What Are Fat Soluble Vitamins?
Basically, vitamins are divided into two types, namely water-soluble vitamins (B, C) and fat-soluble (A, D, E, K). Both types of vitamins should be consumed in the right amounts, especially for fat-soluble types of vitamins.
Vitamins are needed by the body to carry out various metabolic functions. Daily vitamin needs can actually be met by eating a balanced nutritious diet on a regular basis. Vitamin supplements are only needed if the intake of food alone is not enough, it can be due to a less healthy diet or because of its increased needs.
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that plays a key role in maintaining vision function. Without this vitamin, a person can become blind. Some of you may not yet know that vitamin A is not actually a single compound.
In contrast, vitamin A is a group of fat-soluble compounds collectively known as retinoids.
The most common form of dietary vitamin A is retinol.
More fully, here are the benefits of vitamin A in the body:
- Maintenance of vision: Vitamin A is essential for maintaining light-sensing cells in the eye and for the formation of tear fluid
- Immune function: Vitamin A deficiency impairs immune function, increases susceptibility to infection
- Body growth: Vitamin A is necessary for cell growth. Deficiency can slow or prevent growth in children.
- Hair growth: This is also important for hair growth. Deficiency causes alopecia, or hair loss
- Reproductive function: Vitamin A maintains fertility and is essential for fetal development
Vitamin D
People get vitamin D:
- Naturally through exposure to sunlight or food
- Through foods enriched as supplements
Two types of vitamins occur naturally:
- Vitamin D-3, found in animal fats
- Vitamin D-2, found in plants, such as mushrooms
Vitamin D has two main roles in the body:
- Maintain bone health.
- Supports the immune system.
Food sources
A person can get some vitamin D from the sun, but most people also need to use other sources as well. The main alternative is food.
Food sources of vitamin D include:
- Fish oil and fish oil
- Enriched dairy products, vegetable milk, and cereals
- The cow liver
- Eggs
The main effects of vitamin D deficiency include osteoporosis, or loss of osteomalacia bone mass, when the bone becomes soft rickets, when the child’s bones do not develop as they should, and increased risk of infection as well as autoimmunity
Too much vitamin D can lead to high levels of calcium in the blood.
It can also cause:
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Low appetite and weight loss
- Calcium buildup in tissues and blood vessels
- Damage to the heart or kidneys
- High blood pressure.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is included in vitamins that act as antioxidants that help protect cells in the body from damage from free radicals.
Vitamin E is like vitamin A that can be obtained from animal sources and vegetable sources. Sources of vitamin E come from animals such as salmon, goose meat, fish eggs, and fish liver oil. Plant-based sources of vitamin E such as sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, almonds, peanuts, avocados, and kiwis.
Vitamin E Function:
- Maintain healthy skin and eyes
- Strengthens the immune system
- Helps the formation of red blood cells
- Reduce the risk of cataract disease
- Slows down aging
- Treating brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and others.
Vitamin K
Also known as phylloquinone or naphthaquinone, vitamin K acts as one of the factors in the process of blood clotting after the occurrence of wounds. Vitamin K was discovered by a Danish researcher, and the Danish word clotting begins with the letter “K”, this explains why it is referred to as vitamin K. [Note: it takes many other elements in the blood clotting process; people suffering from hemophilia do not have the ability to utilize one element with another, and this has nothing to do with vitamin K.] Vitamin K can be made from bacteria that live in the human gut.
Based on this it is actually not appropriate to classify it into the category of vitamins. However, babies are born with a sterile digestive tract, so they often give vitamin K injections to prevent too much bleeding in the event of a wound. At first, breast milk was considered a very lacking source of vitamins, until it was finally discovered that breast milk had a form of water-soluble vitamin in it.
Antibiotics, which are often used to cure infections, can destroy bacteria that produce vitamin K even for a temporary period of time. For patients undergoing antibiotic treatment, K is a “vitamin” that must be consumed. Green leafy vegetables are a good source of vitamin K.
