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Vitamins and their properties
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
Vitamins are substances that are biologically active, so they activate many processes in the human body. Thanks to vitamins, we become more energetic, gain vital energy and strength. More about the properties of vitamins.
Why do we need vitamins?
Vitamins have different chemical compositions, but they have the same effect - they help to absorb useful substances from foods and supplements. Vitamins also help the body's cells to recover and multiply.
All vitamins have the property of increasing immunity, reducing the level of bad cholesterol, activating and enriching the blood composition. Vitamins also actively fight aging, maintain the state of the human body in the norm, enhance tissue regeneration processes.
What is known from the history of vitamins
Vitamins were discovered not so long ago – at the end of the 19th century. Since then, almost three dozen vitamins have been discovered. Almost all of them are needed by the body to fight various diseases of the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, liver diseases, vitamins are very necessary for people exhausted by constipation, colitis, diarrhea. Pregnant women need vitamins like no one else. They need them more and more with each day of pregnancy.
When a person suffers from a cold or flu, their need for ascorbic acid, or vitamin C, increases greatly. And the more difficult the process, the more severe the lack of vitamin C affects the person’s condition.
Why is a lack of vitamins dangerous?
If the body lacks vitamins, metabolism slows down, a person feels weak, gets very tired, has headaches, and the functions of internal organs may be impaired. The nervous system also suffers, and the immune system weakens along with it.
If there is a vitamin D deficiency in the body, children may suffer from rickets, because not enough calcium is deposited in the bones, they cannot grow strong and become crooked. The outline of the body also changes shape, the child may have too thin and skinny arms and legs, they are weak, they cannot perform their functions.
But if there is an excess of vitamin D, this also has a negative effect on the body. Then calcium, which is part of the bone tissue, passes from it to other organs and takes away useful substances from the heart, kidneys, intestines, liver. This disrupts the functions of the internal organs, they work poorly, and the person feels very bad.
Vitamin combinations
When a person consumes natural vitamins from vegetables and fruits, their disadvantage is that they may be lacking. In natural products, it is difficult to calculate the amount and combinations of vitamins that are consumed. But in pharmacy complexes, the doses and ratios of vitamins are calculated and even written on the label.
But the advantage of natural vitamins is that they are perfectly absorbed, much better than pharmaceutical drugs. The body can perceive unnatural vitamins as foreign ingredients, and react to them with an allergy or simply poorly absorb them. Therefore, an overdose of pharmaceutical drugs can be dangerous, and an overdose of ordinary products has almost no negative consequences for the body.
For comparison: the body may react with allergy to ascorbic acid in capsules, but to rose hips infusion – with improvement of all functions. Although both sources contain ascorbic acid.
[ Properties of vitamins
Vitamin C – ascorbic acid – takes an active part in the formation of proteins – the building material for our cells. Without ascorbic acid, brain functions deteriorate. Without ascorbic acid, collagen fibers will not form, which give elasticity and flexibility to muscles, ligaments and tendons. Collagen is part of 40% of all protein compounds in the body.
Vitamins B12 and nicotinic acid are essential for strengthening the nervous system. If they are lacking, a person starts looking for nicotinic acid in cigarettes and cannot quit smoking. Vitamin B12 also helps to synthesize blood cells in the bone marrow. This vitamin accumulates in the liver due to another substance – vitamin B2.
When a person has impaired liver and gallbladder function, vitamins K, A, B6, C (folic acid), and B12 are essential for the health of these organs. When there is a deficiency of vitamin A, the mucous membranes of the organs, in particular the gallbladder, change their structure and become deformed. This increases the risk of stones forming in the liver, kidneys, and gallbladder.
Contact an endocrinologist to analyze your condition and prescribe the correct doses and ratios of vitamins. The best help from pharmacy drugs is not individual vitamins, but their complexes.