By John Perry

On any given day, you’ll find Kris Boudny popping pills.

No, not the pills from the ’60s hippie culture. He’s part of today’s ever-growing vitamin culture.

“I am taking a vitamin B-complex with C to help regain my energy level,” said Boudny, who recently returned from a seven-month absence recovering from lung cancer.

After surgery removed two-thirds of his upper left lung, there were weeks of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. When he returned to work as a physical plant maintenance supervisor in Aviation, Boudny was so fatigued it was difficult to walk up a flight of stairs.

His oncologist, Dr. Luis T. Campos, a specialist in the Independent Provider Network, suggested daily doses of vitamin supplements to help rebuild Boudny’s suppressed immune system and improve his body’s ability to heal.

“Vitamins made a difference in getting my strength back,” said Boudny, who also walks two miles a day. “I consider myself on a second life now, and I’ll continue vitamins as part of my new health regimen.”

Alphabet soup
The vitamin alphabet is short: A, B, C, D, E and K. Your mother told you to eat your vegetables because they were loaded with vitamins. She was right. But did she understand how they impact health and wellness? Do you?

There are 13 vitamins. A, D, E and K are called fat soluble because they’re stored in body fat. The others, C and the eight B vitamins making up the B-complex, are water soluble, meaning the body gets rid of what it doesn’t use right away.

Vitamins were discovered accidentally. In 1747, a Scottish naval surgeon found that an unknown nutrient in limes, identified as vitamin C in the 1930s, prevented scurvy in seamen on long voyages. After limes became a daily staple aboard British ships, their sailors were nicknamed “limeys.”

In 1911, a Polish chemist demonstrated that foods had a “nitrogen-containing compound” that facilitated the body’s ability to absorb food. He called this mysterious substance vita (vital) and amine (a nitrogen-containing compound).

As more vitamins were identified, they were given alphabetical names in their order of discovery.

Vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals and water are the six building blocks of life.

Proteins, carbohydrates and fats combine to yield energy and build tissue. Think of vitamins as spark plugs that produce the enzymes that turn food into energy.

Because people need vitamins, which the body doesn’t manufacture, they must be obtained from food or supplements.

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