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Vitamins

For the various vitamins see vitamins. The word vitamin was coined in 1911 by the warsaw-born biochemist casimir funk (1884-1967). at the lister institute in london, funk isolated a substance that prevented nerve inflammation (neuritis) in chickens raised on a diet deficient in that substance. He named the substance vitamine because he believed it was necessary to life and it was a chemical amine. The e at the end was later removed when it was recognised that vitamins need not be amines. The letters (a, b, c and so on) were assigned to the vitamins in the order of their discovery. The one exception was vitamin k which was assigned its k from koagulation by the danish researcher henrik dam. Vitamins are required by numerous species, including ourselves for a balanced Diet. The actual vitamins that are required differ between species, as does the ability to synthesize protein within their own body.

More information pertaining to a [[balanced Vitamin diet is available in the developmental biology tutorial