complex vitamin is an organic compound commonly found in foods that function to regulate certain metabolic processes in the body. Sources of vitamin can be obtained from food, supplements or drugs.
Supplements are products used to supplement food, containing one or more of the following ingredients, namely vitamins, minerals, herbs or ingredients derived from herbs, amino acids, materials used to improve the Nutrition Adequacy Score
Although we need vitamins in very small amounts, maybe hundreds of grams, but very large vitamin function in the passage of the functions in the body.
The human body can not make vitamin itself, so we must get it from outside, the food we eat. According to Catherine Price, science journalist, the actual body has genes to produce vitamin C, but mutations that inhibit the process.
"Just as muscles will shrink if it has not been used, this mutation is likely to occur due to the large supply of vitamin C available in fruits," he said in his writings Vitamania: Our Nutritional Obsessive Quest for Perfection.
Vitamin supplements when first made, circa 1920-1930's, most of the products derived from natural plant extracts. For example to get cod oil, fish were left floating in warm water until the oil is rich in vitamin appears on the surface is taken. Meanwhile vitamin C usually comes from plants Rose Hips.
But now, although still might be possible to extract from the plant, for example vitamin E from soy, but the cost of production is very expensive. After all that action is also damaging to the environment because the solvent extraction process requires chemicals that can be toxic.
In the case of supplements of omega-3 fatty acids that are essential to human health, the majority of supplements derived from fish. It is suspected of causing fish populations is a source of omega-3 decreased.
Instead, the pharmaceutical industry is now making materials synthesis. "Most are produced from a chemical reaction that uses a catalyst such as heat, acid, or pressure, to make the molecular structure of two or more chemical substances in the vitamin.
There is also derived from biotechnology techniques are usually wear microbes that can produce vitamin. Vitamin B12 also indirectly derived from bacteria.
But many vitamins are made synthetically from chemicals derived from industrial waste. Eg vitamin D derived from lanolin which is derived from sheep's wool.
"Most of the cases, the result of chemical synthesis vitamins are identical to the form that exists in nature. This means that our bodies use it in the same way as well," Price wrote.
If the nutritionists recommend us to get your vitamins from natural sources rather than supplements, vitamin synthesis does not mean it's bad. However, natural foods (fruits and vegetables) contain other components which are very diverse, not only the vitamin, which is beneficial for the body.
Not everyone is lucky to live in an area easy access to a variety of foods, such as vegetables, fruits, tie, meat or fortified foods (added nutrients). For those who are not always able to get a variety of food, vitamin supplementation is certainly needed.
Supplementation of vitamin A, for example, in African countries and other developing countries, it helps prevent vitamin A deficiency can cause night blindness.
But it should be noted that the consumption of vitamin supplements inappropriately also toxic to the body it affects. Therefore if Where possible, meet the body's need for vitamin from natural sources, namely vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, eggs, and so on.
Source: health.kompas.com
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