Vitamin History, the Early Years (eBook)

Lee Russell McDowell (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
290 Seiten
First Edition Design Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-62287-252-7 (ISBN)

Infos

The term vitamine was first used 101 years ago in 1912. What were later to be known as vitamin-deficiency diseases, such as scurvy, beriberi, night blindness, xeropthalmia, pellagra, pernicious anemia and rickets, had plagued the world since the existence of written records. The book contains 10 chapters and traces each vitamin from an unidentified factor to its discovery and synthesis

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The term "e;vitamine"e; was first used 101 years ago in 1912. What were later to be known as vitamin-deficiency diseases, such as scurvy, beriberi, night blindness, xeropthalmia, pellagra, pernicious anemia and rickets, had plagued the world since the existence of written records. The book contains 10 chapters and traces each vitamin from an unidentified factor to its discovery and synthesis

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1 - IN THE BEGINNING, HISTORY OF VITAMINS

 

I. Introduction

Vitamins are defined as a group of complex organic compounds present in minute amounts in natural foodstuffs that are essential to normal metabolism and lack of which in the diet causes deficiency diseases. Vitamins consist of a mixed group of chemical compounds and are not related to each other, as are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

Vitamins are required in trace amounts (micrograms to milligrams per day) in the diet for health, growth, and reproduction. Omission of a single vitamin from the diet of a species that requires it will produce deficiency signs and symptoms. Many of the vitamins function as coenzymes (metabolic catalysts); others have no such role, but perform certain essential functions.

Classically, vitamins have been divided into two groups based on their solubility in fat or in water. Thus, fat-soluble vitamins include A, D, E, and K, while vitamins of the B-complex and C are classified as water-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins are found in foodstuffs in association with fats. Water-soluble vitamins are not associated with fats, and alterations in fat absorption do not affect their absorption. Three of the four fat-soluble vitamins (vitamins A, D, and E) are stored in appreciable amounts in the animal body. Except for vitamin B12, water-soluble vitamins are not well stored, and excesses are rapidly excreted. A continual dietary supply of the water-soluble vitamins and vitamin K is needed to avoid deficiencies.

Table 1.1 lists 14 vitamins classified as either fat or water-soluble. The number of compounds justifiably classified as vitamins is controversial. The term vitamin has been applied to many substances that do not meet the definition or criteria for vitamin status. Of the 14 vitamins listed, choline is only tentatively classified as one of the B-complex vitamins. Unlike other B vitamins, choline can be synthesized in the body, is required in larger amounts, and apparently functions as a structural constituent rather than as a coenzyme. Myo-inositol and carnitine are not listed in Table 1 even though they could fit the vitamin category but apparently for only several species. Other substances, such as pyrroloquinoline quinone, have been suggested as a vitamin due to their characteristics. (McDowell, 2000).

 

 

When the vitamins were originally discovered, they were isolated from certain foods. During these early years, the chemical composition of the essential factors was unknown; therefore, these factors were assigned letters of the alphabet. The system of alphabetizing became complicated when it was discovered that activity attributed to a single vitamin was instead the result of several of the essential factors. In this way, the designation of groups of vitamins appeared (e.g., the vitamin “B” group). Additional chemical studies showed that variations in chemical structure occurred within compounds having the same vitamin activity but in different species. To overcome this, a system of suffixes was adopted (e.g., vitamin D2 and D3). The original letter system of designation thus became excessively complicated.

With the determination of the chemical structure of the individual vitamins, letter designations were sometimes replaced with chemical-structure names (e.g., thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin). Describing a function or its source has also identified vitamins. The term vitamin H (biotin) was used because the factor protected the haut, the German word for skin. Likewise, vitamin K was derived from the Danish word koagulation (coagulation). The vitamin pantothenic acid refers to its source, as it is derived from the Greek word pantos, meaning, “found everywhere.”

The history of the discovery of the vitamins is an inspirational and exciting reflection of the ingenuity, dedication, and self-sacrifice of many individuals. Excellent reviews of vitamin history with appropriate references include Funk (1922), Harris (1955) McCollum (1957), Wagner and Folkers (1962), Maynard et al. (1979), Scott et al. (1982), Widdowson (1986), and Loosli (1991). Important books that describe the historical discovery of three specific vitamin deficiency diseases include the following: 1) Beriberi (Eijkman, 1890-1896; Funk, 1911; Williams, 1961; Carpenter 2000), 2) Scurvy (Lind 1757; Hess, 1920; Carpenter, 1986) and 3) Pellagra (Harris, 1919; Goldberger, 1914; Carpenter, 1981). The development of the concept of vitamins can be roughly divided into four (broadly overlapping) periods: 1) Empirical healing of some diseases by administration of certain foods; 2) Development of analytical capabilities to identify classes of nutrients in foods; 3) Experimental induction of dietary diseases in animals; and 4) Administration of synthetic diets to discover essential nutritional factors.

 

II. Ancient Diseases Related to Diet

Most vitamin deficiencies were present before written records (Fig.1.1). The first phase of developing the concept of vitamins began many centuries ago, and gradually led to the recognition that night blindness, xerophthalmia, scurvy, beriberi and rickets are dietary diseases. Records of medical science from antiquity attesting to human association of certain foods with either the cause or prevention of disease and infirmity are considered the nebulous beginnings of the concept of essential nutrients (Wagner and Folkers, 1962). It is clear that by the trial-and-error method, various individuals and peoples gradually learned that certain diseases were associated in some way with diet and that specific foods were helpful in their treatment. Therefore, it was known that certain diseases, notably scurvy, beriberi, xerophthalmia and rickets, may be prevented, or cured, by the inclusion in the diet of small quantities of “antiscorbutic”, “anti-beriberi” antixeropthalmia” and “antirachitic” foodstuffs or extracts.

 

 

Fig. 1.1 The early day of vitamin deficiencies.

 

A) Xerophthalmia and Night Blindness

Night blindness and xerophthalmia were described in ancient Egypt. Eber’s Papyrus, an Egyptian medical treatise of between 1500-1600 B.C. suggested consumption of roast ox liver or the liver of black cocks, to cure eye manifestations (Wolf, 1978). The Chinese used substances rich in vitamin A as remedies for night blindness very early, and livers were recommended as curative agents for night blindness and xerophthalmia by the Greek Hippocrates around 400 B.C. Two books in the Bible apparently refer to vitamin A deficiency: 1) “Tobit” regained his vision when his eyes were rubbed with fish bile, and 2) In Jeremiah 14:6 it is stated “and the asses did stand in high places, their eyes did fail, because there was no grass”. Not until 1657 by Hoefer and in 1754 by von Bergen was the view expressed that night blindness was caused by malnutrition (Rosenberg, 1942). In 1848 a treatise on cod-liver oil describes how xerophthalmia may be cured with the oil (Harris, 1955).

 

B) Beriberi

Beriberi was probably the earliest documented deficiency disorder, being recognized in China as early as 2697 B.C. In the 1880’s the Japanese physician Takaki recognized the cause of beriberi in the Japanese Navy as stemming from an unbalanced white rice diet, and virtually eliminated this condition by increasing the consumption of vegetables, fish, and meat and by substituting barley for rice.

Christian Eijkman in 1897 discovered that beriberi in humans and polyneuritis in chickens and pigeons could be induced in diets restricted to polished rice (Eijkman, 1890-1897). Cure and prevention was achieved by feeding whole rice or rice polishings.

C) Scurvy

It was known that scurvy could be prevented or cured by including green vegetables or fruit juice in diets at least two or three centuries ago. As early as 1536, Canadian Indians cured Jacques Cartier’s men of scurvy with a broth of evergreen needles. It appears that in the ships of the East India Company, oranges or lemons or lemon juice had been used regularly as antiscorbutics from 1601 onward; they had been introduced into the Company at the instigation of Sir James Lancaster who had demonstrated their value on his “privateering expeditions”. The excellence of “juyce of lemmons” as a cure for scurvy was remarked on in a work on “military and domestic surgery” published by John Woodall in 1639, while in 1720 Kramer, an Austrian army physician, wrote that “three or four ounces of orange or lime juice will cure this dreadful disease without other help”(Harris, 1955). Other, reports made the same observations. All of this was prior to an experiment by James Lind in 1747, which showed that the juice of citrus fruits was a cure for scurvy (Lind, 1757).

 

D) Rickets

Since the Middle Ages, it was observed that sunlight seemed to have health-giving effects. Sniadecki expanded this concept in 1822 when he suggested that rickets was caused by lack of sunlight exposure. In 1838 the Frenchman Jules Guerin advanced the theory that rickets was due to a faulty diet and had produced the disease experimentally in puppies (Harris, 1955). Rosen von Rosenstein in 1785 believed that rickets was caused by faulty nutrition (Rosenberg, 1942). Cod...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.2.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Ernährung / Diät / Fasten
• Themenwelt: Medizin / Pharmazie ► Gesundheitsfachberufe ► Diätassistenz / Ernährungsberatung
• Themenwelt: Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Geschichte / Ethik der Medizin
• ISBN-10: 1-62287-252-5 / 1622872525
• ISBN-13: 978-1-62287-252-7 / 9781622872527