What do vitamins do for our bodies?

Vitamins and minerals work together with each other and enhance the effectiveness of the other; like nuts and bolts. Imagine building a car. Without the nuts and bolts, it would be little more than a pile of metal panels.

‘Vita’ means life, and it has been known since 1500BC that specific nutrients can treat disease. In the 18th century, a Scottish naval surgeon discovered the curative effect of citrus fruit on his sailors’ scurvy. Hence the British being called ‘Limeys’, named after the limes used to treat scurvy at sea. It was not until the early 1900s that this was attributed specifically to vitamin C.

Similarly, vitamin B1 was discovered at this time through the restorative effect of unpolished rice, a rich source of vitamin B1, on sufferers of beriberi, a wasting disease. Vitamin D was then found to cure rickets, a bone deformity disease, and so it went on until the 1930s when all thirteen of today’s vitamins had been identified.

Two types of vitamins

Vitamins are divided into two types: water-soluble and fat-soluble. Neither is more important than the other, but they are very different in terms of what they do and where they are found.

The majority of vitamins are water-soluble, namely all the B vitamins and vitamin C. Because water-soluble vitamins are dissolved in our body fluids, we are unable to store these vitamins, making a regular supply essential to our well-being.

In contrast, fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, can be stored in the body’s fat deposits, in which they are both transported and stored.

Most vitamins have two names, eg vitamin C is also known as ascorbic acid. Apart from vitamin D, which we can make from the action of sunlight on our skin, and some of both B vitamin biotin and vitamin K, made by the beneficial bacteria in our gut, the rest must be found in our food. 

* Vitamin A also occurs as beta-carotene in our food, being converted into retinol in the body.