Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Vitamins

Starting point is 00:00:00 For thousands of years, humans knew that certain foods could treat certain ailments. However, why or how the foods did this was totally unknown. It wasn't until the 20th century that researchers discovered exactly what chemicals were in food that prevented and cured many diseases. Today, that knowledge has led to an entire industry dedicated to providing and supplementing nutrients. Learn more about vitamins, what they are, how they were discovered, and what happens if you lack them in your diet, on this episode of Everything Everywhere, What if your perceptions about the past were wrong?

Starting point is 00:00:47 ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. A while back, I did an episode where I told the story of how the 18th century Scottish doctor James Lynde found that citrus fruits could prevent and cure scurvy. He, like most sailors, knew what scurvy did, but he had no clue why it happened, nor did he really understand why citrus fruits like limes and lemon seem to cure it.

Starting point is 00:01:28 All he knew was that it worked. By the early 20th century, three macronutrients had been identified, fats, proteins, and carbohydrates. However, whatever else was in food that might have provided health benefits was still unknown. For example, the magical property in limes that prevented scurvy was still a mystery. Another naval doctor, Tataki Kanahero of the Japanese Imperial Navy, did a study of naval crew members and the disease Barry Berry Berry in 1884. Berry Berry can result in the deterioration of the nervous system, numbness in the extremities, and in extreme cases, death.

Starting point is 00:02:03 Kanahero noted that Barry Berry only affected the low-ranking sailors on his ship and not the officers. The difference he thought was in the same. diet. Low-ranking sailors only ate rice, whereas officers ate more varied meals. He received approval to run a test on the diet of crew members on two different ships. On one ship, the crew ate only white rice, whereas on the other, they ate a variety of foods, including rice. On the ship that ate only rice, there were 61 cases of Barry Berry, and 25 were fatal. On the ship that had a varied diet, there were only 14 cases of Barry, Barry, with no deaths. The issue of berry-berry was a far more serious problem in Asia than it was elsewhere in the world.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Japanese researchers kept investigating the problem, and in 1910, the chemist Umatero Suzuki isolated a compound found in the bran of rice that he called a burek acid. It was later dubbed thiamine. It was the first vitamin to be discovered. Not long after the English biochemist Frederick Hopkins proposed that there were things in food beyond the three macronutrients, which he called accessory factors. Many researchers didn't take note of Suzuki's discovery because of the problems with the translation of his research paper. In 1912, the Polish researcher Casimir Funk isolated a nutrient that he considered to be an

Starting point is 00:03:23 anti-Berry-Berry nutrient. He initially dubbed his new nutrient vitamin, but it was later changed to niacin. Vitamin came from the words vital and amine, which is a type of chemical. Vitamin soon became synonymous with all the exhumed. accessory factor chemicals, not a single one, and it was changed to vitamin when it was found that not all the essential chemicals have an amine part. So, what is a vitamin? Vitamins are essential organic nutrients necessary for metabolism that are found in food. And here I need to explain what an essential nutrient means, because the word is a bit misleading. Essential applies that something

Starting point is 00:04:03 is necessary, and to be sure all of the vitamins are necessary for survival. However, in this case, essential means something that our bodies cannot produce ourselves. The human body cannot produce vitamin C, for example, but most mammals can. So, for human beings, vitamin C is an essential nutrient, but it is not an essential nutrient for dogs or cats. Not all essential nutrients are considered to be vitamins. There are minerals we need, like iron, calcium, and copper that our bodies cannot create, but they're not considered vitamins because they're not organic.

Starting point is 00:04:36 Likewise, there are some amino acids that our bodies can't produce as well. These are not considered vitamins because they're proteins. Currently, 13 vitamins are generally recognized and sometimes a 14th. Most vitamins are not single chemical molecules, but rather a collection of molecules that perform similar functions. These groups are called Vitamers. Vitamins are classified by their solubility. There are four fat-soluble vitamins and nine water-soluble vitamins.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Generally speaking, water-soluble vitamins will be excreted if they're not used and your body can't store them. Fat-soluble vitamins, as the name would suggest, can be stored in body fat. And this can lead to its own problems, as we'll see in a bit. So, what are the 13 vitamins? Let's go alphabetically and start with vitamin A. Vitamin A is a collection of molecules, most usually retinol. In its raw form, vitamin A is actually only found in animal products, which actually surprises most people because they think that carrots are high in vitamin A. What is found in plants, like carrots,

Starting point is 00:05:42 is beta caracine, which is a pro-vitamin. Pro-vitamins are chemicals that can be converted to vitamins inside our bodies. The efficiency at which our bodies can convert beta-carotene to vitamin A is determined by genetics, and it can actually vary greatly between people. Conversion rates can range from 3.6 to 1, all the way to 28 to 1. A deficiency can lead to night blindness and other eye disorders, and it is especially damaging to children. Because it's fat soluble, vitamin A can actually be toxic if too much of it is consumed. Now, that being said, it's almost impossible to do for most people, but consumption of polar bear liver can lead to hypervitaminosis A, which can be fatal. So, don't eat polar bear liver. Next is vitamin B, which is actually

Starting point is 00:06:32 a whole category of eight different vitamins. Many of these vitamins were given their own letter, at one point and then renamed as a B vitamin. All of the B vitamins are water soluble, and despite being lumped together, are distinct from each other. They are, vitamin B1, also known as thymine. This was the first vitamin that was isolated, and a B1 deficiency can lead to berry berry. It can be found in liver, eggs, and a host of vegetables. Most importantly, for rice-consuming countries, it was found that if you consume the brown brand coating on rice, you'd get thiamine, which could prevent berry-berry-berry. Vitamin B-2 is also known as rice, and It's most commonly found in dairy products, but also can be found in things like asparagus and bananas.

Starting point is 00:07:12 B2 deficiency is pretty rare, as B2 is fortified in many wheat products. And if you have a B2 deficiency, you're probably also going to have some other deficiency as well. Vitamin B3 is known as niacin. It's found in a variety of foods, but is notably lacking in corn. A B3 deficiency is known as Pellegras, which can result in very nasty skin lesions. It was actually kind of common in South and Central America due to their high corn diet. Today it can be found in poor countries, in refugees, and people with alcoholism, and it was actually very common in prisoners held in Soviet gulags. Vitamin B5 is known as pantothenic acid. A deficiency of B5 is known as paranthesa, and its primary symptoms are feelings of pins and needles on your skin, as if your armor-like fell asleep.

Starting point is 00:07:57 Vitamin B6 is a collection of molecules, most commonly pyrodine. Vitamin B7 is known as biotin, most commonly found in eggs and peanuts. Vitamin B9 is known as folic acid or folate. Folates and folic acid are extremely important during pregnancy, and a deficiency can cause birth defects. Finally, there's vitamin B12. B12 is probably the most chemically complex molecule of all the vitamins. It was synthesized in 1972 in a process so complex

Starting point is 00:08:26 that it isn't even commercially viable. B12 is unique because it cannot readily be found in any plants. The only natural sources come from animal products. B-12 deficiency is known as pernicious anemia, and it's a serious problem in many vegetarian and vegan communities as it requires artificial supplementation. Prenicious anemia can result in irreversible brain and nerve damage. If you've ever seen enriched flour, it's usually enriched with B vitamins. Vitamin C is next, and as I've mentioned, I've previously done an entire episode on it, and

Starting point is 00:08:59 scurvy. And unlike other vitamins, there's only one chemical version of vitamin C. The role of vitamin C is to help create collagen, which is one of the most important proteins in your body. It literally helps connect your tissue, which is why scurvy is so painful. You literally fall apart. Vitamin D is considered a single vitamin, even though, unlike other vitamins, its vizmeres are listed separately as vitamins D1 through vitamins D5. Vitamin D is found in food, but it can also be produced by skin when it's exposed to sunshine. Vitamin D is fat soluble, and a severe vitamin D deficiency is called Ricketts. Ricketts is uncommon in developed countries today, but it was much more common in the ancient

Starting point is 00:09:39 world. It usually affects children and can result in deformed bones. A general vitamin C deficiency is probably the greatest deficiency problem for any vitamin today. It's mostly because people spend more time indoors and don't get as much sun exposure as they used to. Low vitamin D levels have been linked to a whole host of medical problems, including increased incidence of cancer, heart disease, ADHD, and increased COVID-19 mortality. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant that's found in many grains and seeds, as well as in seafood. Vitamin E deficiency

Starting point is 00:10:11 is extremely rare, given the prevalence of seed oils in the world today. The last vitamin is vitamin K. There are two variants of K, K1 and K2. K2 is like B12 in that it's not found in plants. The main problem of vitamin K deficiency is the inability for blood to coagulate. I've really just given a cursory overview of each of the vitamins. You could probably write an entire doctoral dissertation on each one. There's a lot to unpack for each vitamin with the various sources of each vitamin, the bioavailability, and the effectiveness of different vitamins, as well as a host of other issues. Now, if you were paying attention, you might be wondering where vitamins F and G are.

Starting point is 00:10:51 They go in alphabetical order and then they jump from E to K. Vitamin F was used for the essential fatty acids, alpha-linolaic acid and linoleic acid. However, it was determined that they weren't really vitamins, so they were recategorized as fats. There's still nutrients you need to get through food, but they're just not called vitamins. Vitamin G was the original name given to riboflavin, which is now called vitamin B2. In fact, many of the B vitamins were given alternative names originally. For example, biotin was vitamin H. I mentioned before that there's sometimes a 14th vitamin on some lists.

Starting point is 00:11:26 The 14th vitamin is occasionally given the name vitamin J, but it's more commonly called coline. Colleen is essential, but it behaves a bit more like an amino acid, which is why it usually isn't listed as a vitamin. Vitamins have become big business. The global dietary supplement industry was estimated to be $151.9 billion in 2021, which included all supplements, not just vitamins. There's been a lot of debate in health and nutrition circles about how effective vitamin supplements

Starting point is 00:11:56 actually are. Some claim they're absolutely essential, and there are others who say that they are useless. I am not a health expert. This is not a health podcast, but from the research I've seen, there tends to be two things most people would agree on. Even if supplements don't do much good, they also probably don't do much harm. Second, you're usually better off getting the nutrients you need from food. Natural nutrients from meat, fruits, and vegetables will almost always be more bioavailable, meaning that they're easier for your body to absorb and use. The discovery of vitamins was one of the greatest advances in medicine in the 20th century. 17 different people received Nobel prizes for their work, either directly or indirectly,

Starting point is 00:12:37 on the discovery of vitamins. Thanks to our knowledge of vitamins, we now know not only what to eat, but what it is in our food that makes us healthy. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is done. Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thornton and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers. Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Vitamins

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