Vitamin C

Eye Vitamins 1 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged episode / eyes / Iron / minerals / Vitamin A / Vitamin C / Vitamine / Vitamins / zinc by

*Disclaimer: most vitamins and minerals are good for ALL of your body.

Eye Vitamins

  1. Vitamin C: helps make collagen, allows iron to be absorbed, and acts as a neurotransmitter co-factor (helps in the process of creating and sending messages).
  2. Vitamin E: antioxidant, it traps up free radicals so they don’t damage cells in important organs.
  3. Beta-Carotene: a pre-cursor to Vitamin A (this happens in your liver). Vitamin A works with proteins in your eyes to create light-sensitive molecules to aid in color vision and seeing in dim light.
  4. Zinc: helps Vitamin A know where it’s needed in the body and helps it get there.
  5. Selenium: helps the body absorb Vitamin E.
  6. Calcium: vital for muscle and nerve conduction (think electricity).
No lone rangers here!
Many foods are fortified in modern countries and have vitamins added to them that may not be naturally occurring in the raw ingredients.  If you’re eating a well balanced diet and still deficient in something, take a supplement of the thing you’re deficient in, not a whole multi-vitamin.  If you’re getting regular check-ups with your doctor, they should be testing for many things, including many vitamin levels, to check for deficiencies.
Being “tired” isn’t always fixed by taking vitamins.

Bonus

Depending on what nutrient is missing to cause anemia, the red blood cells will have a certain appearance.

Some vitamins are fat soluble. They hang out in your adipose tissue, and can cause problems if you get them in too large amounts.

Connect with me

Support us on Patreon

*NEW* Join the Pharmacist Answers Podcast Community on Facebook

Subscribe: iTunes, Stitcher, GooglePlay, TuneIn Radio

Like the Facebook page

Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hair Vitamins [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged antioxidant / Biotin / free radicals / hair / Iron / oil / omega-3-fatty acid / Vitamin B-7 / Vitamin C / vitamin E / Vitamins by

Disclaimer

If you live in a modernized country, the food that you eat will give you more than enough of the vitamins you need, because you have access to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, plus tons of food products are fortified with vitamins.  So rarely is someone deficient in a whole bunch of vitamins all at once.

Hand-drawn and colored sketch of the layer of skin where hair grows from, with labeled parts. Hair vitamins will reach your hair through the blood vessels depicted in this image.

Vitamins

  1. Biotin (Vitamin H – antiquated; Vitamin B-7) – a cofactor that works with your enzymes to help transport carbon dioxide – which is a waste product in your body.  Carbon dioxide is created in fatty acid production, amino acid metabolism, and gluconeogenesis (making glucose out of things that aren’t glucose).  Peanuts is a huge source of biotin.  Your natural gut flora make biotin for you!!  So apparently good for your whole body, not just your hair.
  2. Vitamin C – responsible for helping collagen production.  Most directly related to hair, skin, and nails.  Collagen allows cells to be stretchy and elastic and more flexible against abuse.  It also helps your digestive tract absorb iron (callback!).
  3. Vitamin E – is an oil-based vitamin and an antioxidant.  Lots of health fads scream at you about free radicals.  Free radicals are molecules that are waste products from different processes that end up with a non-neutral charge (so either positive charge or negative charge).  So if you remember chemistry, they prefer to be neutral, so free radicals want to steal charges to neutralize, and can sometimes steal it from your DNA and lead to major cell damage.  An antioxidant is a molecule that finds an oxidized free radical and donates a charge so that it’s neutral again (and the antioxidant is able to cope better with losing an electron or two without becoming radical itself).  Vitamin E focuses on the free radicals from fatty acid processes.  Again, good for your whole body, not just your hair.

Supplements

  1. Omega-3-Fatty acid – an oil, a fatty acid chain that goes into the production of your skin’s natural moisture.  Your skin needs its natural oil to trap up dirt and bacteria, as well as keeping the moisture from deeper inside your body from evaporating out.  So each hair follicle has an oil gland with it to keep the hair moisturized.  The new information about the importance of your hair’s natural oil has encouraged the “no ‘poo” movement.  This is more directly related to your hair, but a lot of other places in your body benefit from O3FA’s.
  2. Iron – responsible for helping your red blood cells to carry around oxygen.  This is most likely the only nutrient in this list that someone would need to truly supplement, mainly because iron deficiency can be caused by several things, some of which are genetic.  People with prolonged anemia have dull hair, skin, and nails.  Again, good for your whole body.

Connect with me

Support us on Patreon

*NEW* Join the Pharmacist Answers Podcast Community on Facebook

Subscribe: iTunes, Stitcher, GooglePlay, TuneIn Radio

Like the Facebook page

Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/