by Anastacia Wienecke
Trouble seeing at night? Ancient Egyptians recommend a heaping spoonful of liver. Notice swelling, weakness, and numbness in your feet? Jin Dynasty scholar, Ge Hong, suggests a bowlful of fermented soybeans. Gums feeling swollen and bleeding? 18th century Scottish surgeon, James Lind, recommends you try a couple of oranges, quick. What do all of these situations have in common? Vitamins!
Initial Observations
For centuries, observant individuals noticed many links between diet and disease (but I’m still not about to eat liver!). During the 1880s, naval physician Takaki Kanehiro decided to do something about a widespread problem: beriberi disease. Beriberi is of two types: one type affects the heart and circulatory system (eventually leading to heart failure), and the other type affects the nervous system (eventually leading to wasting and paralysis). Both are life-threatening. During Kanehiro’s time, beriberi was extremely prevalent in Japan and Southeast Asia – about 1 in 3 members of the Japanese Navy suffered from it. To learn more, Kanehiro decided to document disease prevalence and quickly noticed a pattern: beriberi cases were extremely high in prisoners, medium-high in sailors, medium-low in petty officers, and very low in officers. He found this same pattern in society, with students and shop-boys most affected and wealthy individuals least affected. What did groups with high rates of beriberi have in common? People with beriberi had a diet of mostly white rice, so Kanehiro tried adding in legumes, fish, and barely – this quickly cured all their symptoms! In later years, this observation helped scientists realize that beriberi was caused by a deficiency in one vitamin: B1 or thiamine.
In 1912, the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk penned the term “vitamine” to describe dietary substances that cure disease. He and many others thought these vital substances were amines (a compound that comes from ammonia, a stinky gas), hence the name “vitamine”, which means “amines of life”. Soon however, other vital substances were found, and since these were not amines, the term became “vitamin”.
A Tour of the Vitamin World
The 13 vitamins belong to two groups: fat-soluble and water-soluble. Due to their chemical properties, the four fat-soluble vitamins – A, D, E, and K – do not dissolve in water. The body absorbs these vitamins in much the same way as it absorbs dietary fats, and they get stored in the liver, fatty tissue, and muscle. The presence of dietary fat allows the body to absorb these vitamins.
| Present in… | Important for… | |
| Vitamin A | 🍠 🥕 🍃 🥦 🍊 🥭 🍈 | 🦴 🦷 👁 🖐 |
| Vitamin D | 🐟 🥚 ☀️ | 🦴 |
| Vitamin E | 🌻 🥜 🍃 🥦 | 🩸 💪 |
| Vitamin K | 🍃 🥦 🥕  🍇 🐓 | 🩸 |
Water-soluble vitamins readily dissolve in water. For the most part, the body does not store these vitamins, so a daily intake is necessary.
| Present in… | Important for… | |
| Vitamin B1 (Thiamin) |  🐟 🌻 🌽 🥛 | 🧠 |
| Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) | 🥩 🥛 🐓 🥚 🐟 🍃 🍎 🌻 🍅 | 🧠 🖐 👁 |
| Vitamin B3(Niacin) | 🐓 🐟 🥩 🥜 🍠 🌻 | 🧠 🖐   |
| Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid) | 🌻 🐓 🐟 🥑 🥛 🍠 🥜 🥦 | |
| Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine) | 🐟 🐓 🍠 🍌 | 🩸 |
| Vitamin B9(Folate) | 🍃 🥬 🥑 🥦 | 🩸 🧠 🧬 |
| Vitamin B12 | 🐟 🥩 🥛 🧀 🥚 | 🩸 🧠 🦴 🧬 |
| Biotin | 🥚 🐟 🌻 🍠 | 🧬 |
| Vitamin C | 🍊 🥝 🥦 🍓 🍈 🍃 | 🩸 💪 🦴 |
Our bodies can make a few of the 13 essential vitamins from scratch: vitamin D is made when the sun’s rays reach our skin, niacin is built from a compound called tryptophan, and bacteria living in our intestines build vitamin K, vitamin B5, and biotin for us. Our liver can even produce tiny amounts of vitamin B3. Interestingly enough, humans are the only meat-eating mammals unable to synthesize our own vitamin C. Alas! I guess it’s time to eat our citrus fruits!
What about vitamins F through J?
So far we’ve taken a whirlwind tour of vitamins A through E, and K. What about vitamins F through J? Is there a vitamin Z? Well… scientists did discover vitamins F-J, but after further research, they soon realized that many of these “vitamins” aren’t actually vitamins, so they were removed from the list. Others were lumped into the vitamin B complex.
How to make sure and get all your vitamins?
One common refrain is: “eat a balanced diet”, but what does that really mean? Some might say this means having a cookie in each hand! Others might say to eat a plateful of vegetables and throw in some extra kale. In reality, why not do a bit of both? The easiest way of supplying your body with plenty of vitamins is to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, vegetable oils, and nuts, with the occasional sweets, treats, meats, and dairy thrown in. This variability in foods also provides various micronutrients that assist with the absorption and utilization of our precious vitamins. One other thing that helps is to avoid alcohol, which impairs the absorption of many nutrients, especially fat-soluble vitamins. Medlineplus.gov reports that “alcohol use is one of the major causes of nutritional deficiency in the United States”, so watch out! Lastly, multivitamins help supply your body with a vitamin boost, but do lack the ensemble of micronutrients – user beware. Eat up on those good foods!
References:
How the Body Works: A Comprehensive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Anatomy, by Dr. Peter Abrahams.
