vitamins function in the body to?

Answer 1

Vitamins are nutrients required for essential metabolic reactions in the body . Vitamins can act both as catalysts and substrates in chemical reactions. The role of a catalyst is to facilitate a chemical reaction without being altered itself. In essence, catalysts function like knitting needles, which are capable of converting yarn into mittens, but do not undergo any change themselves.
The body typically assembles a vitamin-dependent catalyst from a variety of building blocks including amino acids, sugars, phosphates, and other vitamins. Each vitamin is typically used in multiple reactions and therefore, most have multiple functions[2]. Until the 1900's, vitamins were obtained solely through food intake. Many food sources contain different ratios of vitamins. Therefore, if the only source of vitamins is food, a seasonal, yearly or even daily change in diet also alters the ratio of ingested vitamins. Many vitamins can be stored by the body over a range of dosages and short term deficiencies (e.g. during a particular food growing season), does not always result in disease.

Vitamins have been produced as commodity chemicals and made widely available as inexpensive pills for several decades[3] allowing for consistant supplimentation to dietary intake.

Vitamins are classified as either water soluble, meaning that they dissolve easily in water, or fat soluble, and are absorbed through the intestinal tract with the help of lipids.

As mentioned above, for the most part we rely on food sources to meet our vitamin needs. However, there are a few vitamins that we obtain by other means: for example, microorganisms in the intestine - commonly known as "gut flora" - produce vitamin K and biotin, while one form of vitamin D is synthesized in the skin with the help of natural ultraviolet sunlight.

Some vitamins can also be obtained from precursors which can be obtained in the diet. Examples include vitamin A, which can be produced from beta carotene and niacin from the amino acid tryptophan.

The term vitamin does not encompass other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids. Nor does the term refer to the large number of other nutrients that promote health, but are not strictly essential

Answer 2

I prefer to think of vitamins as a chemical, just like any other chemical, like water or air. If you don't get enough of any of these chemicals, you could die. Each vitamin plays a part in the body, and they became labelled "vitamin" vs. "chemical" because some doctor or scientist found that without this particular chemical our bodies can get ill, what they call a deficiency. The difference between a vitamin and a medicine is that vitamins are found naturally in most foods, which we usually don't keep track of in terms of their nutritional or vitamin content. If you are looking for a list of vitamins and how they work with your body, here's some links.

By the way, what Christian said is plucked directly from wikipedia.

Answer 3

What christi@n said.