The importance of vitamin K

In 1929, Henrik Dam of Denmark discovered vitamin K. Vitamin K is a fat soluble vitamin has been implicated in both cardiovascular and bone health.

Vitamin K is needed for the production of prothrombin which is necessary for blood clotting. The blood clotting process involves the participation of a number of vitamin K dependent plasma proteins. They include factors II (prothrombin), XII (pro-convertin), IX (Christmas factor) and X (Stewart factor) and proteins C, S, Z and M.

It is also essential for bone formation and repair; it is necessary for the synthesis of osteocalcin, the protein in bone tissue on which calcium crystallizes. Consequently, it may help prevent osteoporosis.

The importance of the availability of sufficient vitamin K for the rate of carboxylation became evident when it was shown that osteocalcin circulating in the blood of normal volunteers only reach full carboxylation when vitamin K supplements were given.

Vitamin k plays important role in the intestine and aids in converting glucose into glycogen for storage in the liver, promoting healthy liver function.

It may increase resistance to infection in children and help prevent cancers that target the inner linings of the organs. It aids in promoting longevity.
The importance of vitamin K

Folic acid in human body

The term ‘folic acid’ refers specifically to pteroylmonoglutamic acid which reference to the pteroic acid and glutamate moieties.

Folic acid is required for the formation of blood cells by the bone marrow and is involved in the formation of the blood pigment hemoglobin.

During pregnancy folic acid helps create red blood cells for the increased blood volume required by the mother, fetus and placenta.

asparagus

It is also required for the synthesis of some amino acids. Deficiency symptoms involve pernicious anemia.

Scientific experiments have revealed that folic acid deficiencies cause DNA damage resembling the DNA damage in cancer cells.

Folic acid is found in liver, dried beans, peas, lentils, orange, whole-wheat products, asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and spinach.
Folic acid in human body 

Carbohydrate as a source of energy

Fats and carbohydrates are equally important sources of energy when the body at rest and at low-levels of exercise, such as a slow walks.

During short term, intense exercise, carbohydrates are the main source of energy. Carbohydrates are made of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and are classified as either simple or complex, based on the number of sugar molecules present.

Carbohydrate in the form of glycogen is the most readily available energy source. Compared to fat, carbohydrate provides energy more quickly, can be used whether or not oxygen is present and serves as the sole source of energy for the central nervous system.

During prolonged exercise, fats become the main energy source, and the shift from carbohydrate to fat utilization (carbohydrate sparing) is enhanced by physical training.

For the people of many countries, 80% of their total daily calories come from complex carbohydrates.

Carbohydrate such as starches and sugars are an efficient and readily available energy source especially for the brain. They are also necessary for fat and protein metabolism. Carbohydrates provide energy with 4 calories per gram.

Plentiful stores of carbohydrates in the body are important for excelling in physical activity, especially endurance exercise. During exercise utilization of carbohydrate accelerates an increased release for glucose from the liver is functionally important to maintain blood glucose homeostasis and to possibly attenuate muscle glycogen glycogen depletion.

If inadequate carbohydrate is available, the body burns protein for energy. This protein comes from food and from the body’s own muscle tissue.

Therefore, in cases of inadequate carbohydrate and protein intake, not only would muscle wasting occur, but adequate proteins would not be available for repair of body tissue.
Carbohydrate as a source of energy 

Vitamin C: Function and Action

Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid is chemically defined as 2-oxo-L-theo-hexono-4-lactone-2,3-enediol. Vitamin C is involved in many physiological functions in living organisms.

The only functional role of the vitamin to be categorically established is its ability to prevent and or cure scurvy. In this role, however, it must affect in some degree every bodily function because the vitamin is needed literally to hold the body’s cell together.

Additionally, the basement membrane lining the capillaries, the intracellular cement holding together the endothelial cells and the scar tissue responsible for wound healing all require the presence of vitamin C for their formation and maintenance.

Vitamin C is antioxidant and a cofactor in many hydroxylating reactions.  Leukocytes have high concentrations of ascorbate that is used rapidly during infection and phagocytosis, which points to vitamin C’s role in immunity.

Vitamin C is required in several reactions involved in body processes, including collagen synthesis, carnitine synthesis, tyrosine synthesis and catabolism, and neurotransmitter synthesis.
Vitamin C: Function and Action

The importance of ascorbic acid

The growing amount of published data on the physiological role of vitamin C represents a great variety of new aspects on the importance of this vitamin.

Ascorbic acid or vitamin C is required for the formation of intercellular substance in the body, including dentine, cartilage, and the protein network of bone.

Hence, it is important in tooth formation, the healing of broken bones, and the healing of the wounds. Vitamin C may be importance in the pathogenesis of most chronic diseases of aging.

Vitamin C has been found to be potentially important in the prevention of atherosclerosis, cancer, senile, cataract, lung diseases, cognitive function, and degenerative diseases of miscellaneous organs.

Deficiency of vitamin C cause scurvy (spongy gums, loose teeth, swollen joints, hemorrhages in various tissues, etc.) and impaired healing of wounds. Orange juice is an excellent source of vitamin C.

The best sources are fresh fruits particularly citrus fruits, tomatoes, and green peppers. Some fruits, like guava, and blackcurrants are particularly rich in the vitamin but they contribute little to normal Western dietary intake.

Green pepper, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts are excellent to good sources of this vitamin C, while other vegetables such as peas, spinach, and lettuce are good to fair sources.

The term vitamin C comprises all compounds with the qualitative biological effect of L-ascorbic. L-ascorbic is a 2,3-enediol-L-gulonic acid.
The importance of ascorbic acid

Ascorbic acid as antioxidant

Ascorbic acid is a water soluble vitamin and has diverse functions in the body including as essential role in the hydroxylation reactions for the synthesis of collagen.

It is widely regarded as an essential antioxidant in the human body has even been called ‘the most important antioxidant in human plasma’.

Ascorbic acid’s function in food systems is complex and depends on a number of factors. Its antioxidants activity is affected by the oxidation-reduction potential of the food system, time, PH, oxygen, trace metals, enzymes, other oxidants, and the concentration of the vitamin in comparison to the concentration of other reactants in the oxidation process.

Antioxidant can be defined as any substance that when present at low concentration compared to those of an oxidizable substrate, significantly delays or prevents oxidation of that substrate.

In-vitro experiments have shown that ascorbic acid can act as a chain breaking antioxidant in lipid peroxidation. Studies of the antioxidant activity of human blood plasma suggest that ascorbic acid is the major extracellular antioxidant.

As an oxygen scavenger, ascorbic acid also serves as a reducing agent. It transfers its hydrogen atoms to oxygen, making the oxygen unavailable for further reaction. In the process, the ascorbic acid is oxidized to dehydroascorbic acid, which in turn can function as an oxidizing agent by removing hydrogen from reducing agents such as sulfhydryl groups.

Ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid are thus reversible forms of vitamin C and both have physiological activity. Further, ascorbic acid may exert a chelating action, binding heavy chemical, if present will promote oxidation. When chelated with heavy metals, ascorbic acid loses its physiological vitamin activity.

Ascorbic acid can also undergo autoxidative destruction especially in the presence of transition metals such as copper and iron, which in turn promotes and accelerates the autoxidation of other macromolecules such as unsaturated lipids.

Ascorbic acid is widely used as an oxygen scavenger and synergist in numerous food applications and has a higher oxidation potential (greater reducing capacity) than most phenolic antioxidants.
Ascorbic acid as antioxidant

What is cysteine?

Cysteine is found extensively in the plant foods human ingest. It is found plentifully in the grasses and thus in the meat of domesticated grazing animals.

Chemically very reactive, cysteine is a sulfur containing amino acid that is unique of its chemistry sulfhydryl group.

Cysteine takes its name from cystine, named after the Greek kustis meaning bladder – cystine was first isolated for kidney stones.

Cysteine, in the presence of mild oxidizing agents, readily dimerizes, that is reacts with another cysteine molecule to form a cysteine molecule.

The sulfur in cysteine molecules plays a crucial role in folding proteins into their correct shapes. For examples sulfur independent proteins are keratin – part of hair, skin and nails and collagen – part of connective tissue like cartilage.

In addition, cysteine is a precursor of methionine and also thiamine, biotin, lipoic acid, coenzymes A and coenzyme M.

The amino acid contains a sulfur group that help to function as antioxidant. Cysteine also can be combined with glutamic acid and glycine in liver cells to form glutathione, which is a principle water soluble antioxidant in cells and the blood.

The human body synthesizes the amino acid cysteine for homocysteine and it is part of human hair, skin and nails as the protein keratin.

Cysteine can be found in red pepper, garlic, onions, broccoli, brussel sprouts, oats and wheat germ. 

It is used by bakers to break up the gluten in flour, thus recuing its stickiness and facilitating the kneading of the dough.

Due to their high reactivity, cysteine and its derivatives such as acetylcysteine are also used in expectorants.
What is cysteine?

The role of vitamin B Complex in human body

The vitamins consist of a group of water-soluble vitamins that include B1 (thiamin), B2 (riboflavin), B1 (niacin and niacinamide), B6 (pyridoxine), B12 (cobalamin), folic acid, pantothenic acid, biotin, choline, inositol and PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid).

The grouping of these compounds under the term B complex is based upon their common source their close relationship in vegetable and animal tissues and their functional relationships.

The B vitamins help to maintain the health of the nerves, skin, eyes, hair, liver and mouth and well as healthy muscle tone in the gastrointestinal tract and proper brain function.

Each vitamin has its own unique biological role to play and its own properties. B vitamin also work together in the body and many of them are found in the same foods.

They act as coenzymes, helping enzymes to react chemically with other substances and are involved in energy production.

They may be useful for alleviating depression or anxiety as well.

The B vitamins are most plentiful in whole grains such as wheat, rice, oats, and rye; and liver. They are also found in green leafy vegetables, meats, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts and beans.

Since the B vitamin work best as a team, it’s important to take a B-complex supplement when taking additional amounts of any single B vitamin. They are also vital in the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein in the body. The B vitamins are important for antibody production and red blood cells.

While B vitamins are an important part of the diet and are needed to help avoid many health conditions, there is not enough scientific evidence to determine if B vitamins can reduce the risk of cancer.
The role of vitamin B Complex in human body

The role of protein as a color

The role of protein in color of foods is not clear cut. In most instances it may either play a role through its interaction or as part of a complex molecules.

The brown color produced during the heating of many different foods comes, in part, from the Maillard reaction.

Maillard Reaction is a browning reaction between an amino group and a reducing group of a carbohydrate.

This reaction contributes to the golden crust of baked products, the browning of meats and the dark color of roasted coffee.

Proteins are directly involved in the color of the protein happens to be a pigment. Selected color pigments, such as chlorophyll are bound in the chloroplasts in a protein lipid matrix.

The meat turn grayish brown during cooking when protein holding the pigment becomes denatured. While milk appears white as light reflects odd the colloidal dispersion of milk protein.

The color of raw salmon flesh is a translucent deep pink red, which on smoking turns a more opaque light pink, as the conformation of the protein changes during processing light scattering within the fish increases.

The visible light range is only a small portion of the electromagnetic energy spectrum which ranges from wavelengths of 60 m for radio waves to 0.0001 nm for gamma waves.

The role of protein as a color