Vitamins

Animal Nutrition of Class 11

Historical Review. N.I. Lunin (1881) discovered vitamins. Hopkins and Funk (1912) profounded a ‘Vitamin Theory’. Vitamin was chemically an amine and was vital to life. Hence Funk

(1911) named it Vitamine (L. vita - life + amine = vital amine). The term vitamin’ is retained now omitting the terminal ‘e’ in its spelling. The book entitled ‘The vitamins’ was written by Funk and published in 1922.

Definition. Vitamins can be defined as naturally occurring organic substances which are required in minute amount to maintain normal health and are to be supplied in food as they cannot be synthesized by the organism (except vitamin D which can be synthesized by the skin in the presence of sunlight).

General information about vitamins

They do not provide energy. They are not used as structural units. Vitamins differ from hormones in not being produced within the organism. They are usually required as co-enzymes or precursors of co-enzymes. Hence it is better to call them the accessory food substances.

Vitamin C was the earliest known vitamin. Vitamin A was the first fat soluble vitamin to be discovered by Mc Collum. First vitamin to be isolated was B₁ (Funk 1911). Vitamin C was

the first vitamin to be produced during fermentation process using Acetobacter, a wild bacterium by Albert Gyorgyi. Vitamin C is the most sensitive of all vitamins to heat. Antineuritic

vitamins are B1, B6 and B₁₂. Antioxidant vitamins are A, E and C. Nature’s most potent antioxidant is vitamin E. Vegetable foods lack vitamin B12. According to some authorities, an alga

Spirulina contains vitamin B₁₂, Vitamin B6 is used in the treatment of tuberculosis. Vitamins taking part in the TCA cycle (Krebs cycle) are (i) Thiamine (B1) as thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), (ii) Riboflavin (B2) as FMN and FAD, (iii) Niacin (B3) as NAD and NADP and (iv) Pantothenic acid (B5) as part of coenzyme A.