A vitamin is an organic compound needed as a nutrient in small amounts by an organism.[1] to explain, an organic chemical compound is known as a vitamin when it can’t be synthesized in acceptable quantities by an organism, and must be acquired from the diet. Therefore , the term is conditional both on the circumstances and on the specific organism.
As an example, ascorbic acid ( vitamin C ) is a vitamin for humans, though not for most other animals, and biotin and vitamin D are needed in the human diet only in certain circumstances.
By convention, the term vitamin doesn’t include other necessary nutrient elements like nutritional minerals, necessary trans-acids, or necessary amino acids ( which are required in bigger amounts than vitamins ), and it does not incorporate the giant number of other nutrient elements that push health but are otherwise needed less often.[2] 13 vitamins are currently commonly recognised. Vitamins are classified by their biological and chemical activity, not their structure. So , each “vitamin” pertains to several vitamer compounds that all show the biological activity linked with a specific vitamin.
Such a collection of chemicals is grouped under an alphabetized vitamin “generic descriptor” title ,eg “vitamin A”, which comprises the compounds retinal, retinol, and 4 known carotenoids. Vitamers unarguably are convertible to the active sort of the vitamin in the body, and are infrequently inter-convertible to each other, as well. Vitamins have various biochemical functions. Some have hormone-like functions as regulators of mineral metabolism ( e.g, vitamin D ), or regulators of cell and tissue expansion and differentiation ( e.g, some sorts of vitamin A ). Others function as anti-oxidating agents ( e.g, vitamin E and infrequently vitamin C ) .[3] the biggest number of vitamins ( e.g, B-complex vitamins ) function as predecessors for enzyme cofactors, that help enzymes in their work as catalysts in metabolism. In this role, vitamins could be tightly sure to enzymes as an element of prosthetic groups : as an example, biotin is a component of enzymes concerned in making trans-acids. Vitamins may also be less firmly certain to enzyme catalysts as coenzymes, detachable molecules that function to carry chemical groups or electrons between molecules. For instance, folic acid carries numerous sorts of carbon group methyl, formyl, and methylene in the cell. Though these roles in aiding enzyme-substrate reactions are vitamins ‘ best-known function, the other vitamin functions are similarly important.[4] Until the mid-1930s, when the 1st commercial yeast-extract and semi-synthetic vitamin C supplement pills were sold, vitamins were got only thru consumption, and changes in diet ( which, as an example, could occur in a particular growing season ) can change the types and amounts of vitamins ingested. Vitamins have been produced as commodity chemicals and made generally available as cheap semisynthetic and synthetic-source multi-vitamin diet additions, since the middle of the twentieth century. The term vitamin came from “vitamine,” a combo word made up by Polish scientist Casimir Funk from critical and amine, meaning amine of life, as it was recommended in 1912 the organic micronutrient food factors that stop beriberi and maybe other similar dietary-deficiency sicknesses could be chemical amines.
This proved inaccurate for the micronutrient class, and the word was shortened to vitamin.