Basic nutrition: vital nutrients

We humans are often funny, illogical and unpredictable, so the long neglect of the role of food and nutrition in our lives is not all too surprising. The science had already well developed many other branches - from psychology to astrophysics - before we finally decided to take a closer look of what actually keeps us alive: food and its role in maintaining our health. Slow, sporadic progress in what was to become the science of nutrition was almost entirely result of isolated individual discoveries throughout the 19th and early 20th century.

First serious attempt to benefit the U.S. public with what's been learned about nutrition were the 1941 RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances) by the National Research Council. They contained specific recommendation for caloric intake, as well as intake of nine then recognized essential nutrients. The Food Guide Pyramid was introduced by the Department of Agriculture as recent as 1992. Welcome abroad, nutrition!
 

Somewhat simplified, what makes us and keeps us alive is the food we eat. It can be broken down to these six basic nutrient groups:

● proteins
● fats
● carbohydrates
● minerals
● vitamins, and
● water

The first three nutrient categories consist from large bio-molecules; together with water, they represent macronutrients, or bulk of the human diet. Minerals and vitamins, also called micronutrients, make only a tiny portion of the food we eat. Nevertheless, they are necessary for body functions just as much as macronutrients.

In order to function properly, your body needs balanced intake of all six basic nutrients. Balanced intake of the three calorie containing macronutrients, for an average healthy adult, requires 10%-15% of the total calories coming from proteins, about 20% from fats and 65%-70% from carbohydrates. Average daily need for water is nearly a gallon, roughly half of which is, on average, contained in the ingested food.

Each calorie-containing macronutrient comes in various chemical forms - proteins as peptides (partly broken down proteins with less than ~50 amino acids) and amino acids (protein building blocks), fats as fatty acids, and carbohydrates as simple (sugars) and complex (starches). Each has different nutritional properties and also need to be present in a diet in proper proportions.
 

Each of the six basic nutrient groups - except water - is made of a large number of nutrients that can significantly differ in their properties and effect on the body. Not all are equally important. Some have major health significance, while others play relatively small role. Also, some of them can be synthesized by the body from other nutrients, and some can't. Those nutrients of major health significance that can't be synthesized by the body - thus have to be obtained preformed either from food, or some form of supplementation - are in the special group of essential nutrients.

It is critically important for the body to receive essential nutrients. They include 22 minerals ( Ca, Ch, Co, Cr, Cu, F, Fe, Ge, I, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, S, Se, Si, Sn, V and Zn), 8 essential amino acids (Isoleucine, Leucine, Lysine, Methionine, Phenylalanine, Threonine, Tryptophan and Valine - for infants and children, also Histidine and Arginine), 2 essential fatty acids (Omega-6 and Omega-3) and 13 vitamins (A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C, D, E and K).
 

A group of nutrients that are beneficial for health, but are not considered essential, have been named accessory nutrients - like enzymes, phytochemicals, non-essential amino acids, coenzyme Q10, lipoic acid, vitamins B8 (inositol), B10 (PABA), B11 (choline), B15 (pangamic acid) and vitamin P (bioflavonoids), boron, bismuth, lithium, strontium, and others. 

There is also an unknown number of other food ingredients that don't belong to neither essential nor (recognized) accessory nutrients, but can be very beneficial to the body. For instance, there are hundreds of plant food compounds - so called phytonutrients - with some of them being recognized as essential or accessory, but the effect of most of them is still being investigated.

Of course, we also need air (oxygen), as well as as sunshine, movement, sleep, love and laughter. They are also essential to life, but since they are not food related, they are not nutrients.
 

Practically all nutrients are interactive, either competing with or assisting absorption and use of several other nutrients. This means that you not only need to get them in sufficient amounts, but also that each needs to be in balance with the nutrients it affects. Health-wise,

longer-term excess can be as bad as deficiency,

not only due to possible toxicity of the excess, but also due to likely suppression of some other important nutrient, or nutrients. Adding to the complexity is that the body can, under certain circumstances (health conditions, intake of medications, effect of herbal and other preparations, genetic deviation) either accumulate excessive amounts of a nutrient, or not be able to utilize it properly, despite its proper nominal intake.

In order to maintain health, your body's nutritional demand needs to be met with the adequate supply coming from the food. We often tend to assume that satisfying hunger equals meeting body's nutritional demand, but it may be far from the truth. No single food contains all the nutrients that your body needs for health. Thus

a healthy diet requires variety of foods.

Also, food nutrient content varies not only from one type of food to another, but also for the same food types with the climate and mineral contents of soil, as well as the degree of processing. 

The last two factors - soil depletion and food processing - have increasingly detrimental impact on our nutrient supply. On the other hand, our nutrient demand is up, mainly due to increasingly polluted environment.

This global mismatch has global health consequences, resulting in an

epidemic of degenerative diseases in developed countries,

and particularly in the U.S. Let's take a look at the big picture of the basic nutrient supply, on one side, and our needs for them on the other.
 

Food processing and soil depletion have caused major reduction in our nutrient supply. Growers in general only care of putting back into the soil a handful minerals needed for growth, like potash (potassium), nitrogen, sulfur and phosphate (phosphorus). Most trace minerals like magnesium, zinc, selenium and manganese - key enzyme cofactors and important antioxidants - don't have to be, and are not being replenished (one exception is copper, which is needed for optimum growth). Increasingly tasteless grocery store produce is the testimony that this growing practice has lead to a significant soil depletion.

Already nutrient depleted grains and produce are then subjected to extensive food processing, regularly removing 50%-90% of their natural minerals, essential fatty acids and vitamins, including major antioxidants like vitamin C, A, E, and beta carotene.

Partly approved food irradiation, takes another bite from the food nutrient content in recent years, while at the same time increasing body demand by making food unhealthy by altering its molecular structure. 

Half-hearted attempt of the food processing industry to put some of the lost nutrients back into our foods by "enhancing" processed foods, mainly limits to the available low quality (cheap, less potent, sometimes potentially unhealthy) synthetic substitutes.

Government surveys have found out that between 10% and 95% (varying with the specific nutrient) of Americans obtain from their diet less than the DRI (Dietary Reference Intakes, the most recent set of dietary recommendations set by the U.S. government) of the essential nutrients. Considering current educated opinion that DRI values for most essential nutrients are moderately to grossly underrated,

the situation is even more alarming.

Also, this only gives a big picture at the "receiving end". What your body actually puts its hot little hands on depends on how well the nutrients are absorbed from the food and utilized, as well as how much of it is individually needed. Many people have nutrient absorption compromised by food allergies and pharmaceutical drugs, sub-optimal production of enzymes, bile and hydrochloric acid, inflamed, dysfunctional gut, or a genetic glitch.
 

This significant reduction in our nutritional supply comes right at the time when

we need more nutrients than ever before!

Why? In part due to those very processed foods, denatured, deprived of nutrients, often laden with substances producing free radicals (chemical additives, pesticides, herbicides, solvents, radiation, toxic metals, etc.), damaging your cells and tissues, and burdening your detox system.

Many of these chemical agents also promote free radical activity inside the body, and so does over-consumption of "healthy" polyunsaturated oils like corn, sunflower or safflower, more so when they come, as they usually do, heavily refined. And so does the increased level of ultraviolet radiation due to thinning ozone layer.

We also need more nutrients in order to neutralize harmful effects of the wide array of industrial toxins and pollutants we've become literally soaked with.

In this era of pharmaceuticals, yet another potent factor wiping out much needed nutrients for many are toxic effects of prescription and non-prescription drugs.

And, finally, we also need more nutrients to be able to handle increased levels of psychological stress we are exposed to in the modern world.
 

Adding it all up, our nutritional score is losing. In order to keep functioning, our bodies need to do more with less. That is physically impossible. The only possible outcome is that your body straggles for some time, stretching it out to the limits, and then breaks down and becomes diseased. At best, you will "get away" with accelerated aging. That is, unless you are doing what most folks still aren't: