Library of Supplements
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Supplement Overview
Herbal Supplements
Herbal Supplements are a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbal Supplements are also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts.
Many plants synthesize substances that are useful to the maintenance of health in humans and other animals. These include aromatic substances, most of which are phenols or their oxygen-substituted derivatives such as tannins. Many are secondary metabolites, of which at least 12,000 have been isolated — a number estimated to be less than 10% of the total. In many cases, these substances (particularly the alkaloids) serve as plant defense mechanisms against predation by microorganisms, insects, and herbivores. Many of the herbs and spices used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds aswell.
Vitamin Supplements
A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. The term 'vitamin' first became popular in the early 1800's as a contraction of the words 'vital' and 'mineral', though the actual meaning of the word has developed somewhat since that time. A compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on the circumstances and the particular organism. For example, ascorbic acid functions as vitamin C for some animals but not others, and vitamins D and K are required in the human diet only in certain circumstances. The term vitamin does not include other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids, nor does it encompass the large number of other nutrients that promote health but are otherwise required less often.
Vitamins are classified by their biological and chemical activity, not their structure. Thus, each "vitamin" may refer to several vitamer compounds that all show the biological activity associated with a particular vitamin. Such a set of chemicals are grouped under an alphabetized vitamin "generic descriptor" title, such as "vitamin A", which includes the compounds retinal, retinol, and many carotenoids. Vitamers are often inter-converted in the body.
Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions, including function as hormones (e.g. vitamin D), antioxidants (e.g. vitamin E), and mediators of cell signaling and regulators of cell and tissue growth and differentiation (e.g. vitamin A). The largest number of vitamins (e.g. B complex vitamins) function as precursors for enzyme cofactor bio-molecules (coenzymes), that help act as catalysts and substrates in metabolism. When acting as part of a catalyst, vitamins are bound to enzymes and are called prosthetic groups. For example, biotin is part of enzymes involved in making fatty acids. Vitamins also act as coenzymes to carry chemical groups between enzymes. For example, folic acid carries various forms of carbon group – methyl, formyl and methylene - in the cell. Although these roles in assisting enzyme reactions are vitamins' best-known function, the other vitamin functions are equally important.
Until the 1900s, vitamins were obtained solely through food intake, and changes in diet (which, for example, could occur during a particular growing season) can alter the types and amounts of vitamins ingested. Vitamins have been produced as commodity chemicals and made widely available as inexpensive pills for several decades, allowing supplementation of the dietary intake.
Mineral Supplements
Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen present in common organic molecules. The term "mineral" is archaic, since the intent of the definition is to describe ions, not chemical compounds or actual minerals.
Dietitians may recommend that minerals are best supplied by ingesting specific foods rich with the element(s) of interest. Sometimes minerals are ingested as mineral dietary supplements, the most common being iodine in iodized salt.
The dietary focus on minerals derives from an interest in supporting biochemical reactions with the required elemental components. Appropriate intake levels of certain chemical elements are thus required to maintain optimal health. According to nutritional experts, the requirements are met simply with a conventional balanced diet.
Amino Acid Supplements
When Amino Acid Supplements are taken up into the body in the diet, the twenty-two standard amino acids are either used to synthesize proteins and other biomolecules or oxidized to urea and carbon dioxide as a source of energy. The oxidation pathway starts with the removal of the amino group by a transaminase, the amino group is then fed into the urea cycle. The other product of transamidation is a keto acid that enters the citric acid cycle. Glucogenic amino acids can also be converted into glucose, through gluconeogenesis.
Of the twenty-two standard amino acids, eight are called essential amino acids because the human body cannot synthesize them from other compounds at the level needed for normal growth, so they must be obtained from food. However, the situation is quite complicated since cysteine, taurine, tyrosine, histidine and arginine are semiessential amino acids in children, because the metabolic pathways that synthesize these amino acids are not fully developed. The amounts required also depend on the age and health of the individual, so it is hard to make general statements about the dietary requirement for some amino acids.
Fiber Supplements
Dietary fiber (fibre), sometimes called roughage, is the indigestible portion of plant foods that pushes food through the digestive system, absorbing water and easing defecation. It acts by changing the nature of the contents of the gastrointestinal tract, and by changing how other nutrients and chemicals are absorbed.
Dietary fiber can be soluble (able to dissolve in water) or insoluble (not able to dissolve in water). Soluble fiber, like all fiber, cannot be digested. But it does change as it passes through the digestive tract, being transformed (fermented) by bacteria there. Soluble fiber also absorbs water to become a gelatinous substance that passes through the body. Insoluble fiber has bulking action but is mostly unchanged by fermentation as it passes through the body.
Chemically, dietary fiber consists of non-starch polysaccharides such as cellulose and many other plant components such as dextrins, inulin, lignin, waxes, chitins, pectins, beta-glucans and oligosaccharides. The term "fiber" is somewhat of a misnomer, since many types of so-called dietary fiber are not fibers at all.
Food sources of dietary fiber are often divided according to whether they provide (predominantly) soluble or insoluble fiber. To be precise, both types of fiber are present in all plant foods, with varying degrees of each according to a plant’s characteristics.
Potential advantages of consuming fiber are the production of health-promoting compounds during the fermentation of soluble fiber, and insoluble fiber's ability (via its passive water-attracting properties) to increase bulk, soften stool and shorten transit time through the intestinal tract.
Other Supplements
A dietary supplement, also known as food supplement or nutritional supplement, is a preparation intended to provide nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids or amino acids, that are missing or are not consumed in sufficient quantity in a person's diet. Some countries define dietary supplements as foods, while in others they are defined as drugs.
