vitamins

What:

"Think of your body as a house. Vitamins are like tiny little maids and butlers, scurrying about to turn on the lights and make sure that the windows are closed to keep the heat from escaping. Minerals are more sturdy stuff, the mortar and bricks that strengthen the frame of the house and the current that keeps the lights running."

Writer: Not Stated

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:31 PM

What:

"Vitamins are like a good football team but you need a full team on the field with others, accessory players, on the bench waiting, watching the major players, each knowing what to do when necessary and each taking on a different job. A good team does not have extra players doing the same thing, nor feeding off another member. Each teammate works with the rest of the team's strengths without becoming weak or weakening the other, because it has support in knowing everyone else is doing their best"

Writer: Don Lemmon

LCC:

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:29 PM

What:

"Just like you need to put fuel in your car or recharge your cell phone battery, your body needs to be fed energy-providing foods every day. Vitamins are like the "spark plugs" that ignite all of your metabolic reactions. Vitamins are necessary to support daily metabolic processes, maintain cellular efficiency and support optimal nutrition."

Writer: Not Stated

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:35 PM

What: "Vitamins are like hormones and enzymes: active compounds whose functions in the body overlap and interact. The main distinction of vitamins is that the human body can not make them. We have to get them from the food we eat, although we need them only in tiny qualities, they are absolutely essential for life."

Writer: Laurel Robertson et al.

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:41 PM

What:

"Vitamins are like tire irons. Without a tire iron, you can't
change a tire. A box of tire irons won't help you change it faster.
This is a good way to explain that excessive vitamins don't help,
and may do harm."

The link is a paper called "Essential Analogies in Human Anatomy & Physiology" It has many analogies used for teaching.

Writer: R. BRUCE SUNDRUD, KRIS HUEFTLE

LCC:

Where: Reference Link Has Evaporated

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:51 PM

What: "We all know the absolute necessity of vitamins and minerals. Without these our bodies cannot function properly. However, even these things that are necessary can be harmful if present in the body in overabundance. The reality is, for me, supplementation is very minimal. Understand that vitamins are like chemical enablers: they must be present for certain chemical reactions to proceed-but having more of them than necessary to perform these functions does not make the process more efficient"

Writer: Steven Siemons

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 25 2013 2:55 PM

What: One of the most apt comparisons for B-vitamins is a spark plug. Spark plugs are an essential part of converting the potential energy in gasoline to useful mechanical energy. But the analogy should be expanded a bit to make it more instructive. In particular,B-vitamins are typically co-factors for the enzymes that convert food into useful energy that a cell can use. Enzymes are biological catalysis that lower the activation energy of all biochemical reactions. By design(?) they are not consumed in the reactions that they catalyze. B-Vitamins are co-factors for enzymes. Often,the the body can not synthesize sufficient quantities, so sometimes, it helps to take supplements. So, the analogy is an association between enzymes and their respective vitamins with a spark plug and one of its essential parts, the electrode. Like an enzyme, the spark plug is responsible for helping convert chemical energy into mechanical energy. Most of the mass of a spark plug is used to hold it in the engine over a long period of time. The part that actually participates in the energy conversion is the electrode.

Writer: Not Stated

LCC:

Where:

Date: Dec 25 2013 3:04 PM