Vitamins and minerals - history and importance
Discovering the concept of vitamins
One hundred years ago, a Polish-American scientist attempted to isolate the first vitamin (B1) from rice bran. Kazimierz Funk called his discovery a "vitamin." He believed that it was an essential amine (nitrogen compound) for life. This compound found its way into the popular consciousness in a slightly altered name, as "vitamin." This was despite the fact that, according to later knowledge, most vitamins are not actually amines. Funk's breakthrough discovery played a decisive role in the development of nutrition. The world now takes it for granted.
Funk (1884-1967) was the first scientist to suggest the existence of a whole family of organic substances that are essential to life, and the first to give these substances names that explain their effects. In his distinguished scientific career, which spanned the era of the two World Wars, Funk studied and worked in Europe and the United States. He held various positions in academia and industry and improved methods of producing commercial drugs. However, he never received a Nobel Prize for his work. The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America annually awards the Kazimierz Funk Prize for Natural Sciences to a Polish-American scientist.
In 1921, British biochemist Sir Jack Cecil Drummond suggested combining the use of the letters of the alphabet with the term "vitamin" to describe a series of related organic micronutrients from food. Food components of this kind became known as vitamins A, B, C and so on
History of vitamins and minerals
Vitamin | Chemical name | Year of discovery | Who | Country |
Soluble in fats | ||||
Vitamin A | Retinol | 1913 | Elmer McCollum and Marguerite Davis | United States |
Vitamin D | Calciferol | 1922 | Elmer McCollum | United States |
Vitamin E | Tocopherol | 1922 | Herbert M Evans | United States |
Vitamin K | Phylloquinone | 1929 | Henrik Carl Peter Dam | Denmark |
Soluble in water | ||||
Vitamin B1 | Thiamine | 1897 | Christiaan Eijkman | Netherlands |
Vitamin B2 | Riboflavin | 1922 | Unknown | Unknown |
Vitamin B3 | Niacin | 1936 | Conrad Elvehjem | UNITED STATES |
Vitamin B5 | Pantothenic acid | 1931 | Roger J Williams and R W Truesdail | UNITED STATES |
Vitamin B6 | Pyridoxine | 1934 | Paul György | UNITED STATES |
Vitamin B7 | Biotin | 1931 | Paul György | Germany |
Vitamin B9 | Folic acid | 1941 | Henry Mitchell | United States |
Vitamin B12 | Cobalamin | 1926 | George Whipple, George Richards Minot and William Murphy | UNITED STATES |
Vitamin C | Ascorbic acid | 1928 | Albert Szent-Györgyi | England |
Choline | 1862 | Adolph Strecker | Germany |
Element | Chemical name | Year of discovery | Who | Country |
Macronutrients | ||||
Calcium | 1808 | Humphrey Davy | England | |
Magnesium | 1755 | Joseph Black | England | |
Phosphorus | 1669 | Hennig Brand | Germany | |
Potassium | 1807 | Humphrey Davy | England | |
Trace elements | ||||
Chromium | 1798 | Louis Nicolas Vauquelin | France | |
Copper | 9000 BC | n.d. | Iraq | |
Fluorine | 1886 | Henri Moissan | France | |
Iodine | 1811 | Bernard Courtois | France | |
Iron | 5000 BC | n.d. | France | |
Selenium | 1817 | Jons Jacob Berzelius | Sweden | |
Zinc | 1746 | Andreas Marggraf | Germany |