home care health: Vitamin - Vitamin

A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules to the side of aligned chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an critical micronutrient which an organism needs in little quantities for the proper practicing of its metabolism. necessary nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at all or not in plenty quantities, and as a result 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 tally up the three supplementary groups of essential nutrients: minerals, valuable fatty acids, and valuable amino acids. Most vitamins are not single molecules, but groups of connected 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 competently as all-trans-beta-carotene and supplementary 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 critical 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 lump and differentiation. Vitamin D provides a hormone-like function, bendable mineral metabolism for bones and supplementary organs. The B perplexing vitamins statute as enzyme cofactors (coenzymes) or the precursors for them. Vitamins C and E play 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 get so.

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

This was followed in the 1950s by the deposit production and marketing 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 pointed supplementation during pregnancy reduced 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 solitary a mysterious of micronutrients essential to life, all of which he presumed to be amines. afterward this presumption was cutting edge determined not to be true, the "e" was dropped from the name. all vitamins were discovered (identified) between 1913 and 1948.

13 Essential Vitamins—And How to Get Enough of Them in Your Diet