be a part of health, just not the only part.
A clinical definition of vitamins is “any of a group of organic compounds that are essential for normal growth and nutrition and are required in small quantities in the diet because they cannot be synthesized by the body” (Farlex, 2012). Key words here are small quantities. You can see on the slide here are two lists of all the vitamins we need for growth and maintaining good health. Fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the body’s fatty tissue and are used or eliminated over time. Water-soluble vitamins are metabolized quicker and the excess is secreted through your kidneys. This just means that we don’t have a built up supple of the water-soluble vitamins in our bodies so we should be consuming these vitamins on a daily basis. More importantly we should understand what these vitamins do to help us stay healthy. Many vitamins such as A, Thiamin, B6, B12, Biotin, and C promote growth and repair of cells and tissues (FDA, 2012). Other vitamins have more specific functions such as vitamin K prevent bleeding by helping our blood to clot or vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium (FDA, 2012). Boitin, B6, and Riboflavin are needed in metabolism; E and C are antioxidants; Folic Acid and Riboflavin are needed in the formation of red blood cells (FDA, 2012). You can see that many vitamins serve more than one function in the body.
We’ve already discussed that vitamins come from our intake. The choice becomes whether the source is a food or a pill. According to an ABC report more than 50% of Americans take at least one dietary supplement each day (Conley, 2011). However, most American are not more healthy because of this habit (Conley, 2011). I encourage you to consider that a balanced diet is the best and healthiest way to get all the vitamins you need. So which foods should you be eating? The USDA’s MyPlate campaign describes a healthy diet as one that “emphasized fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products”. This information can be found at www.choosemyplate.gov. It’s great resource for learning about choosing a balanced diet. Some more specific suggestions for vegetable are: sweet potatoes (high in vitamin A), avocado (high in B vitamins), cabbage (high in vitamin C) and spinach (high is folic acid). More information about the nutritional content of individual vegetables and fruits can be found on the USDA’s nutrient data lab (USDA 2 , 2012) . Both of these USDA sites are listed on the reference page I gave you. Research by Dr. Hensrud of the Mayo Clinic concluded that taking a vitamin supplements even a daily multivitamin has no strong positive impact on overall health (Hensrud, 2011). Again, this doctor recommends having a healthy diet and lifestyle in lieu of relying on a vitamin supplement.
Vitamins supplements are not a shortcut for health. However, they can be an essential to health in certain situations. Vitamins supplements are used in four main ways. One, to supplement the diet. We’ve talked about how vitamins can most beneficially come from the diet as part of an overall healthy lifestyle. However, in pill form they are most typically used as a dietary supplement. Two, to relieve a vitamin deficiency when one has been detected. Three, to prevent the development of an expected deficiency such as in a newborn getting a vitamin K injection to prevent bleeding. And four, to reduce the risk of diseases that may occur even when a deficiency cannot be detected such as preventing birth defects by prenatal vitamins containing folic acid (FDA, 2012).
Vitamins are regulated by the FDA as dietary supplements as they are defined by law as “a product taken by mouth that contains a dietary ingredient intended to supplement the diet” (FDA, 2012). The FDA’s website on this slide is an up to date source for information about how vitamin supplements are regulated and what has recently changed. Another agency that helps to regulate the safe production and distribution of vitamin supplements is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Another great source for information is the USDA’s site about vitamins (USDA 3 , 2012). This site provides a list of all the vitamin supplements with hotlinks for more information about each one. Both are easy to use with easy to understand information.
More is not always better when it comes to vitamin supplements. The FDA and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) have set tolerable upper limits on the intake of supplemental vitamins (2012). It’s important to note that these TUL’s are pertinent only for supplementary vitamins because toxic amounts of vitamins are not available from natural food sources (Frantz, 2003). This is another indicator that getting our vitamins from our diets is a safer than from a supplement.
I hope this presentation has been information and insightful for you. Are there any questions?
---find some journals and articles along with websites for references!!!
---find some journals and articles along with websites for references!!!
