Vitamin World

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

Vitamins

What is Vitamin B2 and am I Deficient in It?

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Vitamin B2 or riboflavin is an essential vitamin that can be found in meats, plants used for food, dairy, and grain products. Your body needs riboflavin to easily breakdown food components, absorb other needed nutrients, and for proper maintenance of tissue.

Like most vitamins, Vitamin B2 is organic by nature. When a compound is said to be organic, it only means that it is present in living things and contains carbon and oxygen. It is a water soluble vitamin which must be replenished every day so that the body can get the ultimate benefits that riboflavin can give your body. The molecular representation of riboflavin is C17H20N4O6, and it was discovered in 1920.

Benefits of Vitamin B2

Vitamin B2 is a wonderful anti-aging benefit for your body as well. It plays an important role in metabolism and keeps your body full of energy, and it doesn’t stop there as it also helps you maintain that youthful glowing skin you long for.

Riboflavin is needed to metabolize fats, ketone bodies, carbohydrates, and proteins properly.

Having the correct daily dose of Vitamin B2 can help prevent:

Vitamin B2 Deficiency

Vitamin B2 Deficiency symptomsThere is a thing called Vitamin B2 deficiency you need to be aware of. Before your body suffers from the harm it can bring, it must be prevented from occurring. When your body is running low on riboflavin, the effects of having a Vitamin B2 deficiency is not far away. Your body might experience some irritating and unfavorable symptoms which include:

  1. light sensitivity or photo-sensitivity
  2. soreness or itching around the eye, lips, tongue and mouth area with a burning sensation
  3. sore throat
  4. peeling of the skin without any reasons
  5. cracking of the skin at the mouth’s corner
  6. reddening of the lips
  7. problems with the eyes such as cataracts
  8. skin inflammation or dermatitis
  9. cracked lips
  10. hair loss
  11. dizziness
  12. swelling
  13. trembling
  14. insomnia
  15. and delayed response or retardation in children

Absence of proper amounts of Vitamin B2 that lead to deficiency can affect the proper distribution of other B Vitamins in your body. If other B Vitamins are not be distributed properly, it could mean trouble for you.

What is Vitamin B3 or Niacin and How Does it Benefit You?

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The other name for Vitamin B3 is called Niacin. Vitamin B3 is an organic compound that is one of the most essential nutrients your body needs for optimum function. Although the terms Vitamin B3 and Niacin are used interchangeably, they both represent two different compounds – niacinamide and nicotinic acid respectively.

These two compounds have minor differences in terms of chemical structure but essentially have similar biochemical activity. Because Niacin was initially isolated during the oxidation of nicotine, it was given the name of nicotinic acid. However, it is not at all similar to nicotine in terms of molecular structure.

Vitamin B3 is one of the most stable of the B Vitamins and is resistant to:

  • heat
  • air
  • acid
  • alkali
  • and light

Niacin is a white crystalline compound that is readily soluble in water and alcohol. This compound is easily absorbed within your body from the small intestine.

Your body doesn’t really store much Niacin, barring small amounts that are stored in your liver but the bulk of the excess of Niacin is removed from your body through urine. This makes it necessary for you to consume foods that contain Vitamin B3 on a daily basis.

Nicotinic acid or niacinamide gets converted into active forms, known as nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and nicotinamide adenine dinuucleotide phosphate (NADP). NAD and NADP are responsible for several metabolic reactions. Their most important role is glycolysis – i.e. extracting energy from glucose, carbohydrates and proteins.

They are also involved:

  • in the production of fatty acids
  • in deamination of amino acids
  • and in production of steroids and RBC

It is interesting to note that your body can convert the amino acid, tryptophan, into vitamin B3. So if your diet is deficient in Niacin, it is important that adequate amounts of protein, containing tryptophan, is consumed. While a protein rich diet could make up for the lack of niacin in the foods you eat, if you have a deficiency of Vitamin B1, B2, B6, C and iron, then the conversion of tryptophan to niacin is much more difficult to convert.

How Vitamin B7 Also Called Biotin Benefits Your Health

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Biotin Benefits for Hair GrowthBiotin, also known as Vitamin B7 or Vitamin H, is a colorless, water-soluble member of the B complex group of vitamins. Discovered in 1901 as a special growth factor for yeast, biotin plays a key role in the human body, supporting the health of skin, hair, digestive tract, metabolism and cells. In 1942, its chemical structure was identified and was grouped in roster of water soluble vitamins. There are 8 different forms of biotin, out of which only one- D biotin occurs naturally and has full vitamin activity.

Significant amounts of Biotin are synthesized by bacteria in the large intestine. The absorption of nutritional biotin occurs in all the cells of the body in minute quantities. Made from two precursors, alanine and pimeloyl-CoA, the structure is bound to protein, in which it serves its co-enzymatic functions.

Food Sources of Vitamin B7 (Biotin)

Bacteria present in intestines can create small quantities of biotin. Additionally, biotin is taken from dietary sources such as:

  • organ meats
  • cooked eggs
  • nuts
  • legumes
  • whole grains
  • bananas
  • soya beans
  • and sardines

What is Vitamin K and How Important is It for My Health

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A fat soluble vitamin, Vitamin K is actually a set of similarly structured vitamins that that act together to perform the functions it needs to do to keep your body healthy.  As well as within bones and tissues, Vitamin K is most famous for its important role in the clotting of your blood. Athletes benefit from this vitamin as it helps in repairing sports injuries. Whenever a person has a bleeding wound, it is the K vitamin that comes to the rescue by stopping the bleeding and enables most minor cuts to heal rather quickly.

The 3 Different Types of Vitamin K

There are three different types of Vitamin K that you should be aware of.

The first variant of the K vitamin is vitamin K1, also known as phylloquinone. This is the form of the K vitamin that is found in types of plant foods. The second form of the K vitamin is called vitamin K2, or menaquinone. This type of the K vitamin is formed by friendly bacteria in the intestines. Thirdly, there is vitamin K3 which is also known as menadione and is actually an artificial form of the K vitamin. All three of these types of K vitamin end up in the liver where it is used to create the blood clotting substances.

Food Sources of Vitamin K

The best natural food sources of this vitamin are green leafy vegetables, such as spinach. However, because the friendly bacteria in the intestine makes one of the forms of the K vitamin it is extremely rare for a person to have a vitamin k deficiency and so vitamin K supplements are not needed by the majority of people.

Apart from the main function of helping blood to clot, the K vitamin, specifically the Vitamin K1, has an important part to play in the bone building process. This K vitamin is required to retain the calcium in the bones and redistribute it to where it is needed.

Although a K vitamin deficiency is relatively rare there are certain groups of people who may suffer from it. Vitamin K for newborn babies may also help. Many babies do not have enough of this vitamin in  their systems as they have insufficient bacteria in their intestines to produce it.

The majority of newborn babies in developed countries are therefore given a vitamin K injection to tide them over until the natural process takes over. That is the only time that a K vitamin supplement will be taken by most people throughout their lives. However, an extended course of antibiotics may lead to a vitamin K due to the fact that antibiotics kill the intestinal bacteria as well as those being taken to cure. Again, a vitamin K supplement may be given if the course of antibiotics has to continue for a long period of time.

Related Articles:

Herbal and Other Vitamin Supplements

Herbal Supplements For Health

Do You Need a Vitamin B12 Injection?

 

The Most Important Vitamins For Men

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Vitamins for MenTo say that men’s nutritional needs are different from women’s would be an understatement. Men’s physiological makeup, diet and lifestyle require specific vitamins to meet their daily health needs. So which vitamins should be included in your list? Here is a look at the most important vitamins for men and how they can contribute to overall health and well-being.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is essential for keeping skin, eyes and the lining in the mouth and nose healthy. It also contributes to the proper functioning of the urinary and digestive tracts and is essential for the proper growth and development of teeth and bones.

Vitamin A is found in carrots, spinach, cheese, liver and milk.

How much to take: The recommended daily allowance for men is 900mcg.

Vitamin B Complex

Vitamins for men also include those from the B class of Vitamins.  The advantage of having vitamins from the B group is that there are so many types of food sources that are readily available to us.

Vitamin B2

Vitamin B2 is also known as riboflavin. It helps in converting food into usable energy and ensures the proper functioning of the nervous system. It also promotes good vision and clear, healthy skin. It helps prevent photosensitivity, fatigue and frequent sore throat.

Vitamin B2 is easy to find in food since it is present in eggs, cheese, tuna, salmon and meats. It is not, however, abundant in vegetables, so vegans and vegetarians may have to take it in supplement form or get their daily recommended dose from enriched cereals and breads.

How much to take: On average, men should take 1.3mg of Vitamin B2 to meet their daily allowance needs.

Vitamin B3

Vitamin B3 or niacin is one of the best vitamins for men because of its action in decreasing blood cholesterol. As such, it helps protect against cardiovascular diseases, strokes and heart attacks. It also improves the condition of the skin, eyes, hair and liver.

How much to take: The recommended daily intake is 16mg.

Vitamin B12


Vitamin B12 plays a key role in the creation of DNA and synthesis of white and red blood cells and myelin, the sheath responsible for insulating nerve fibers. This in turn regulates electrical pulses that act as signals in the nerves. Deficiency causes fatigue, numbness, tingling, loss of memory, decreased reflexes and confusion. Lack of Vitamin B12 in the diet has also been associated with dementia, tinnitus and hearing loss. Severe deficiencies can even lead to the development of pernicious anemia.

Vitamin B12 is sourced from animal products such as ham, oysters, tuna, salmon and herring. Vegans and vegetarians may want to consider taking a supplement in order to meet their daily dose.

How much to take: Men require very little of this vitamin at just 6mcg per day, although a lower dose of 2.4mcg is acceptable.

What Is Vitamin B1 and How Beneficial is it to Me?

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Before we talk about what Vitamin B1 is, you should understand what vitamins are in the first place. Vitamins are organic compounds that your body needs in miniscule amounts to sustain life.

There are two types of vitamins:

  • 1 – Fat Soluble Vitamins – this type can be stored in the fat cells of your body. These types of vitamins are used when your body needs it. If it doesn’t need it,  fat soluble vitamins remain stored in your body until the next time.
  • 2 – Water Soluble Vitamins  –  on the other hand, cannot be stored and needs to be obtained from external sources such as food and vitamin supplements.

There are 13 varieties of vitamins that are known today. When it comes to B vitamins, the group is known as Vitamin B Complex, which consists of eight vitamins – Vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9 and B12.

Other articles are written on this blog about the various types of Vitamin B your body needs for optimal health, but this article is about Vitamin B1. So…

What Is Vitamin B1?

The first to be discovered among the Vitamin B groups, Vitamin B1 is also known as Thiamine. This water soluble vitamin is also called ‘thiamine’ and is derived from the Greek language meaning ‘sulfur-containing vitamin‘.

Vitamin B complex is essential for the proper functioning of the human body and affects your:

  • liver
  • eyes
  • skin
  • hair
  • and most importantly brain function

Vitamin B1 was initially known as ‘aneurin‘, named because its deficiency caused a damaging impact on the brain. This vitamin has also been nick-named the ‘anti-stress vitamin‘ because it counters the impact stress has on our bodies. It strengthens the immune system and, as noted above, brain function. This enables the body to withstand and counter stressful conditions.

What is Vitamin A and Could You Have a Vitamin A Deficiency?

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What is Vitamin A …and what should you know about it? Vitamin A, also known as retinol, is essential to the health of your eyes as it produces pigments in within the eye’s retina. Your eye requires a precise metabolite, retinal, as a a light-absorbing substance that’s vital for scotopic vision – low-light vision.

As you can imagine from this video, Vitamin A has many benefits for your health and is used to keep your teeth, skeletal tissue, soft tissue, as well as your skin and mucous membranes nice and healthy.

Vitamin A comes from two main sorts of foods : 

1- Retinol – a yellow, fat-soluble substance. As mentioned above, another name for retinol is Vitamin A. It is the kind of vitamin that is absorbed when eating animal food sources. Food sources include:

* cod liver oil
* butter
* margarine
* liver
* beef
* chicken
* turkey
* fish
* eggs
* cheddar cheese
* butter
* and milk

2 – Carotenes – like alpha-carotene, beta-carotene, gamma-carotene, and xanthophyl beta- cryptoxanthin. Carotene is an orange photosynthetic pigment crucial for plant photosynthesis. The orange colors of carrots, sweet potatoes, apricots and cantaloupe melons come from its carotene content.

Other food sources of Vitamin A are greens like broccoli, spinach, kale, collard greens as well as the papaya and mango fruits. Bananas are also a rich food source of vitamin A.

Benefits of Vitamin A – How Does Vitamin A Help My Health?

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We all know that Vitamin A is good for us but what exactly are the benefits of vitamin A?

Before getting to all the good stuff about what Vitamin A can do for you, a more interesting question might be – ‘how was Vitamin A discovered?

I know you may not care about that, but the history of Vitamin A goes back a long way and I love it when history breeds wonderful discoveries, especially when it brings new health to those that suffered before the discovery was made.


Vitamin A was so named because it was the first vitamin to be discovered; so why not give it the first letter of the alphabet. Although the actual discovery of Vitamin A happened over 100 years ago in 1907, its use as a “cure” for certain ailments like “night blindness” goes back over 3500 years ago by [Read more…] about Benefits of Vitamin A – How Does Vitamin A Help My Health?

What is CoQ10 – Should You Take this Life Saving Enzyme?

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I first heard of Coenzyme Q10 from Kevin Trudeau’s Natural Cures books a few years ago. Since then, I’ve read about it on WebMD, The Doctor Oz website, as well as a few other sites.

Before asking whether or not you need to take CoQ10, you first need to know what it is and what it does. A coenzyme in its simplest form is an enzyme “helper”. An enzyme is a protein to help speed the rate of our body’s natural chemical reactions within the cells of our body. The coenzyme just helps it to do a better job.

The “Q” in CoQ10 refers to a class of organic compounds called Quinone. The “10” part is the number of chemical subunits within that class.

To stay healthy, the cells within our bodies use coenzyme Q10 to make energy. The cells also use it as an antioxidant to protect them from DNA damage caused by free radicals.

There are many benefits of CoQ10. Certain types of cancer have been linked to damage done to the DNA within our bodies. So, with the cells protected against free radicals by using coenzyme Q10, our bodies in turn are protected against cancer…oh if it were only a perfect world…

CoQ10 can be found throught most of our body’s tissues, but are more concentrated inside the:

  • – heart
  • – liver
  • – kidneys
  • – pancreas
  • – and to a small extent in the lungs

Coenzyme Q10 benefits are especially important for the heart muscle as it contains ten times as much coenzyme Q10 as all the other organs. This makes sense if you think about it. At 70 beats per minute your heart will beat 100,800 times in the course of only one day. Without even doing any exercise a heart that beats over three million beats a month will need a lot of energy.

Have You Been Told That Vitamin E Can Cure Easy Bruising?

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Seeing bruises on your body every day is something that can be irritating and frustrating to deal with. Happily enough, there are plenty of different treatments out there that claim to help, and learning more about them can help you find one that is right for you.

You may have had friends or family quoting the Internet and telling you that vitamin E is good for your general health and great for your skin. You will need to do some research into what vitamin E really can offer you in order to separate fact from fiction. This bit of self-education will be very enlightening about what vitamin E can actually do for you.

To begin with, there is no doubt that vitamin E can be great for you. Vitamin E works well in combination with vitamin C, which is is most readily available from citrus, and both vitamins in concert can help keep your body in optimal condition. Vitamin can help clear up some of your skin’s imperfections and applying vitamin E directly to old and new scars both can help the scars fade and disappear. Keep in mind that vitamin E is a great choice as a home remedy that can help accelerate skin healing, and that can keep your skin’s appearance at its best.

For all of the skin benefits attributed to vitamin E, healing bruises is not one of them. A bruise forms when the capillary blood vessels beneath your skin rupture or break. They seep blood into the adjacent tissues and the bruises will not go away the pooled blood has been reabsorbed by the body. To reduce the dramatic color contained by some bruises, the blood forming the bruise must no longer be present in order for your skin to regain its natural color, and vitamin E does nothing that will help make this happen.

Vitamin E is generally good for your skin whether it is used as a topical application or taken orally. Even though many of the supposed cures for bruising say that vitamin E is a major ingredient, vitamin E is not going to be any real help for your bruises.

If you are only concerned about your skin quality after a bruise has healed, vitamin E might appear to be a great ingredient to tout, but it should not be touted as the only ingredient and certainly not the primary ingredient. For bruise treatments there are many other better choices for the primary ingredients. Keep in mind that you should acquaint yourself with the list of ingredients of any treatment before committing to any specific formulation.

Educating yourself on why you are bruising and what is happening to your body is an important first step in finding a proper treatment. Learning about the causes of your bruising will enable you to choose the treatment that is best for you.

You should know that following an all natural, supplement program like the Bruises Be Banned daily program can help you reduce bruising easily and help prevent bruising altogether. This program has been proved successful by people worldwide without having vitamin E as as one of its ingredients.

Jan Doan, the “Doctor of Bruiseology” is recognized as the sole writer to have written a complete reference book on bruising, showing people why they bruise, and how they may avoid bruising. You can obtain for yourself Part I of the new Desktop Reference Book on bruising causes free and learn the best way to get past the nightmares of easy bruising and how to prevent bruising