Do Vitamins Get Stored in the Blood?

The liver is a storage location for some vitamins, minerals, and glucose, which it transforms into glycogen for more efficient storage. You can store enough vitamin A and vitamin B12 for four years, and enough vitamin D for four months. On the other hand, water-soluble vitamins are found in the watery portions of the food you eat and are absorbed directly into the bloodstream during digestion. These vitamins don't stay in the body for long and can't be stored, leaving the body through urine.

This means that people need a more regular supply of water-soluble vitamins than fat-soluble vitamins. When taking multivitamins, it is important to ensure that the recommended doses of fat-soluble vitamins are not exceeded. Vitamin A toxicity is usually the result of excessive supplementation, consumption of wild game liver, and isotretinoin therapy. Vitamin D toxicity, although rare, can occur in people taking large doses of vitamin D supplements with an excessive intake of fortified foods. Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients that perform hundreds of functions in the body. Fat-soluble vitamins play integral roles in a multitude of physiological processes such as vision, bone health, immune function and coagulation.

Vitamin K-dependent gamma-carboxylation of certain glutamic acid residues allows proteins to bind to calcium and carry out the coagulation cascade.In the United States, vitamin A deficiency is most commonly due to fat malabsorption syndromes, alcoholism, and liver disease. Because they are stored in tissues, fat-soluble vitamins remain in the body for longer than water-soluble vitamins. Most vitamins should come from food because the body doesn't produce them or produces too little. Context is also important in some environments; for example, vitamin C can act as an antioxidant or a pro-oxidant. The liver is also responsible for producing bile salts, synthesizing vitamin D, producing sex hormones, producing other hormones for the immune system and coping with stress.

Dietary supplements are another way to get the vitamins you need if the foods you eat don't provide enough vitamins.