Are You Lacking Vitamins? 6 Common Doubts Resolved

Vitamins are heterogeneous compounds essential for life, and when ingested in a balanced way and in essential doses, they are transcendental to promote proper physiological functioning.

The vast majority of essential vitamins cannot be made by the body, so it can only obtain them through food.

Humans need thirteen vitamins, which are classified according to their solubility: there are nine water-soluble vitamins (the eight that form the B complex plus vitamin C), which dissolve in water, and four fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) that they dissolve in lipids or fats.

The dilemma of vitamins is whether a balanced diet is enough to ensure its optimal presence. There is no clear and consensual answer to that question.

If we ask any of the university professors specialized in nutrition, the vast majority will answer yes, as long as a balanced, varied diet rich in fresh and little refined foods is followed .

Am I lacking vitamins?

Many people sometimes feel as if they are “lacking vitamins”, broadly understood as synonymous with energy or well-being.

The very word vitamin is unconsciously associated with life or vitality. That explains why vitamins enjoy good press and are considered a valuable nutrient.

Who squeezes oranges a winter morning or peeling a kiwi at the concluding dinner often does driven by his desire to procure vitamin C.

The same happens when brewer’s yeast, a notable source of B vitamins, is added to certain dishes , or wheat germ oil – very rich in vitamin E – is taken.

A step further goes who resorts to a multivitamin supplement in order to better cope with a time of fatigue or stress.

And let’s not say who consults an orthomolecular therapist to evaluate their health and, apart from balancing their diet, perhaps prescribe the vitamins or minerals that can benefit them the most.

Are vitamins from food lost?

Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats are the basic macronutrients or nutrients.

Minerals are found to a lesser extent – their needs are no longer measured in grams, but rather in milligrams or micrograms – but they are simple and relatively stable elements at the chemical level.

Vitamins, on the other hand, are more complex and unstable compounds. Its presence in food depends, as we will see, on multiple factors, and it tends to decrease the more denatured the food is.

We know that the diet of primitive man, who ate food as soon as he obtained it and with hardly any manipulation, was rich in vitamins. Another thing is that it requires greater digestive efforts, since cooking or grinding usually facilitate the absorption of food.

Today we have access to a wide variety of foods, but the techniques with which they are produced (saving costs and time), their industrial handling and how long they can take to consume tend to affect their balance of nutrients, including the fragile vitamins.

As I explained in my work Anti-Aging with Orthomolecular Nutrition (Ed. RBA), a balanced diet may not be enough to obtain the optimal amounts of vitamins to achieve good health. Let’s look at some reasons:

• The impoverishment of the nutrients found in fruits and vegetables is estimated at 68% , according to data taken from a publication sponsored by the North American government in the 1960s. This figure has not been able to improve in industrialized countries as the objective continues to be to produce as much as possible at the least cost.
• Today’s agriculture uses about 250 pesticides and herbicides. Many of them, in addition to being precancerous, act as antinutrients, preventing the absorption of vitamins and minerals.
• Vitamins E, C and B1 see their potential diminished when exposed to very low temperatures.
• Cereals, when refined to be stored and handled better, have lost a good part of their vitamins and are no longer one of our main sources to obtain them.
• Cutting food initiates enzymatic reactions and oxidation that destroy vitamins. On the other hand, overheating or overheating of dishes can spoil 80% of the content of some vitamins.
• Much of the mineral and vitamin content of a food can be removed with the cooking water and, if the food is peeled, with the skin. Cooked vegetables, which have previously been peeled and washed, leave most of their water-soluble vitamins (B and C) and part of their minerals in the sink or in the broth . Steam cooking and stewed casseroles are the best nutrient-conserving systems.
• If refined cereals predominate in the diet, the needs of B vitamins and chromium will increase. The former are necessary even to be able to assimilate those cereals that have been deprived of them. Chromium helps maintain glycidolipid balance and disorders such as glycemia.
• All cereals are dehulled to some extent before eating. Nutrients are destroyed in each phase of the process . White bread loses 86% of vitamin E, 80% of vitamin B3, 75% of vitamin B6, 67% of folic acid and 50% of vitamin B5 that whole wheat bread has.

• Up to 40% of vitamin A, 100% of vitamin C, 80% of B complex, and 55% of vitamin E can be lost during food processing, preservation, and heating.
• An analysis of 723 foods showed that canning destroys 77% of vitamin B6, 78% of vitamin B5, and much of the folic acid.
• Rancidity and oxidation of lipids when cooking at high temperatures affects vitamins A and D, as well as their essential fatty acids.
• The lack of natural light increases the need for vitamin D. A polluted atmosphere, which favors darkness, makes it difficult for the synthesis of vitamin D to take place in the skin.
• Many weight loss diets lead to deficiencies of vitamins A, C and E, and of minerals such as magnesium, potassium, calcium, iron and zinc.
• Very hot tea and coffee and the abuse of spices can promote inflammation in the digestive organs and poor absorption of nutrients.
• Alcohol, toxic to the liver, reduces the absorption capacity of various micronutrients. A regular alcohol user may be deficient in vitamins B1, B3, B6, folic acid, vitamin B12, calcium, magnesium and zinc. On the other hand, a quality wine taken in moderation provides antioxidant tannins, vitamins and minerals.
• Smoking a cigarette requires 30 mg of vitamin C to counteract its effects, hence a smoker’s needs for that vitamin multiplied.

Can vitamin needs increase?

Stress increases the needs of vitamins B6, B5 and C, as well as the amino acids glutamic acid, L-glutamine and arginine.

The oral contraceptives increase the need for vitamin B6, folic acid, B12, C, E and zinc.

Drug use can change micronutrient needs. Antacids interfere with the metabolism of calcium, phosphorus, the B complex, and vitamins A, D, and C; antibiotics such as neomycin, tetracycline and chloramphenicol, in vitamins A, B12, D and K.

These alterations are usually due to the fact that the drugs compete with the transport mechanisms of these nutrients, blocking their transformation into active forms or favoring their elimination.

Antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, laxatives and other medications alter the intestinal flora, which is unable to synthesize the B vitamins.

To counteract the free radicals generated by these drugs, it is advisable to take beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, and selenium.

Is it good to take vitamin supplements?

Faced with the dilemma of ingesting vitamins through a balanced diet or doing it with the help of supplements, I admit that I am closer to this second opinion, although one thing is use and another is abuse.

Let me explain … Fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K), as their name indicates, are related to adipose tissue and can accumulate in it if there is an excess in the supply, so you have to be especially careful if supplements are taken.

With the water-soluble ones (C and group B) it could be concluded that there is no danger of passing, since the surpluses are excreted in the urine.

But that does not imply that an excess of vitamins is free of drawbacks. I have found that long-term intake of B vitamins can alter the hepatic metabolism of susceptible patients, so I do not consider daily doses of between 50 and 100 mg of the main B vitamins to be desirable.

Having made this clarification about not taking the extra intake of vitamins lightly, it is worth remembering the reasons why supplementation may be recommended:

• Daily needs are small, but so are the amounts found in food.
• Vitamins are negatively affected by the same factors as other nutrients, which add others such as heat, light, contact with oxygen, pH, etc.
• It is enough to not follow the recommendations of consuming five servings of vegetables or fruits a day so that the minimum needs are not met.
• The symptoms of severe vitamin deficiency have been known for centuries. But it is more difficult to diagnose a mild deficiency based on symptoms such as: bleeding gums, stretch marks on the nails, memory problems, muscle aches, lack of spirit, clumsiness, vision problems …
• Any factor that negatively affects diet, such as changes of residence, lack of time, poor nutritional education or financial problems, can cause a deficiency of vitamins or other nutrients.

What are the appropriate doses of vitamins?

The recommended daily dose tables indicate figures that can easily be covered – dare I say – with a “mediocre diet” and whose essential objective is to avoid a deficiency disease.

In 1993 those governing the European Community were created. But recommendations based on them must address three fundamental problems:

• A lack is not the same as a deficiency. A deficiency suggests the level necessary to prevent a deficiency disease, while a deficiency or insufficiency suggests the level necessary for the optimal functioning of the organism.
• The orthomolecular nutrition (term coined by Nobel Prize twice Linus Pauling ) believes that each individual is unique and has particular biochemical needs. The list of essential nutrients needed for each person is identical, but from one individual to another the required concentrations can differ as much as fingerprints.
• The environment. We all live in different environmental conditions and are subjected to different stressors, which will determine different nutritional needs. Studies show that the ability to detoxify a wide variety of environmental toxins is largely dependent on certain key nutrients. Being exposed to high levels of pollution increases the demand for specific nutrients.

What vitamin deficiencies are most common?

In general, the most common vitamin deficiencies are found in group B ; since stress implies an overconsumption of these. And antioxidants (A, C and E), since daily exposure to free radicals (atmospheric, food, drugs, xenobiotics …) requires a good contribution of these.

Can taking isolated vitamins lead to imbalance? Yes. That is why it is generally more advisable to take B vitamins in their entirety than to take certain B vitamins alone. This avoids an imbalance, in addition to being more effective in a group by working in synergy. With antioxidant vitamins the same idea applies.

It is not an easy task to determine if there is a deficiency. Blood tests can be done to verify their presence, especially of the antioxidant vitamins, but this is only a “partial picture”, since the blood does not indicate how the levels are in the tissues, much less at the cellular level. It is usually more practical to assess health disorders and their relationship with deficiencies and to carry out a bi- nutritional profile (IoMET). This questionnaire allows, by means of 80 questions, to establish the probable deficiencies based on habits and symptoms.

Some books to go deeper

• Food, the 3rd medicine; Dr. Jean Seignalet, Ed. RBA-Integral
• The superantioxidants; Dr. James Balch, Ed. Sirio
• The Pharma-Nutrient Revolution; Dr. Richard Firshein, Ed. Edaf