Fat Soluble Vitamins

Fat-soluble vitamins are vitamins that are absorbed by the body and then stored in the body's fat tissue or in the liver. The storage of fat-soluble vitamins in the body may last for a day or up to 6 months, but they stay there until our body needs them. Our diets only need these in moderate amounts to avoid health problems that could arise from excess amount. Another reason we don't need a large amount is that they are always stored in our body. Here is a fat-soluble vitamin list:

• Vitamin A, retinol, Vitamin A1
• Vitamin D, Vitamin D2, Vitamin D3,
• Vitamin E, (alpha-tocopheral)
• Vitamin K, Vitamin K2, Vitamin K3

To fully understand why we need vitamins, we need to understand what they each do for us. It's important to distinguish the characteristics of the fat and the water-soluble vitamins. Whereas fat-soluble vitamins are stored in your body for up to months, water-soluble vitamins travel through your body quickly. Whatever is not used immediately goes through the body and comes out with urine. We need to constantly be replenishing our bodies with these vitamins because they are constantly traveling through and out of the body. As a group, they all work together, but individually they each contribute something to our body.

Vitamin A is very essential for good eyesight and proper growth and good skin. Foods that are rich in vitamin A are eggs, milk, apricots, cantaloupe, nectarines, carrots, sweet potatoes and spinach.

Vitamin D is great for giving us strong bones, strong teeth and helps in the absorption of Calcium. Foods rich in Vitamin D are milk and Vitamin D fortified dairy products, fish and egg yolks.

Vitamin E is an extremely important one that maintains the tissue in your eyes, skin and liver, protects your lungs from polluted air, and helps with the formation of red blood cells. Foods rich in Vitamin E are whole grains such as wheat and oat, wheat germ, leafy green vegetables, sardines, egg yolks and nuts.

Vitamin K is important for its role of helping to make our blood clot. Foods we eat to get Vitamin K are leafy green vegetables, liver, pork, dairy products such as milk and yogurt.

There is a fat-soluble Vitamin C known as Ascorbyl palmitate, which is better absorbed than the water-soluble form of Vitamin C. It plays a dual role of both water and fat-soluble, which is very helpful as our body needs Vitamin C for many reasons, but the most important is to help fight infections.