Calcium is the most frequent mineral in the human body. About 99% of the calcium in the body is found in bones and teeth, while the other 1% is found in the blood and soft tissue. Calcium levels in the blood and fluid surrounding the cells (extracellular fluid) must be maintained within a very narrow concentration range for normal physiological functioning. The physiological functions of calcium are so vital to survival that the body will demineralize bone to continue normal blood calcium levels when calcium intake is inadequate.

Calcium plays several crucial roles in the human body. It is part of the main structural element in bone, and bone also acts as a calcium basin so that that blood calcium levels can be maintained at stable levels. This is necessary because of the variety of roles calcium plays in cells, including muscle contraction, nerve transmission, blood clotting, and enzyme reactions. The body cannot make calcium “from scratch.”

Calcium is best known for its position in growing and maintaining the bones and teeth. It also helps the heart and other muscles do their work. There is strong substantiation that low calcium intake can lead to fragile bones, high blood pressure, and certain cancers. Recent studies have shown that calcium may diminish the risk of colon cancer and perhaps some other cancers. When combined with vitamin D, calcium may have the potential to help prevent cancers of the breast and pancreas. Calcium has also been found helpful in reducing certain symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). There is some early evidence that calcium may play a part in helping to prevent heart disease and reducing insulin resistance in diabetic patients.

A low blood calcium level usually implies abnormal parathyroid function and is rarely due to low dietary calcium intake. Other causes of abnormally low blood calcium levels include chronic kidney failure, vitamin D deficiency, and low blood magnesium levels that occur mainly in cases of chronic alcoholism. A chronically low calcium intake in growing individuals may prevent the attainment of optimal peak bone mass. Once peak bone mass is achieved, inadequate calcium intake may contribute to accelerated bone loss and ultimately to the development of osteoporosis.

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A vitamin is a small molecule that your body needs to carry out a certain reaction. Your body has no way to create vitamin molecules itself, so the vitamin molecules must come in through food that you eat. The word vitamin is derived from a combination of words — vital amine — and was conceived by Polish chemist Casimir Funk in 1912. Funk isolated vitamin B1, or thiamine, from rice. This was determined to be one of the vitamins that prevented beriberi, a deficiency disease marked by inflammatory or degenerative changes of the nerves, digestive system and heart.

Vitamins, which may be consumed from a wide range of sources, are important to the human body in a variety of ways. One of the main roles of vitamins is to act as enzymes, or coenzymes that work with other metabolic enzymes, to catalyze and aid in the completion of biochemical reactions. The specific reactions involved, however, are vitamin dependent, each molecule being associated with certain kinds of activities. Vitamin B1, for instance, is associated with the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, while vitamin B12 is believed to facilitate red blood cell production in humans and other higher animals. Some of the other aspects of health that vitamins are concerned in include the formation of proteins crucial for blood clotting (vitamin K), inhibition of oxidation in body tissues (vitamin E), and the production of collagen (vitamin C).

Your body prefers to extract the vitamins and minerals from whole foods and excretes excess vitamins and minerals from supplements via in urine or feces. Remember how you use nutrients is based on genes that are thousands of years old and depended on food, not pills. There is however research to support higher than normal intakes of some vitamins or minerals for specific disease prevention or treatment.

A good nutritious and well balanced diet cannot be replaced by mere vitamin supplements. While essential to life, the vitamins themselves do not provide any energy to the body. Vitamins are just one essential component of the human diet and the body requires a lot of other substances besides vitamins.

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The majority of mineral vitamin supplements are made from chemicals rather than natural substances. However, there is a steady growth in the demand for natural mineral vitamin supplements. This is due to the amount of debate that there is as to whether chemical mineral vitamins can be more harmful than beneficial in the long term.

The fact is that chemical mineral vitamin supplements are not as easily absorbed as normal food particles are. The mineral vitamin industry is constantly striving to create products that are more easily processed by the body and therefore more beneficial.
Every now and then the industry comes up with a new ‘more bio-available’ form of a vitamin or mineral. To overcome this, a large number of mineral vitamins have been developed that combine other elements with the vitamins and minerals to enable them to be more easily absorbed by the body. Iron is commonly combined to form iron gluconate which enable the mineral vitamin supplement to be more absorbable.

The amount of a nutrient in a mineral vitamin supplement needs to be far greater than it would be in a more natural form for the body to be able to absorb the amount that is required. This can obviously lead to problem where a toxic level of the particular nutrient is being consumed by the large doses of the mineral vitamin supplement that are needed. It is therefore extremely important that a person does not simply take vast quantities of all of the mineral vitamin supplements that are advertised on television and should seek advice from a health professional. It is also worth being aware of the developments in the mineral vitamin supplement industry as there are constantly new and better combinations being developed.

One method that mineral vitamin manufacturers have developed to help aid absorption is through culturing the raw materials with yeast cells. This form of mineral vitamins are known as ‘food state’ and are up to four times easier for the body to absorb the required nutrients as the yeast is completely digested.
Of course, the need for mineral vitamin supplements depends on the diet that a person has. There is no doubt that it is far more preferable for a person to obtain the nutrients that they require from their food rather than by taking mineral vitamin supplements wherever possible. During certain periods it may be necessary for a person to take mineral vitamin supplements on a temporary basis but their long term use is not recommended for a number of the supplements that are available.

The Author also writes about Sleeping Supplements like Herbal Ambien.