Vitamins

The absence of Vitamin-C from human diet causes scurvy in three or four months. Major symptoms of this disease are general weakness, swelling of gums and loosening of the teeth, many small hemorrhages into the skin and mucus membranes, and brittleness of bones. If not soon treated the disease is fatal. In the absence of Vitamin-C the capillary walls become fragile or abnormally permeable, causing extracasation of blood into the tissues.

Vitamins were discovered when it was observed that diets adequate in calories, essential amino acids fats and minerals failed to maintain health. The term vitamin has now come to refer to any organic dietary constituent necessary for life, health and growth, which does not function by supplying energy. There are minor differences in metabolism between mammalian species and not in another. Most of the vitamins have important function in intermediary metabolism of various organic systems.