Vitamins, Minerals And Optimal Health (ebook)

To maintain good health you need to provide your body with more than 30 vitamins, minerals and other compounds that it cannot manufacture. Do you consume enough of all of them?
Many experts do not think so. Their theory is that the typical diet of modern societies, deficient in certain vitamins and minerals, could be related to the current high prevalence of some current chronic diseases. But is that true?
• Can deficiencies in these nutrients make us sick?
• When should we turn to multivitamin supplements?

The author addresses these issues, based on the novelties provided by science.
She will give you the keys to get the right amounts of vitamins and minerals and optimize your health.
“A small oasis in the arid territory of so many miracle and/or fashionable diets, false promises and 'rigorous' studies”.

To maintain good health, you must provide your body with more than 30 vitamins, minerals and other compounds that it cannot manufacture. Do you consume enough of all of them?

Many experts do not think so. Their theory is that the typical diet of modern societies, deficient in certain minerals and vitamins, could be related to the high prevalence of some current chronic diseases. But is that true?

• Can the deficiencies or shortages of these nutrients make us sick?
• When should we resort to multivitamin supplements?

The author addresses these issues, based on the novelties provided by science. She will give you the keys to get the right amounts of vitamins and minerals and optimize your health.
You will learn how vitamins and minerals differ, which vitamins should be replaced every few days and which ones your body can store and release as you need them.
You will understand why there is a debate about the recommended amounts and why more is not always better.

Includes specialized sections

• How can I improve my diet
• What other factors of my lifestyle can I improve?
• Foods rich in the scarcest minerals and vitamins in the diet

Written in a very intimate tone, it is useful for any reader who seeks to improve his or her health, prevent diseases, and get away from myths and pseudoscience.

Index:
VITAMINS AND MINERALS
• A discovery that changed human health
• Vitamins: those almost magical substances
• The latest discoveries
• What are vitamins useful for?
• Minerals: our inalterable body component
• What are minerals useful for?

SOURCES OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS
• Surprising data: where we get vitamins and minerals
• We are not what we eat, but rather what we make use of
• The purpose of a plant is not our survival, but rather its own
• The micronutrient content of plants varies greatly
• How vitamins are lost from foods

IS IT NORMAL TO HAVE DEFICIENCIES IN VITAMINS AND MINERALS?
• How do we know if we are consuming enough vitamins and minerals
• A super-productive agriculture does not provide us with more micronutrients
• Do we consume enough vitamins and minerals in developed countries?
• What are the scarcest vitamins and minerals amongst the population of developed countries?
• Conclusions

HOW TO GET THE VITAMINS AND MINERALS THAT WE NEED FROM OUR DIET
• To get the nutrients that we need, let's eat real food
• Strategies to consume more vitamins and minerals without turning to supplements
• How to increase consumption of the scarcest micronutrients in our diet

HOW TO LIVE A HEALTHIER LIFE
• Let's not blame our genes for our bad health
• How can we improve our diet
• What other aspects of our lifestyle can we improve

About the author
María I. Tapia has a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. She has developed her professional career for almost twenty years in the pharmaceutical and agri-food sector (regulation of metabolism, development of new vaccines, functional foods, improvement of fruit quality, detection and control of chemical and microbiological contaminants in food products, quality of water…). Her professional experience gives her a vision ”from the inside”, which allows her to approach readers and teach them to differentiate scientific information from advertising claims.