Last year we covered a couple vitamins including, vitamin A, B1, B2, and B6. You can read more about it here at Essential Vitamins and Minerals (part 1). Lets continue going over some of these essential vitamins and what they can do for your body.

Essential Vitamins and Minerals

Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 as well as the other B Vitamins helps regulate the body’s metabolism. Another important function of B12 is to maintain the central nervous system and also to help form red blood cells. You can find B12 in foods such as meat, fish, and dairy. Vitamin B12 can help against memory loss diseases like Alzheimers and help against a variety of other diseases such as multiple sclerosis, macular degeneration, and Lyme disease. The recommended daily amount of B12 in a teen or adult’s diet is approximately 2.4 mcg per day

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is well known for many health reasons. Everything from curing the common cold to helping with arthritis and cancer. This vitamin’s function is to grow and repair all sorts of tissues in your body and to work as an antioxidant throughout your body. You can find vitamin C in a number of foods including citrus fruits like oranges, vegetables like broccoli, and other vitamin C fortified foods like certain cereals. Look to have around 85 mg/day of vitamin C.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is the self made vitamin so to speak. This vitamin is produced by your body by getting 10-15 minutes of sunshine in a day three times a week. Vitamin D helps to absorb calcium into the body and helps to build strong bones and bone tissue. Most dairy products in the US like milk and cheese are fortified with vitamin D.

In the next article we will be going over a couple of lesser known vitamins and minerals such as Pantothenic Acid and Biotin.

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