Vitamins and nutrients are two different things. A vitamin is a nutrient that your body can’t produce, so you must get them from diet, which is also called “essential.” Vitamin C and the B vitamins are some of the most versatile and important nutrients that your body can’t produce, performing numerous vital functions that you need to survive and thrive.

Your body produces small amounts of nutrients like alpha lipoic acid and acetyl l-carnitine. The rest you must get from diet, and that’s a difficult task as these nutrients are not in abundance in food. And absorbing them from traditional supplements is wrought with its own challenges.

Learn why these vitamins and nutrients are so important and discover ways to maximize your intake.