
Vitamins supplements are so common amonge us. We can easily buy them at supermarkets or our local drugs store. But what are vitamins? and why should we take them? Nobel Laureate Fritz Lipmann once commented, "Doctors like to prescribe vitamins and millions of people take them, but it requires a good deal of biochemical sophistication to understand why they are needed and how the organism uses them."Vitamins are essential micronutrients that the body cannot supply in sufficient quantities. They therefore must be obtained from the environment (diet or supplements). For simplification, vitamins are classified in two groups, according to whether they are water-soluble or fat-soluble. The water-soluble vitamins include vitamin C and the B-complex vitamins; these are considered for the most part relatively non-toxic. The fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E, K, tend to accumulate in tissues and can be quite toxic at high doses.What are Enzymes?Enzymes are the work horses of the body in that they function to facilitate biochemical reactions necessary for activities such as muscle contraction, wound healing, digestion of food, metabolism of carbohydrate, fat and protein, and virtually all the numerous chemical reactions necessary for growth and vitality. The body manufactures approximately 4,000 different enzymes, and 22%
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