home care health: Vitamin - Vitamin C Foods, Signs of Deficiency & Health Benefits

A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules to the side of associated chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an critical micronutrient which an organism needs in little quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. vital nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at every or not in ample 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 intensify the three additional groups of indispensable nutrients: minerals, necessary fatty acids, and valuable amino acids. Most vitamins are not single molecules, but groups of combined 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 skillfully as all-trans-beta-carotene and other 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 caustic 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 addition and differentiation. Vitamin D provides a hormone-like function, adaptable mineral metabolism for bones and other organs. The B perplexing vitamins proceed as enzyme cofactors (coenzymes) or the precursors for them. Vitamins C and E produce an effect 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 attain so.

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

This was followed in the 1950s by the accrual production and publicity of vitamin supplements, including multivitamins, to prevent vitamin deficiencies in the general population. Governments mandated accessory of vitamins to staple foods such as flour or milk, referred to as food fortification, to prevent deficiencies. Recommendations for folic acid 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 without help a highbrow of micronutrients indispensable to life, all of which he presumed to be amines. when this presumption was forward-thinking positive not to be true, the "e" was dropped from the name. every vitamins were discovered (identified) amongst 1913 and 1948.

Micronutrient Monday: All Things Vitamin A - Live Well.

Why your kids might need more vitamin D