Nutrients

Vision, skin turnover and the linings that keep the outside out. Supplied as beta-carotene, which the body converts only as much of as it needs.

Collagen cannot be built without it, which is why it reaches skin, blood vessels and gums. Water-soluble, so there is no store and it has to arrive daily.

Behaves more like a hormone than a vitamin. Controls how much calcium you absorb, and is made in skin from sunlight, which is why so many people are short of it.

The fat-soluble antioxidant. Sits inside cell membranes and protects the fats there from oxidising, including the omega-3s you took with it.

Directs calcium: into bone, and away from arteries. The reason calcium on its own is not the whole story for bone.

Turns carbohydrate into usable energy, and nerve tissue is the first to notice when it runs short.

A carrier in nearly every energy reaction in the cell, and part of the body’s own antioxidant recycling.

Becomes NAD, the molecule mitochondria use to move energy around. Involved in more reactions than almost anything else on this list.

Becomes coenzyme A, which is how fat enters the energy pathway. Also used in making the adrenal hormones.

Protein metabolism, and the step that turns amino acids into neurotransmitters — serotonin and dopamine among them.

Named for hair, skin and nails, but its real job is carrying carbon in fat and glucose metabolism.

Builds and repairs DNA, which matters most where cells divide fastest. Supplied as methylfolate, the form the body can use without converting it first.

Nerve insulation and red blood cells. Found almost only in animal foods, and absorbed by a fussy multi-step route that gets less reliable with age.

Ninety-nine per cent of it is structure. The other one per cent runs muscle contraction and nerve signalling, and the body will take it back out of bone to keep that supply steady.

Required by hundreds of enzymes, and the mineral that lets a muscle relax after calcium has made it contract. Widely short in modern diets.

Immune cell function, wound repair, taste and smell. There is no real storage form, so intake and status track each other closely.

Carries oxygen in haemoglobin. The one mineral where more is not better — the body has no way to excrete an excess.

The thyroid cannot make its hormones without it, and those hormones set the metabolic rate of every cell you have.

Converts thyroid hormone to its active form, and sits at the centre of glutathione peroxidase, one of the body’s main antioxidant enzymes.

Works opposite zinc, and is needed to cross-link collagen and elastin — the fibres that keep skin and blood vessels elastic.

Builds cartilage and bone matrix, and is the metal at the centre of the mitochondria’s own antioxidant enzyme.

Helps insulin do its job at the cell surface, which is why it turns up in anything aimed at blood sugar.

Needed in tiny amounts by the enzymes that clear sulphites and other by-products of ordinary metabolism.

The inside-the-cell partner to sodium. Every nerve impulse and every heartbeat depends on the gradient between the two.

Half of the mineral in bone, and the P in ATP — the molecule every cell spends to do anything at all.

A trace mineral that changes how the body handles calcium, magnesium and vitamin D together rather than doing much alone.

A marine omega-3, and the precursor the body uses to make its resolving signals — the ones that bring an inflammatory response back down again.

The structural omega-3. A large share of the fat in brain and retina is this one molecule, built into the membranes themselves.

The plant omega-3, from flax and chia. The body converts only a small fraction of it onward to EPA and DHA, which is why marine sources still matter.

An omega-6 the body normally makes itself, taken from borage or evening primrose when it does not. Skin barrier and hormonal balance.

The omega-9 in olive oil. Not essential — the body can make it — but it is most of the fat in a membrane that behaves well.

The nine the body cannot build. Every protein you are made of is assembled from these plus the eleven it can make itself.

Leucine, isoleucine and valine. Burned directly in muscle rather than routed through the liver first, which is why they come up around exercise.

Carries fat across the mitochondrial membrane. Without it, fat cannot be burned for energy no matter how much is available.

Short chains of the amino acids collagen is built from, broken small enough to be absorbed intact rather than digested to nothing.

Sits in the mitochondrial chain that produces energy, and protects that chain while it runs. The body makes less of it with age.

Unusual in being both water and fat soluble, so it reaches places most antioxidants cannot — and it regenerates vitamins C and E after they have been spent.

A grape and knotweed polyphenol, studied for the signalling pathways it switches on rather than for antioxidant activity alone.

A flavonoid from onions, apples and capers, best known around the immune response and the airways.

The yellow in turmeric, and poorly absorbed on its own — which is why the form and what it is paired with matter more here than almost anywhere.

A flavone from Chinese skullcap, used for its effect on the body’s normal inflammatory signalling.

Ellagitannins, which gut bacteria convert into the compounds that actually circulate. A clear case of a nutrient depending on your microbiome.

Proanthocyanidins, associated with the strength and flexibility of small blood vessels and with protecting collagen.

Concentrates in the retina, where it filters blue light. One of the few nutrients that ends up almost entirely in one tissue.

The red carotenoid in tomatoes, and more available from cooked tomatoes than raw ones — which is unusual.

The pink in salmon and krill, originally from the algae they eat. Spans the whole cell membrane rather than sitting in one side of it.

A long-standing digestive botanical. The pungent compounds — gingerols and shogaols — are what carry the effect.

Studied for circulation through small vessels, including those of the brain. One of the most-researched botanicals there is.

Silymarin. The classic liver botanical, used where the body’s own clearing work needs support.

Root and leaf do different jobs — the root is bitter and digestive, the leaf affects fluid balance.

A traditional cleansing root, and one of the better food sources of inulin — a fibre your gut bacteria feed on.

Frankincense resin as an extract rather than an oil, standardised for its boswellic acids — which distillation leaves behind.

The whole root, not just curcumin. The other compounds in it change how the curcumin behaves.

EGCG and its relatives, plus a little caffeine. Studied around metabolic rate and fat oxidation.

The leaf as a digestive botanical, working through the same menthol chemistry as the oil but at a gentler dose.

One of the densest natural sources of vitamin C there is, and it brings the cofactors that come with it in food.

Goji. Carotenoid-rich, and one of the traditional tonics that turns up in whole-food greens blends.

Beta-glucans from reishi, maitake and their relatives — studied for how they train rather than stimulate the immune response.

The small-intestine genus. Ferments sugars to lactic acid, which keeps the environment hostile to things that should not be there.

The large-intestine genus, and the dominant one in infancy. Ferments the fibre you cannot digest yourself.

Breaks protein into amino acids. The enzyme group that matters most when a heavy meal sits badly.

Splits fat into absorbable pieces, and depends on bile arriving at the same time to do it.

Starts on starch in the mouth, before anything has been swallowed. The reason bread turns sweet if you chew it long enough.

Splits the sugar in milk. Most adults worldwide stop producing much of it, which is ordinary rather than a disorder.

Breaks down plant cell walls. Humans make none at all, so what reaches the gut has to come from food or a capsule.

Not for you — for them. Inulin and FOS pass undigested to the colon and feed the bacteria already living there.