From A To K: The Ultimate Vitamin Cheat Sheet (2024)

If you’re hoping to improve your health this summer, you may be trying to decipher the 13 essential vitamins. And that may seem like a baffling bowl of alphabet soup filled with the letters A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C, D, E, and K.Fortunately, this comprehensive guide demystifies what functions they perform and how to easily incorporate them for improved overall well-being.

“Getting the array of nutrients your body needs should come from food, unless you’re on a restricted diet, have a genetic disease that prevents vitamin absorption, are pregnant, or blood work indicates deficiencies,” explains Nicole Lippman-Barile, PhD, a clinical psychologist and certified nutritional therapy practitioner with Northwell Health. “Consuming healthy meals of grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish, legumes, and fresh fruits and vegetables help provide the nutrients we need.”

To keep your body functioning properly—and avoid the insufficiencies that increase your risk of serious illnesses, including heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis—incorporate a balanced diet with a variety of foods containing these essential vitamins.

Why it’s essential: Vitamin A plays an important role in growth and cell development, helping promote healthy teeth, bones, mucus membranes, and soft tissue, including skin, hair, nails, gums, and glands. Adequate amounts may prevent night blindness and lung cancer.

What foods provide it: dark leafy vegetables, squash, sweet potato, mango, cantaloupe, grapefruit, fortified dairy products, egg yolk, fish, beef, and liver

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B1 is crucial for maintaining a healthy metabolism,regulating nerve and heart function,and helping convert carbohydrates into energy.

What foods provide it: legumes (beans), nuts, seeds, whole grains, enriched bread, nutritional yeast, dried milk, egg, lean meat, and organ meat

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B2 is necessary for energy metabolism, the growth and production of red blood cells, adrenal function, vision, and maintaining healthy skin.

What foods provide it: raw mushrooms, nutritional yeast, grains, fortified cereal, plant-based milk, dairy, and lean meats

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B3 metabolizes energy, promotes normal growth, and helps maintain healthy skin and nerves. At high doses, niacin can also help lower bad cholesterol, also known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL).

What foods provide it: avocado, potato, legumes, nuts, fortified bread and cereal, nutritional yeast, milk, egg, fish, and lean meats

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B5 helps metabolize food, normalizes blood sugar levels, and plays a role in the production of hormones and good cholesterol, also known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

What foods provide it: cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts), mushrooms, avocado, potato, legumes, whole-grain cereal, milk, egg, poultry, and organ meat

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B6 aids in the synthesis of red blood cells; maintains proper nerve and brain function; and promotes metabolism for the release of energy.

What foods provide it: green leafy vegetables, avocado, potato, banana, legumes, nuts, whole grains, cereal, nutritional yeast, fish, poultry, and meat

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B7 helps maintain a healthy metabolism of proteins and carbohydrates, regulates hormone and cholesterol production, and supports healthy hair, skin, and nails.

What foods provide it: legumes, nuts, whole grains, cereal, yeast, milk, egg yolk, pork, organ meat, and even chocolate

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B9 controls tissue growth and cell function; makes DNA, RNA, and red blood cells; and synthesizes amino acids. Since low levels are linked to birth defects, folate is crucial for pregnant women.

What foods provide it: green leafy vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, beets, avocado, oranges, legumes, wheat germ, fortified flour and cereal, brewer’s and nutritional yeast, and liver

Why it’s essential: Vitamin B12 supports metabolism; helps form red blood cells, DNA, RNA, and myelin for nerve fibers; and maintains the central nervous system.

What foods provide it: nutritional yeast, fortified cereal,plant-based milk, dairy, egg, fish, poultry, meat, and organ meat

Why it’s essential: Vitamin C strengthens blood vessel walls, promotes wound healing and iron absorption, helps prevent atherosclerosis, supports immunity, and serves as an antioxidant promoting healthy tissue, teeth, and gums.

What foods provide it: cruciferous vegetables, spinach, pepper, tomato, potato, citrus fruits, melons, and berries

Why it’s essential: Vitamin D aids calcium absorption;builds strong bones and teeth;and helps maintain proper blood levels of calcium and phosphorus.

What foods provide it: fortified plant-based milk and dairy, egg yolk, fatty fish, and fish oil—or spending 10 to 15 minutes in sunshine three times a week

“Interestingly, when we consume foods with a higher cholesterol content and go out into the sun, the cholesterol metabolizes into vitamin D,” notes Lippman-Barile.

Why it’s essential: Vitamin E protects fatty acids, maintains muscles and red blood cells, and serves as an antioxidant.

What foods provide it: dark green vegetables, avocado, papaya, mango, nuts, seeds, wheat germ, fortified cereal, vegetable oil, and egg

“There’s a synergy between these vitamins,” explains Lippman-Barile. “They all work together, which is why you need a varied diet. Vitamins need other vitamins to do their jobs.” And a varied diet is important at any age. “Parents need to be models for their kids of how and why you eat for energy, strength, and health.”

As we age, incidents of neurodegenerative disease rise and are correlated to brain health and heart disease, which likely result from how we cared for ourselves at least 10 years earlier, according to Lippman-Barile. That’s why it’s crucial to include proper nutrients throughout your life.

As a bounty of local produce overflows at farmer's markets and grocery stores this season, gather all the necessary ingredients to make an alphabet soup filled with an adequate supply of vitamins A to K, ensuring optimum health today and well into the future.