The discovery of vitamins shocked the scientific community and suggested that diseases could be caused by nutritional deficiencies and could be cured by consuming just the right amount of newly discovered compounds. “Monotonous diets should be avoided,” Funk declared.
Researchers rushed to isolate other micronutrients associated with diseases such as rickets, scurvy and goiter. Around the time that Funk coined the term “vitamin,” American nutritionist Elmer McCallum was conducting a variety of feeding experiments on different animal populations and found that “auxiliary” substances found in some fats were found in rats. I have discovered that it is essential for growth. The fat-soluble substance became known as vitamin “A,” meaning “accessory.”
McCallum and his colleagues also conducted further experiments with nutrients from Funk’s rice bran, which they named vitamin B after beriberi. Ultimately, the substance known as vitamin B was found to be a complex of eight water-soluble vitamins, each given a separate name such as thiamine and numbered in the order of their discovery. .
The “e” used in Funk’s new terminology was eventually dropped after scientists realized that not all compounds are nitrogen-containing amines. However, the custom of naming vitamins alphabetically in the order in which they were discovered continued. Currently, four fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and nine water-soluble vitamins (vitamin C and eight B vitamins, B1) [thiamin],B2 [riboflavin],B3 [niacin],B5 [pantothenic acid],B6 [pyridoxine],B7 [biotin],B9 [folate],B12 [cobalamin]-Considered essential for human growth and health.
Vitamin…F?
There is only one vitamin that defies this logical naming scheme. It’s vitamin K, discovered in 1929 by Danish researcher Karl-Peter Henrik Damm. Considering the date of its discovery, this substance should have been called vitamin F. However, Dam’s research revealed that this vitamin is essential for blood clotting. coagulation The abbreviation for vitamin somehow stuck in the German journal that published his research.
