Food and Health
Vitamins and minerals
Tell vitamins from minerals, match each to the deficiency disease its long shortage causes, and say what the protective nutrients do.
In 1746, on a long voyage, the Scottish physician James Lind noticed something about the sailors with bleeding and swollen gums: the ones who ate lemons and oranges got better. He had found the cure for scurvy long before anyone could say what was in the fruit. What was missing from those sailors' food was vitamin C.
The protective nutrients
Vitamins and minerals are grouped together as the protective nutrients, because they guard the body against disease and keep it healthy. The body needs them in small amounts — which does not make them optional. Go short of one for long enough and a deficiency disease follows.
Which is which
The chapter's chart has vitamins A, B1, C and D on one side, and the minerals calcium, iodine and iron on the other. A useful habit: the vitamins are named with letters, the minerals with the name of the substance itself.
Have a play
What each nutrient does for the body, and what goes wrong without it.
Tap any part of the picture.
Worked example
Reshma has trouble seeing in dim light. What is likely to be short in her diet, and what should she eat?
Start from the symptom and read the chart backwards: trouble seeing in dim light is the sign given for loss of vision.
A deficiency disease is diagnosed from what it does, because the missing nutrient itself cannot be seen.
Try it together
Now work out why a doctor gave a boy with a broken bone two different things to take.
Gourav breaks his leg. The doctor gives him calcium tablets, and on the second visit adds vitamin D syrup.
1.The calcium came first. Which part of the body does the chart say calcium keeps healthy? Answer with two words joined by 'and'.
Have a go
Have a go on your own. Vitamins and minerals share one two-word name in the chapter, given because they guard the body against disease. What is it?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.