SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS: MULTIPLE INTERACTIONS
No vitamin or mineral acts by itself, it needs to inter-react with other vitamins and minerals before it can be of any nutritional use to the body. This is why vitamins and minerals cannot be considered as therapeutic agents (in the manner of drugs) that cure specific diseases. For instance, vitamin C is not a cure for the common cold. However, it is a principal nutrient in raising the body’s resistance to the cold and ‘flu virus. The white blood cells (T-lymphocytes) cannot absorb vitamin C unless vitamins B12, B6, folic acid, choline and the mineral zinc are also present. Moreover, vitamin C cannot boost the virus-killing power of the white blood cell if it doesn’t have these same nutrients to interact with once inside the T-lymphocyte.
If there is not enough zinc in your diet, your cells actually lose vitamin A even though you may be taking a vitamin A tablet. Vitamin A deficiency leads to improper metabolisation of iron (anaemia) which in turn affects calcium metabolism (reduced bone growth, muscle contraction and the burning of glucose for energy). When iron metabolism is disrupted vitamin B12 metabolism is disrupted, which in turn disrupts folic acid, which in turn disrupts magnesium metabolism and so it goes on and on.
By working together, vitamins and minerals get the metabolism working properly and thus correct metabolic diseases. Vitamins are only of assistance where deficiencies exist. Metabolic diseases are, in the main, the result of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
In its 1988 report on the nutritional state of Australians the federal Department of Health found that Australian women (in particular) were deficient in zinc, calcium and iron and suggested that more seafood be eaten. My experience is that most people cannot afford the amount of seafood needed to overcome these mineral deficiencies. A complete multi-vitamin and mineral is a much cheaper way of achieving the desired result.
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