Vitamins and Vitamin-Like Substances

The discovery of substances that help the human body stay healthy and fight diseases has been continuous since the first formal studies of ancient philosophers.

Thus, proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals were discovered and investigated.

The discovery of vitamins started in 1905, when a scientist, William Fletcher, discovered that eating unpolished rice can prevent the prevalent disease beriberi while eating polished rice does not.

Fletcher concluded that there was something the husk of the rice (the part removed when rice is polished) that fights beriberi. That something is a group of special nutrients that are mean to fight diseases.

In 1906, the biochemist Frederick Hopkins supported Fletcher’s idea and called these nutrients as “food factors”.

Then, six years later, Cashmir Funk, another scientist named the food factors as “vitamine”, a combination of the words “vita”, which means life, and “amine”, which describes the compounds found in rice husks.

Funk and Hopkins together formulated and popularized the idea that if a person lacks a certain “vitamine” he will be afflicted with certain diseases. As years passed, the “e” in the original word was removed.

Then, more substances were discovered again. These substances are not vitamins but they look and seem to act like vitamins.

Thus, they are called “vitamin-like substances”. Some examples of these substances are choline (read as “ko-leen”, carnitine (kar-nee-teen), lipoic acid (lay-po-wic acid), bioflavonoids, para-aminobenzoic acid (a-mee-no-ben-zo-wic), and myoinositol (ma-yo-ee-no-see-tol).

All living cells contain choline and this substance aids the metabolic processes (just like all vitamins) and helps the nervous system.

Carnitine is a substance needed in the transport of fatty substances. Lipoic acid functions as a co-enzyme. Its work is very similar to that of vitamin B1, thiamine.

But lipoic acid cannot be considered a vitamin because it is produced by the liver and kidneys, the organs where fat soluble vitamins are stored, not made.

Bioflavonoids are a group of substances that influence the permeability of the small blood vessels, called capillaries.

The para-aminobenzoic acid has been found to be an indispensable part of folic acid, another B vitamin. But so far, its specific actions are still not elucidated. The same situation applies to myoinositol.

It is a water soluble compound that appears like a vitamin, but its effect on human health is not yet established.

At the moment, these substances take the temporary name “vitamin-like”. But as more studies about them are conducted and more about their properties are revealed, they may be given a more distinct name.

After these vitamin-like substances, it is also possible that another group of essential nutrients will be discovered.