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Vitamins can be classified as either Water soluble, which means they dissolve easily in water, or Fat soluble, which means they are absorbed through the Intestinal Tract with the help of Lipid s.

In general, an organism must obtain vitamins or their metabolic precursors from outside the body, most often from the organism's Diet . Examples of vitamins that the Human body can derive from precursors include vitamin A, which can be produced from Beta Carotene ; niacin from the Amino Acid Tryptophan ; and vitamin D through exposure of Skin to Ultraviolet Light .

The term ''vitamin'' does not encompass other Essential Nutrient s such as Dietary Minerals , Essential Fatty Acid s, or Essential Amino Acid s, nor is it used for the large number of other nutrients that merely promote health, but are not strictly essential.

The word ''vitamine'' was coined by the Polish Biochemist Casimir Funk in 1912 . ''Vita'' in Latin is ''life'' and the ''-amine'' suffix is for '' Amine ''; at the time it was thought that all vitamins were amines. This is now known to be incorrect.


HISTORY

The value of eating certain foods to maintain health was recognized long before vitamins were identified. The ancient Egypt ians knew that feeding a patient Liver would help cure Night Blindness , now known to be caused by a Vitamin A deficiency. In 1747 , the Scottish Surgeon James Lind discovered that Citrus foods helped prevent Scurvy , a particularly deadly disease in which Collagen is not properly formed, and characterized by poor wound healing, bleeding of the Gums , and severe pain. In 1753 , Lind published his ''Treatise on the Scurvy''. His discovery, however, was not widely accepted. In the Royal Navy 's Arctic expeditions in the 19th Century , for example, it was widely believed that scurvy was prevented by good Hygiene on board ship, regular exercise, and maintaining the Morale of the crew, rather than by a diet of fresh food, so that Navy expeditions continued to be plagued by scurvy. At the time Robert
Falcon Scott made his two expeditions to the Antarctic in the early 20th Century , the prevailing medical theory was that scurvy was caused by "tainted" Canned Food .

In ), while other researchers used milk sugar ( Lactose ) which still contained small amounts of Vitamin B .

In 1905 , William Fletcher discovered that eating unpolished Rice instead of polished helped prevent the disease Beriberi . The following year, Frederick Hopkins postulated that foods contained "accessory factors"—in addition to proteins, carbohydrates, fats, etc.—that are necessary to the human body. When Casimir Funk isolated the water-soluble complex of micronutrients whose bioactivity Fletcher had identified, he proposed that it be named "Vitamine". The name soon became synonymous with Hopkins' "accessory factors", and by the time it was shown that not all vitamins were Amine s, the word was already ubiquitous. In 1920 , Jack Cecil Drummond proposed that the final "e" be dropped, to deemphasize the "amine" reference, after the discovery that Vitamin C had no amine component, and the name has been "vitamin" ever since.

Throughout the early 1900 s, scientists were able to isolate and identify a number of vitamins by depriving animals of them. Initially, lipid from Fish Oil was used to cure Rickets in Rat s, and the fat-soluble nutrient was called "antirachitic A". The irony here is that the first "vitamin" bioactivity ever isolated, which cured rickets, was initially called vitamine A, this bioactivity is now called Vitamin D , which is subject to the semantic debate that vitamin D is not truly a vitamin because it is a Steroid derivative. What we now call "vitamin A" was identified in fish oil because it was inactivated by Ultraviolet light. Most of what we now recognize as the water-soluble organic micronutrients were initially referred to as just one entity, "vitamin B".


HUMAN VITAMINS

In humans, there are thirteen vitamins, divided into two groups, the four fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) and the nine water soluble vitamins (eight B vitamins and vitamin C).


Some of the vitamins are known by other names in older literature. These names are written after the vitamins in brackets.
Vitamin B2 is also referred to as Vitamin G .
Vitamin B7 , or Biotin is also referred to as "vitamin H."
Vitamin B9 , or Folic Acid and other folates such as "vitamin M" (monkey antianemia factor, pteryl-tri-glutamic acid) are referred to as folicin.
Vitamin B3 is also referred to as "vitamin PP", a name derived from the obsolete term " Pellagra -preventing factor". Many other essential dietary substances were originally called vitamins and are now classified differently.

Other nutrients that are not classified as vitamins include Carnitine (meat, fish, dairy), DMAE (fish, eggs, soy, brains), Lipoic Acid (liver), Folinic Acid (liver), Bioptrin (fish, liver), PPQ (below) and Coenzyme Q (meat, yogurt, soy).


Vitamin deficiency and excess


An organism can survive for some time without vitamins, although prolonged vitamin deficit results in a Disease state, often painful and potentially deadly. Body stores for different vitamins can vary widely; an adult may be deficient in vitamins A or B12 for a year or more before developing a deficiency condition, while vitamin B1 stores may only last a couple of weeks.

Fat-soluble vitamins may be stored in the body and can cause toxicity when taken in excess. Water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body, with the exception of vitamin B12, which is stored in the Liver .


PSEUDO-VITAMINS


  • ''Vitamin F'' was the designation originally given to Essential Fatty Acid s that the body cannot manufacture. They were "de-vitaminized" because they are Fatty Acid s. Fatty acids are a major component of Fat s which, like water, are needed by the body in large quantities and thus do not fit the definition of vitamins which are needed only in trace amounts.

  • Herbalists and Naturopath s have named various therapedic chemicals "vitamins", even though they are not, including ''vitamin T'', S-Methylmethionine (''vitamin U'') and vitamin X.

  • Some authorities say that Ubiquinone , also called coenzyme Q10, is a vitamin. Ubiquinone is manufactured in small amounts by the body, like vitamin D.

  • Pangamic Acid , vitamin B15; the related substance Dimethylglycine is quite wrongly referred to as ''vitamin B15'' but also labeled B16.

  • The toxins Laetrile and amygdaline are sometimes referred to as ''vitamin B17''. Both pangamic acid and laetrile were first proposed as vitamins by Ernst T. Krebs ; neither are recognized by the medical community as vitamins and their claimed anticancer activities have been disproven by many experiments.

  • Flavonoids are sometimes called ''vitamin P''.

  • Animal, bird, and bacterial growth factors have been designated vitamins such as Para-aminobenzoic Acid (PABA) which is the chicken feathering factor vitamin B10, the folacin (see Folic Acid ) pteryl-heptaglutamic acid is the chicken growth factor vitamin B11 or vitamin Bc-conjugate and orotic acid as vitamin B13 for rats.

  • A few substances were once thought to be B-complex vitamins and are referred to as B-vitamins in older literature, including B4 ( Adenine ) and B8 ( Adenylic Acid ), but are no longer recognized as such.




COLLOQUIAL USAGE OF THE TERM

  • ''Vitamin A'' and ''vitamin C'' are sometimes used as slang terms for Alcoholic Beverage s and Caffeine , respectively.

  • The sedative Ketamine is often called ''vitamin K'' when used as a recreational drug.

  • ''Vitamin Love'' is mentioned in the Patti Page song, "I Don't Care if the Sun Don't Shine", referring to Love itself.

  • ''Vitamin V'' is a colloquialism for Viagra , ''vitamin Z'' for Zoloft , and ''vitamin R'' for Ritalin (especially when implying that these drugs are overprescribed or, as a hyperbole, being taken as commonly as vitamins).

  • Colloquially, the word ''vitamin'' is often used to refer to '' Vitamin Supplement s'', products, often in pill form, that contain one or more purified vitamins which are used to supplement the vitamin content of a diet.

  • ''Vitamin G'' is used as slang for Guinness .

  • ''Vitamin J'' has been used to refer to Jägermeister , which is an herbal liquor exported from Germany.

  • ''Vitamin I'' is sometimes used as a colloquialism for Ibuprofen .

  • ''Vitamin S'' is Slang for speed-amphetamines or Steroid s.



NON-HUMAN VITAMINS


Different organisms need different trace organic substances. Most Mammal s need, with few exceptions, the same vitamins as humans. One notable exception is Vitamin C, which can be synthesized by all other mammals except other higher Primates and Guinea Pig s. The less related a species is to mammals, the more different the organisms' requirements become. For example, some Bacteria need Adenine . Pyrroloquinoline Quinone (PQQ) found in yogurt was reported as a vitamin for mice in 2003 .


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