Do you think that today’s Americans are healthier and more health conscious than they used to be? With the proliferation of so many TV shows on fitness and new exercise devices hitting the market, you would probably think so.

That could be true. However, in the area of proper nutrition, we have taken a step forward rather than backward in the last 50 years.

The fact is that the food that consumers ate 50 years ago was more nutritious than our regular daily fare today, especially since fresh fruit and vegetables are no longer as popular or nutritious as before. Mainly, the reason is because today’s soil, eroded by years of floods and other harmful factors in the environment, does not have the same nutrients and minerals as it did half a century ago. This means that today’s consumers will have to supplement their diets with a steady dose of vitamins to replace the soil’s lost minerals and nutrients.

In essence, nutrition is a science that studies the relationships between good health and a proper diet. Their key practitioners are dieticians who have specialized in this area of expertise. Much of the time, dieticians keep a close eye on a wide array of diseases that may be caused or alleviated by changes in diet, such as scurvy, obesity and osteoporosis, which are a direct result of diet deficiencies, excesses and imbalances. Poor diets may also cause psychological and behavioral problems. In addition, consuming elements that have no role in health such as lead, mercury and dioxins may also pose a threat since these could contain toxic elements that sometimes have potentially dangerous effects, depending on the dose. It is the role of nutritionists and dieticians to understand how our diets influence our health and well-being.

A steady intake of vitamins and minerals (especially those with tocotrienol and tocopherol) have measured positive effects on alleviating goiter, scurvy, osteoporosis, premature aging, a weak immune system, cell metabolism disorders, some forms of cancer and poor psychological health. In 2005, the health industry identified 24 “essential nutrients,” composed of 12 vitamins and 12 minerals that must be consumed to prevent deficiency symptoms and death.