Vitamin Facts
A Little History and A List

Vitamin Facts: Nutrients are called Vitamins when the human body can not make enough of them and has to obtain additional quantities from outside sources like fruits and vegetables. Vitamins have many different biochemical functions and up until the early 1900’s were only consumed in food, there was no supplement industry. Way way back, the Egyptians knew vitamin facts without the exact knowledge, if they ate liver they could cure night blindness because liver is full of vitamin A which contains retinol for the eyes.

A Scottish Doctor discovered in 1749 if you ate citrus you could prevent scurvy a nasty and deadly disease which is non existent today. This discover as you can imagine was a big boon to the British Royal Navy. In 1884 a Japanese Naval Doctor discovered a balanced diet prevented beriberi deaths. Later it was proven that a lack of Vitamin B was the culprit.

In 1912 a polish bio chemist isolated a set of nutrients not suspecting that a Japanese scientist had already done so two years earlier in 1910. The Japanes scientist called it aberic acid the Polish scientist called it Vitamine and it stuck. In 1920 the final e was dropped and we now have a class of nutrients called Vitamins. The first vitamin discovered and isolated was vitamin A in 1909 and the last, so far, was Vitamin Bg (Folic Acid) in 1941

Vitamins are essential for human development and maintenance. There are two types of vitamins, water soluble and fat soluble. Water soluble means the dissolve in water easily and fat soluble means they are absorbed in the intestine with the aid of fat. You see fat is not all bad.

From the time of conception until death the body needs vitamins or severe damage can result. Vitamins, minerals and other nutrients together are needed in the right amounts, at the right time in order to insure the chemical reactions needed to produce skin, bone, muscle, hair, blood and the list goes on. The human body is a complex and diverse machine and whoever created it knew what they were doing. For example did you know this vitamin fact? Vitamin deficiencies will lead to out of balance conditions and disease. But here is the kicker, vitamins control the body’s appropriation of minerals and in the absence of minerals they have no function to perform. Lacking vitamins the system can use minerals, but lacking minerals, vitamins are useless. The fact is we need all of these nutrients working together in order to reach optimal health and well being.

Vitamins do have a few side effects if taken in large doses. Things like nausea, diarrhea and vomiting have been experienced. The cure is simple, stop taking the vitamin or cut back drastically. Unlike drugs there have been no lasting effects or deaths reported. The last vitamin fact is rarely if ever has there been an overdose of vitamins from fruit and vegetable sources. So feel free to eat as much as you like.

Vitamin A is an essential nutrient. It is found in fruits and vegetables primarily but has important animal sources as well.

Vitamin B is a whole family of vitamins, eight in all. All of the B vitamins are water soluble and play an important role in cell metabolism.
• Vitamin B-1 thiamine
• Vitamin B-2 riboflavin
• Vitamin B-3 niacin
• Vitamin B-5 pantothenic acid
• Vitamin B-6 pyridoxine
• Vitamin B-7 biotin
• Vitamin B-9 folic acid/folate
• Vitamin B-12 cobalamin

Vitamin C is an essential nutrient as is most commonly called ascorbate or ascorbic acid. This vitamin is made internally by almost all organisms except us human beings. We need to obtain it from fruits and vegetables and a few other sources.

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. This is a highly researched vitmin presently because new evidence is coming to light that not enough vitamin D can contribute to many diseases.

Vitamin E is an antioxidant vitamin and is also a fat soluble vitamin. E is also a family of eight related tocopherols and tocotrienols.

Vitamin K was discovered in 1929 but it took until 1974 to begin to figure out what it’s function was. We still do not know a great deal about this vitamin.

Vitamin K is not a simple Vitamin. It is now thought to be a great deal more important than first thought


Vitamin Facts to Antioxidant Super Foods