Vitamins are organic compounds, meaning that they occur naturally in plants and animals, By and large, vitamins function as coenzymes.
In 1912, a Polish chemist named Casimir Funk, proposed that disease may be caused by a missing ingredient that should be in the diet. He suggested that this ingredient was responsible for giving life and contained nitrogen.
Vitamins have widely varying chemical and physiological functions and are broadly distributed in natural food sources.
Vitamins needed to make enzymes and hormones – important substances of the body uses to make all the many chemical reaction for the body to live. Vitamins have many functions and influence the health of nearly every organ in human body. Their combination with other substances such as minerals, proteins and enzymes brings about certain chemical reactions.
Vitamins are important for proper growth and maintenance of good health, but they appeared to posses no greater properties beyond their basic chemical function.
Vitamins are generally found throughout the food supply in developed countries and are consumed in adequate amounts, so despite popular believe belief, a vitamin supplement is usually not needed.
Thirteen vitamins are recognized in human nutrition and these may be conveniently classified, according to their solubility, into two groups.
*The fat soluble vitamins: represented by vitamin A, D, E and K
*The water soluble vitamins: comprise of vitamin C and thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B, pantothenic acid, biotin, folate and vitamin B12.
Solubility confers on vitamins many of their characteristics. It determines how they are absorbed and transported around by the bloodstream, whether they can be stores in the body, and how easily they are lost from the body.
Lack of a particular vitamin or mineral can lead to incomplete metabolism, fatigue and other health problems and in severe cases to deficiency disease.
Vitamin deficiencies were formerly one of the main causes of illness and death. Pellagra, scurvy, and beriberi are the best know vitamin deficiency diseases.
Vitamin in general
