home care health: Vitamin - Why is Vitamin C Important?

A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules next to connected chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an valuable micronutrient which an organism needs in small quantities for the proper energetic of its metabolism. critical nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at all or not in sufficient quantities, and correspondingly must be obtained through the diet. Vitamin C can be synthesized by some species but not by others; it is not a vitamin in the first instance but is in the second. The term vitamin does not combine the three further groups of essential nutrients: minerals, indispensable fatty acids, and valuable amino acids. Most vitamins are not single molecules, but groups of partnered molecules called vitamers. For example, there are eight vitamers of vitamin E: four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. Some sources list fourteen vitamins, by including choline, but major health organizations list thirteen: vitamin A (as all-trans-retinol, all-trans-retinyl-esters, as capably as all-trans-beta-carotene and further provitamin A carotenoids), vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine), vitamin B7 (biotin), vitamin B9 (folic pointed or folate), vitamin B12 (cobalamins), vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin D (calciferols), vitamin E (tocopherols and tocotrienols), and vitamin K (phylloquinone and menaquinones).

Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions. Vitamin A acts as a regulator of cell and tissue increase and differentiation. Vitamin D provides a hormone-like function, adaptable mineral metabolism for bones and supplementary organs. The B complex vitamins play a role as enzyme cofactors (coenzymes) or the precursors for them. Vitamins C and E produce a result as antioxidants. Both deficient and excess intake of a vitamin can potentially cause clinically significant illness, although excess intake of water-soluble vitamins is less likely to complete so.

Before 1935, the deserted source of vitamins was from food. If intake of vitamins was lacking, the consequences was vitamin nonattendance and consequent deficiency diseases. Then, commercially produced tablets of yeast-extract vitamin B mysterious and semi-synthetic vitamin C became available.

This was followed in the 1950s by the mass production and publicity of vitamin supplements, including multivitamins, to prevent vitamin deficiencies in the general population. Governments mandated supplement of vitamins to staple foods such as flour or milk, referred to as food fortification, to prevent deficiencies. Recommendations for folic barbed supplementation during pregnancy edited risk of infant neural tube defects.

The term vitamin is derived from the word vitamine, which was coined in 1912 by Polish biochemist Casimir Funk, who by yourself a puzzling of micronutrients vital to life, all of which he presumed to be amines. bearing in mind this presumption was progressive definite not to be true, the "e" was dropped from the name. every vitamins were discovered (identified) surrounded by 1913 and 1948.

Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements - Andrew Weil, M.D.