Vitamin A

Famous for promoting good vision, this fat-soluble vitamin facilitates a number of other important bodily processes. Vitamin A plays a vital role in maintaining healthy skin and healthy tissues found in your mouth, genitals, and digestive and urinary tracts. It also assists with the proper development of fetuses, sperm production, growth of children, and more. In terms of cancer prevention, vitamin A’s importance in supporting the immune system makes this nutrient a powerful ally in the fight against cancer.
Getting adequate amounts of vitamin A is easy in a vegetable-rich Mediterranean diet. Identify vegetable sources containing vitamin A by their orange color, and you’ve got beta-carotene—a substance that converts to vitamin A in the body. Beta-carotene, a phytochemical that we’ll discuss below, is also a potent antioxidant. Sweet potatoes, carrots, and melonsstaples in the traditional Mediterranean diet—contain lots of beta-carotene. Pumpkin, native to North America, also contains high levels of beta-carotene and can easily be included in a Mediterranean diet, especially when you grow it yourself or buy organic pumpkins from local growers.

Vitamins

Vitamins are chemical substances in vegetables (and other foods) that have a variety of jobs in the body, from as sisting the chemical reactions that make your body function to promoting growth to preventing infection. There are two kinds of vitamins: water soluble and fat soluble.
Water-soluble vitamins dissolve in water and move through your bloodstream quickly. These vitamins, which include thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B , folacin, vitamin B 12 6 , biotin, pantothenic acid, and vitamin C, must be ingested regularly because the body doesn’t store them. Among the many life-supporting functions of water-soluble vitamins, folacin and vitamin C have been shown to have anticancer functions, especially when paired with the fatsoluble vitamin E and beta-carotene (a form of vitamin A).