The Wonderful World of Vitamins

The Wonderful World of Vitamins





Laying the groundwork for the development of vitamins was James Lind,

a Scottish naval surgeon who in 1747, discovered that a nutrient in

citrus foods prevented scurvy. In 1905, an English doctor, William

Fletcher found out that when special factors were removed from food,

disease occurred. However, it was not until 1912 when Polish scientist

Cashmir Funk first came up with the word vitamin to refer to these

miraculous substances.



Vitamins do just that, they keep the body healthy and act as catalysts by

speeding up interaction between enzymes, proteins, fats, and vitamins to

produce beneficial results for the body. These results can be healthy

hair, skin, eyes, bones and teeth. To date, there are 14 identified

vitamins.



These are vitamins A, C, D, E, H, K, P and the so-called B-complex

vitamins: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9 and B12. Depending on the

acceleration in vitamins research, more vitamins may be added to the list

in the coming years.



Of course, it's best if the body can acquire all these vitamins from normal

food intake. Unfortunately, that only exists in a perfect world. This

explains why there's a widespread proliferation of vitamin tablets and

capsules--some are generic but most are branded. The most popular

version by far is a multivitamin which carries minimum amounts of the

most important vitamins and minerals in one capsule.



A multivitamin certainly saves modern man a lot of time. He does not even

need to figure out which vitamins he needs to take. It has been figured

out for him by science! Another key advantage of taking multivitamins is

that you only need to take one capsule a day--as opposed to several

tablets which bring undue strain to our kidneys.