Vitamins: Their Role in the Human Body
This single-source reference draws together the current knowledge of the
vitamins' biological properties in the context of human nutrition.
Vitamins are co-enzymes, antioxidants or precursors of hormones and are
therefore involved in a great many biochemical and physiological
processes. They play a vital role in the maintenance of health, and
there is evidence that dietary sources of vitamins have beneficial
effects in the prevention of heart-related diseases, bone diseases and
possibly cancer.
Following
introductory chapters on historical and nutritional aspects of
vitamins, the next four chapters cover relevant and detailed aspects of
physiology and functional anatomy, biochemistry, immunology and the
regulation of protein synthesis by nuclear hormone receptors. These
background chapters, supported by a glossary of terms, provide the
scientific principles upon which vitamin functions are based. The
following thirteen chapters deal with each vitamin in turn. Subject
areas include chemical structure, intestinal absorption, transport,
metabolism, biochemical and physiological actions, immunoregulatory
properties, deficiency-related diseases and potential toxicity. An
extensive bibliography refers the reader to the original research
literature.
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