THE VITAMINS

The "d" Vitamins

In a classical sense, vitamin D3, the form produced in animals, is not a true “vitamin” because it is produced in the skin from 7-dehydrocholesterol by UV radiation in the range 290 to 300 nm; 7-dehydrocholesterol is produced from cholesterol metabolism. Only when exposure to sunlight is inadequate does vitamin D3 become a vitamin in the historical sense. Further, vitamin D3 is now termed a pro...

The Vitamins in Medicine

Vitamins in the sea.

N early half of all photosynthesis happens in the oceans, in communities of microscopic microbial plankton that can vary greatly in time and space. On the one hand these communities are ephemeral, changing with changing ocean conditions, but on the other they can be counted on to cycle in predictable patterns driven by seasons, weather, and ocean currents (1, 2). In PNAS, Sañudo-Wilhelmy et al....

The discovery of the vitamins.

The discovery of the vitamins was a major scientific achievement in our understanding of health and disease. In 1912, Casimir Funk originally coined the term "vitamine". The major period of discovery began in the early nineteenth century and ended at the mid-twentieth century. The puzzle of each vitamin was solved through the work and contributions of epidemiologists, physicians, physiologists,...

ANTIOXIDANT VITAMINS IN DIABETES

The study included nineteen control subjects and fifty-nine diabetic patients. The diabetic patients were divided according to the treatment they received. Fasting blood glucose was markedly increased in all three groups, while low serum vitamin A, C and E levels were observed in diabetic patients as compared to control subjects.