Vitamins are vital to our well-being, but like everything else, overdoing them can prove detreimental to your health
Millions of years ago we were all aquatic animals, as there were only oceans. With upheaval of intra ocean earthquakes and volcanoes
from the core that exploded into mountains of molten lava, the surface of our earth was formed.
We evolved from aquatic beings to amphibians, and now terrestrial creatures. Over millennia, with the changing species, came an important change in their diet. The earliest creatures in the sequence leading to humans were nimble eyed and delicate fingered fruit eaters like lemurs. A change from a vegetarian to an omnivorous diet once made, persisted in the Homo Erects, to now “us” Homo Sapiens.
In 1747, the Scottish surgeon James Lind discovered that citrus foods helped prevent scurvy, a particularly deadly disease which hinders the formation of collagen, causing poor wound healing, bleeding of the gums, severe pain, and even death. In 1753, he published his Treatise on the Scurvy, which recommended using lemons and limes to avoid scurvy, a practice adopted by the British Royal Navy. This led to the nickname limey attributed to the British sailors (Thus, Vitamin – C was found).
A vitamin is an organic molecule (or a set of molecules closely related chemically, i.e. vitamers), an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism. Essential nutrients cannot be synthesized in the organism, either entirely or in sufficient quantities, and therefore must be obtained through the diet. Vitamin C can be synthesized by some species but not all; it is not a vitamin in the first instance, but is in the second. The term vitamin does not include the three other groups of essential nutrients: minerals, essential fatty acids, and essential amino acids. Most vitamins are not single molecules, but groups of related molecules called vitamers. For example, there are eight vitamers of vitamin E: four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. Some sources list fourteen vitamins, including choline; but major health organizations list thirteen, for example, vitamin A (as all-trans-retinol, all-transretinyl-esters, as well as all-trans-betacarotene and other provitamin A carotenoids).
Vitamins have diverse biochemical functions. Vitamin A acts as a regulator of cell and tissue growth and differentiation. Vitamin D promotes a hormone-like function, regulating mineral metabolism for bones and other organs. The B complex vitamins function as
enzyme cofactors (coenzymes) or the precursors to them. Vitamins C and E function as antioxidants. Both deficient and excessive intake of any vitamin can potentially cause clinically significant illnesses, although excess intake of water-soluble vitamins is less likely to do so.
All vitamins were discovered (identified) between 1913 and 1948. Historically, when intake of vitamins from diet was lacking, it resulted in vitamin deficiency diseases. Then, in 1935, commercially produced tablets of yeast-extract vitamin B complex and semi-synthetic vitamin
C were made available. Then in the 1950s, this was followed by the mass production and marketing of vitamin supplements, including multivitamins, to prevent vitamin deficiencies in the general population. Governments then mandated the addition of certain vitamins to certain packed foods.
