By Robin Brain

Nutrients are the chemical components of diet and are essential to life and health. Nutrients are classed as either macronutrients or micronutrients:

macronutrients are carbohydrates (sugars and starches), fats (including essential fatty acids), proteins (including essential amino acids), and fiber

micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and trace elements that cannot be manufactured in the body, and so must be eaten daily.

If micronutritents are absent or too low, illness results. Scurvy, for example, is a disease resulting from lack of vitamin C. It used to be the curse of sailors who had to make long trips at sea with no access to fresh fruit or vegetables. Once the connection between scurvy and fresh fruit had been made, and the sailors issued lime juice to drink, scurvy virtually disappeared.

Micronutrients have only been identified extensively and researched since 1913 when an American biochemist, Elmer McCollum, discovered the first vitamin, vitamin A. Their use in treatment has now become a major, and rapidly growing, therapy in its own right throughout the world. Another nutritional therapy is megavitamin therapy, established by the Nobel prize winner Dr. Linus Pauling in the United States. He believed that schizophrenia and other mental problems were the consequence of vitamin deficiency and originally called his therapy “orthomolecular psychiatry. “

The therapeutic prescription of nutrients is known as nutritional therapy, and practitioners specializing in it are nutritional therapists. Nutrients prescribed in this way are called “dietary” or “food supplements,” and they come in the form of tablets, capsules, powders, or liquids. Nutrients may sometimes also be injected for greater effect, but in most countries only conventional medical doctors may do this.

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 31st, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Alternative Medicine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.