LECTURE 2

VITAMINS
Vitamins are substances that your body
needs to grow and develop normally.
There are 13 vitamins your body needs.
They are vitamins A, C, D, E, K and the B
vitamins (thiamine, riboflavin, niacin,
pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin B-6,
vitamin B-12 and folate). You can usually
get all your vitamins from the foods you
eat. Your body can also make vitamins D
and K. People who eat a vegetarian
diet may need to take a vitamin B12
supplement.
Each vitamin has specific jobs. If you
have low levels of certain vitamins, you
may develop a deficiency disease. For
example, if you don't get enough vitamin
D, you could develop rickets. Some
vitamins may help prevent medical
problems. Vitamin A prevents night
blindness.
The best way to get enough vitamins is
to eat a balanced diet with a variety of
foods. In some cases, you may need to
take a daily multivitamin for optimal
health. However, high doses of some
vitamins can make you sick.

What are vitamins?

Vitamins are natural substances found in
plants and animals. Your body uses these
substances to stay healthy and support its
many functions. There are two types of
vitamins: water-soluble and fat-soluble.
What are water-soluble vitamins?
Water-soluble vitamins are easily absorbed by
your body. Unlike fat-soluble vitamins, they
don’t have to be absorbed using bile acids
(fluids used to digest fats). Your body doesn’t
store large amounts of water-soluble
vitamins. The water-soluble vitamins you
don’t need are removed by your kidneys and
come out in your urine. Download the PDF file
below for more about water-soluble vitamins.

What are fat-soluble vitamins?

Your body has to use bile acids to absorb fat-
soluble vitamins. Once these vitamins are
absorbed, your body stores them in body fat.
When you need them, your body takes them
out of storage to be used. Download the PDF
file below for more information about fat-
soluble vitamins. Eating fats or oils that are
not digested can cause shortages of fat-
soluble vitamins. This includes using mineral
oil frequently to treat constipation or eating
the fat substitute Olestra.
 Vitamins are classified by their biological
and chemical activity, not their structure.
Thus, each "vitamin" may refer to
severalvitamer compounds that all show the
biological activity associated with a particular
vitamin. Such a set of chemicals are grouped
under an alphabetized vitamin "generic
descriptor" title, such as "vitamin A," which
includes the compounds retinal,retinol, and
many carotenoids.[4] Vitamers are often inter-
converted in the body.
Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions,
including function as hormones (e.g. vitamin
D), antioxidants (e.g. vitamin E), and
mediators of cell signaling and regulators of
cell and tissue growth and differentiation (e.g.
vitamin A).[5] The largest number of vitamins
(e.g. B complex vitamins) function as
precursors for enzyme cofactor bio-
molecules (coenzymes), that help act
as catalysts and substrates in metabolism.
When acting as part of a catalyst, vitamins
are bound to enzymes and are
called prosthetic groups. For
example, biotin is part of enzymes involved in
making fatty acids. Vitamins also act
ascoenzymes to carry chemical groups
between enzymes. For example, folic
acid carries various forms of carbon group
– methyl, formyl and methylene - in the cell.
Although these roles in assisting enzyme
reactions are vitamins' best-known function,
the other vitamin functions are equally
important.[6]
Until the 1900s, vitamins were obtained solely
through food intake, and changes in diet
(which, for example, could occur during a
particular growing season) can alter the types
and amounts of vitamins ingested. Vitamins
have been produced as
commodity chemicals and made widely
available as inexpensive pills for several
decades,[7] allowing supplementation of the
dietary intake.

History

The Ancient Egyptians knew that feeding a

patient liver (back, right) would help cure night
blindness.
The value of eating a certain food to maintain
health was recognized long before vitamins
were identified. The ancientEgyptians knew
that feeding a patient liver would help
cure night blindness, an illness now known to be
caused by a vitamin A deficiency.[8] The
advancement of ocean voyage during
the Renaissance resulted in prolonged periods
without access to fresh fruits and vegetables,
and made illnesses from vitamin deficiency
common among ship's crew.
In 1749, the Scottish surgeon James
Lind discovered that citrus foods helped
prevent scurvy, a particularly deadly disease in
which collagen is not properly formed, causing
poor wound healing, bleeding of the gums,
severe pain, and death.[8] In 1753, Lind
published his Treatise on the Scurvy, which
recommended using lemons and limes to avoid
scurvy, which was adopted by the British Royal
Navy. This led to the nickname Limey for
sailors of that organization. Lind's discovery,
however, was not widely accepted by individuals
in the Royal Navy's Arctic expeditions in the
19th century, where it was widely believed
that scurvy could be prevented by practicing
good hygiene, regular exercise, and by
maintaining the moraleof the crew while on
board, rather than by a diet of fresh food.
[8]
As a result, Arctic expeditions continued to
be plagued by scurvy and other deficiency
diseases. In the early 20th century,
when Robert Falcon Scott made his two
expeditions to theAntarctic, the prevailing
medical theory was that scurvy was caused by
"tainted" canned food.[8]
In 1881, Russian surgeon Nikolai Lunin studied
the effects of scurvy while at the University
of Tartu in present-day Estonia.[9] He
fed mice an artificial mixture of all the
separate constituents of milk known at that
time, namely the proteins,fats, carbohydrates,
and salts. The mice that received only the
individual constituents died, while the mice fed
by milk itself developed normally. He made a
conclusion that "a natural food such as milk
must therefore contain, besides these known
principal ingredients, small quantities of
unknown substances essential to
life."[9] However, his conclusions were rejected
by other researchers when they were unable to
reproduce his results. One difference was that
he had used table sugar (sucrose), while other
researchers had used milk sugar (lactose) that
still contained small amounts of vitamin B.

The discovery of vitamins and their

sources

Year of
discove Vitamin Source
ry

Vitamin A
1909 Cod liver oil
(Retinol)

Vitamin
1912 Rice bran
B1 (Thiamine)
 Vitamin C
1912 Lemons
(Ascorbic acid)

Vitamin D
1918 Cod liver oil
(Calciferol)

Vitamin
1920 Eggs
B2 (Riboflavin)

Wheat germ
Vitamin E
1922 oil, Cosmetic and L
(Tocopherol)
iver

Vitamin
1926 B12 (Cyanocobala Liver
min)

Vitamin
1929 Alfalfa
K (Phylloquinone)

Vitamin
1931 B5 (Pantothenic Liver
acid)

1931 Vitamin B7 (Biotin) Liver

 Vitamin
1934 Rice bran
B6 (Pyridoxine)

Vitamin
1936 Liver
B3 (Niacin)

Vitamin B9 (Folic
1941 Liver
acid)
VITAMIN B6
Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions,
including function as hormones (e.g. vitamin
D), antioxidants (e.g. vitamin E), and
mediators of cell signaling and regulators of
cell and tissue growth and differentiation (e.g.
vitamin A).[5] The largest number of vitamins
(e.g. B complex vitamins) function as
precursors for enzyme cofactor bio-
molecules (coenzymes), that help act
as catalysts and substrates in metabolism.
When acting as part of a catalyst, vitamins
are bound to enzymes and are
called prosthetic groups. For
example, biotin is part of enzymes involved in
making fatty acids. Vitamins also act
ascoenzymes to carry chemical groups
between enzymes. For example, folic
acid carries various forms of carbon group
– methyl, formyl and methylene - in the cell.
Although these roles in assisting enzyme
reactions are vitamins' best-known function,
the other vitamin functions are equally
important.