Vitamin World

Getting the best vitamins and minerals in your body for better health

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What are Electrolytes and What are the Most Common Sources of Electrolytes?

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You’ve heard about it. You know it’s important for your health, but what are electrolytes and why are they so important? Well, in its simplest form, electrolytes are just various forms of salts, especially ions. So, electrolytes are really electrically-charged ions and these ions either move to a positive electrode (anode) or a negative electrode (cathode). Positively charged ions. called cations move, to the cathode and negatively charged ions, called anions, move to the anode.

Just like seawater, your blood has high concentrations of sodium chloride which contain numerous electrolytes. Other fluids in your body that contain electrolytes are plasma and interstitial fluids (between tissues and within organs).

Sodium chloride contains the following electrolytes:

Although this video is about electrolytes, I think this dude overdosed on the stuff. He’s a little whacked out but I think he explains pretty well…sort of…kind of???

Voltages across the cell membranes are maintained by the cells using electrolytes and electrical impulses to other cells and across themselves are carried using electrolytes too. This is the reason electrolytes are so important. The blood acidity, fluid levels, muscle and organ function, are also affected by electrolytes. Changes in the body can affect the levels of electrolytes and can result in the loss of electrolytes as well.

Despite the changes in the body, the concentrations of electrolytes in the blood are kept constant by the kidneys. For instance, electrolytes, especially potassium and sodium, are lost in the sweat produced during heavy exercise. The only way the electrolyte concentrations of the body fluids can be kept constant if by replacing these electrolytes. Many sports drinks contain potassium chloride or sodium chloride in them. These drinks also provide the body with additional energy and also have a nice, flavorful taste because of the flavorings and sugar added to them.

Children suffering from chronic diarrhea or vomiting, probably because of intestinal flu viruses, are also given electrolyte drinks. Children lose electrolytes when they have diarrhea or vomit. In order to prevent dehydration and seizures, replacing these electrolytes and fluids becomes necessary. Just like sports drinks, drinks like Pedialyte also contain potassium and sodium. However, giving sports drinks to children who are ill is not recommended by pediatricians. The concentrations of sugar in sports drinks are a lot higher than Pedialyte, which is not good for children, especially if they are ill.

Do You Need Hair Growth Vitamins For Healthier Hair

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Before you decide if you need to take hair growth vitamins to help improve the health and growth rate of your hair, it might be a good idea to learn how your hair grows.

Hair forms an integral part of a person’s appearance and overall personality. It plays an important role in defining a person’s individuality. Hair type and hair growth is different for different people and not everyone is blessed with perfect hair quality and growth rate. While hair may look dead cells to us, the hair follicles under the scalp are alive.

These follicles or roots of hair are connected with veins which supply nutrients and oxygen to the follicles through blood. If a person is suffering from any kind of health problem related to stress or trauma, going through medication due to a medical condition, smoking, toxins in food, water etc can impact the hair growth and hair quality. In order to maintain good hair health, it is vital to provide proper nutrition to the body.

(See what this girl is doing to help her own hair grow healthier…)

So yes! By all means get good multivitamins because chances are you are not getting all the nutrition you need from just food alone. You need good vitamins for all levels of health, but growing hair has its own specific needs.

What are Amino Acids and How Do They Affect Your Body?

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Amino acids are actually just protein but in a form that our bodies can use. Your body is like its own processing plant that takes in raw materials and transforms these materials into usable forms.

Because our bodies are made up of fats, carbohydrates and protein, we need to keep replacing them by eating those types of foods which are all readily available from meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains and dairy…which is just about all the food we ever need to survive and survive well.

When you eat fats, proteins and carbohydrates these large molecule foods need help from your body if it is to absorb nutrients contained within that food. Before it can do this your stomach needs to break these foods down into much smaller units through a process called digestion.

Digestion causes fats to be broken down into fatty acids; carbohydrates break down into smaller glucose molecules and protein breaks down to amino acids. Because each food type is different, they all have their own specific enzyme to help make this digestion successful. Protein requires the enzyme called “protease” to help break it down into amino acids.

But like anything else, all proteins are not created equal. There are 10 different amino acids that our bodies can produce by itself. The other 10 need to be supplied by the foods we eat. (These are called “essential amino acids“). Sometimes it can be unclear as to what are essential and non-essential amino acids because some acids can be used to make other amino acids.

The quality of that protein, let alone all food, will determine the amount of amino acids available to be supplied to your precious body. When a protein can supply all of the essential amino acids that your body needs and in the right proportions, then it is called a “complete protein”. As per Wikipedia, there are 9 amino acids that you need to supply your body with.

Do You Take Prenatal Vitamins for Hair Growth?

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Recently, there has been a lot of hype around the use of prenatal vitamins for hair growth. Prenatal vitamins are given to pregnant women as a nutrient supplement and many believe that they also aid in healthy hair growth. There are many people who want to find out the answer as to whether or not these prenatal vitamins actually do help your hair grow.

It is rightly said, “Hair is a woman’s crowning glory” and losing excessive hair or even thinning of it can be a very disconcerting issue for women. Your hair, skin and nails too are among the first parts of your body that reflect the internal state of the health your body.

This might imply that untimely hair fallout manifests signs of hormonal imbalance, poor nutrition and/or illness. As the root cause of the problem of hair loss is the deficiencies or imbalances within your body, the solution for it focuses on ironing out these imbalances and deficiencies from within. Researchers have introduced many hair growth supplements that deal with these deficiencies inside your body, which in-turn helps in improving the overall health of your hair…

…that is, until prenatal vitamins came onto the scene. Let us explore whether there is any truth behind all this hype about prenatal vitamins and their role in promoting healthy hair growth in women.

What are Prenatal vitamins?

Prenatal vitamins are specially-formulated multivitamins made for pregnant women to help them meet the high nutritional demands of pregnancy. Prenatal Vitamins provide essential nutrients that ensure the healthy development of the baby and also the general health of the pregnant woman.

Many women who have taken prenatal vitamins during pregnancy have reported improved hair growth and hair thickness. Prenatal vitamins are loaded with essential nutrients that help hair to grow, however this drastic change in hair growth pattern is not completely due to prenatal vitamins.

Beautiful hair, Hair flick
Beautiful hair, Hair flick—Luciano Consolini (Flickr.com)

According to studies, estrogen levels are significantly higher in pregnant women. This high level of estrogen boosts hair growth in pregnant women. Estrogen locks the hair in the growth phase, which allows it to grow much longer. The result is thick, shiny and healthy hair during pregnancy.

What are the Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate

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I always just ate chocolate because it was a sweet tasting junk food item. Who knew that dark chocolate is good for you. One thing I like about it is that it is so fun and tasty to use in cooking that dark chocolate benefits seem secondary.

Lately it seems almost every chocolate product on the market has come out with a dark chocolate version. It may be that chocolate manufacturers were just looking to create some brand extension but what they didn’t know was that a new healthy snack was born. The cocoa bean like the coffee bean comes from a plant.


The secret ingredient in dark chocolate is the flavinoids which are type of antioxidant. Antioxidants keep the body from aging caused by free radicals which can cause damage to your body. If you can prevent free radicals from being created you can retard the aging process. In terms of antioxidants, you can think of dark chocolate as kind of a super hero with super powers and fights these free radicals that is trying to damage your body. In fact, dark chocolate contains a significant number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries).

One long term study tracked cardiac patients aged 45 to 70 who consumed chocolate for a period of ten years. The group that ate a few ounces of chocolate twice a week or more were 66 percent less likely to die from cardiac disease than those that didn’t eat chocolate. Even if the person only ate chocolate once a week the risk was reduced by 50%. Eating chocolate only once a month still dropped the risk by 27 percent. So even occasionally including it in your diet is beneficial as well. Heck, Even Dr. Oz hails the health benefits of dark chocolate.

One that that Jonny Bowden forgot to mention was that there was a new study on animals suggesting that eating dark chocolate may play a role in the prevention of colon cancer.   Cocoa, the raw material in dark chocolate, contains a type of antioxidants called polyphenols, and it was shown to reduce the risk on colon cancer.

Vitamin D Deficiency Problems Can Ruin Your Life

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A deficiency of vitamin D is a true problem that will lead to issues such as

  • bone structure weakness
  • joint pain
  • and general fatigue

In elderly people this can easily lead to broken hips!

It can also lead to the development of:

  • hypertension
  • high levels of sugar in the blood
  • diabetes
  • and even heart disease

But you’ll be wrong if you think only elderly people are the only ones who can have problems with a deficiency of this vitamin. Children are also big candidates for problems, especially when they are small.


Children with vitamin D deficiency can develop bowed legs (rickets), and will increase the chance of suffering from obesity and diabetes in later stages of their lives. Parents are responsible for providing enough vitamin D.

The trouble these days is that children might spend a lot of the day sitting in front of the computer and TV screen without spending time outside. And then when outside, they do not receive enough sunlight because of the high amounts of sunscreen mothers use.

I have read countless articles on the importance of sunscreen and harmful effects of the Sun, but we need sunlight to be healthy!

With just 15 minutes a day of sunlight a day, we could be enjoying much better health, and we are talking about healthy sunlight without the use of sunscreen. Sure, we can get vitamin D through supplements, but they must be indicated by a professional, because we can get toxicity!

The thing is to go out there and get sunlight with moderation, and to get that sunlight naturally.

Doctors will prefer that you get the needed vitamins through natural ways. If we have a healthy diet and lifestyle that promotes exercises and spending time outside we won’t have to worry about vitamin problems in our lives.

If you are interested in getting more info, learn here all about vitamin D deficiency levels, and how can you ensure you get the right amounts of it. Also learn about other types of vitamin problems.