Vitamins and minerals are micronutrients and are responsible for every action that takes place in the body. Any prolonged shortage will compromise a needed body function that could then lead to disease.
Triage –something needed long term will be sacrificed for short term needs
There are ~40 essential vitamins, minerals and other bio-chemicals, which are responsible for virtually all metabolic and developmental processes that take place in the body including, energy production, cell division, replication, etc. So obviously if you are even marginally short on your overall daily needs for extended periods, some part of the body will get less than it needs to function optimally. The body now must decide where the nutrients should go based on immediate rather than long-term needs. Human bodies have been programmed to favor short-term survival, including reproduction, over long-term health when there are shortages of essential nutrients. In other words, when there are less than optimal amounts of vitamins or minerals entering our bodies, they will be routed to the areas that are needed to keep us alive such as energy production, blood formation, etc., at the expense of other areas of metabolism whose lack of optimal nutrition has only long-term consequences such as the age-related diseases like cancer, osteoarthritis, dementia, etc.
This is analogous to not taking in enough overall calories to support your body’s energy needs to stay alive. In this case, the body will convert your protein intake to energy, rather than using it to maintain or grow muscle tissues. The body will now continue to live but muscles will shrink and become weak. Using a vitamin as an example, let’s take vitamin K. When there is not enough vitamin K to optimally supply all parts of the body, it is preferentially distributed to the liver to preserve the blood coagulation function we cannot live without. This compromises vitamin K’s functions in maintaining bone and cardiovascular health, leading to the age-related conditions of bone fragility and hardening of arteries. Now picture this scenario for any or all vitamins and minerals since they are involved in all functions and it’s not hard to understand that micronutrient insufficiencies are a primary cause of age-related diseases – and may be preventable or certainly lessened with a simple, inexpensive MVM.