Vitamins are essential for growth, vitality, and health, and are helpful in digestion, elimination, and resistance to disease.  Deficiencies can lead to a veriety of both specific nutritional disorders and general health problems, according to what vitamin is lacking in the diet.  

Vitamins themselves are not part of our body tissues; they are not building blocks but helpers in metabolism.  We cannot live on vitamins but need food that provides energy and helps form the actual tissues of our body.  We need food and certain minerals to best absorb any vitamin supplements we take.  

Minerals

Minerals are important for your body to stay healthy.

Your body uses minerals for many different jobs, including building bones, making hormones, and regulating your heartbeat.  There are two kinds of minerals: macrominerals and trace minerals.  Macrominerals are minerals your body needs in larger amounts like calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, chloride, and sulfur.  Your body needs just small amounts of trace minerals.  These include iron, manganese, copper, iodine, zinc, flouride, and selenium.