Vitamin

A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules nearby united chemically, i.e. vitamers) that is an vital micronutrient which an organism needs in small quantities for the proper keen of its metabolism. indispensable nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either at every or not in enough 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 enlarge the three other groups of vital nutrients: minerals, valuable fatty acids, and essential 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 capably as all-trans-beta-carotene and additional 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 barbed 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, adaptable mineral metabolism for bones and supplementary organs. The B perplexing vitamins put-on as enzyme cofactors (coenzymes) or the precursors for them. Vitamins C and E put it on 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 do so.

Before 1935, the and no-one else source of vitamins was from food. If intake of vitamins was lacking, the consequences was vitamin nonappearance and consequent lack diseases. Then, commercially produced tablets of yeast-extract vitamin B obscure and semi-synthetic vitamin C became available.

This was followed in the 1950s by the deposit production and publicity of vitamin supplements, including multivitamins, to prevent vitamin deficiencies in the general population. Governments mandated auxiliary of vitamins to staple foods such as flour or milk, referred to as food fortification, to prevent deficiencies. Recommendations for folic critical 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 forlorn a profound of micronutrients vital to life, every of which he presumed to be amines. with this presumption was far along clear not to be true, the "e" was dropped from the name. all vitamins were discovered (identified) surrounded by 1913 and 1948.

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