Analytical Discovery of Vitamins 1906 – Accessory Food Factors

Author Kendall Haven wrote: “Foods are labelled with their vitamin content. We spend billions of dollars buying vitamin supplements every year. The discovery of vitamins revolutionised nutritional science... and led to the study of how the human body works.” In these words, he described their impact.

In general, vitamins are required in small amounts in the diets of organisms and are chemicals. Some vitamins, such as vitamin D, may not be essential dietary requirements in humans, because our bodies can synthesise vitamin D with sufficient sunlight exposure.

Vitamins help regulate metabolism and support growth, among other functions. Some bind to enzymes and can increase the speed of chemical reactions. 

Inadequate vitamin intake can also cause disease. For example, see “A Treatise on Scurvy 1753 – The First Millions Saved by Science” for more information.

The history of vitamin discovery is long and involves many researchers. Biochemist Gerald F. Combs Jr. wrote: “The analytical phase of vitamin discovery, indeed modern nutrition research itself, began in the 1890s with an animal model of beriberi.” Beriberi results from a deficiency of vitamin B1, causing fatigue, an irregular heartbeat and eventually death. In 1897, Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman discovered that chickens fed polished white rice, which was more expensive, developed beriberi symptoms. They recovered when returned to a diet of unpolished brown rice.

In 1906, Eijkman and Dutch physician Gerrit Grijns wrote in a paper: “Rice polishings contain a substance different from protein... It is essential for health, and its absence causes nutritional polyneuritis.” Their discussion of an antiberiberi substance, later called vitamin B1, is one of the earlier well-known examples of the vitamin concept.

Around the same time, British biochemist Frederick Hopkins showed that mice needed diets containing special “accessory food factors”, later understood to be vitamins.

There are 13 vitamins for humans:

• Fat-soluble: A, D, E and K
• Water-soluble: B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6, B7 (biotin), B9 (folic acid), B12 and C.

Description of the article image: (Microcrystals of ascorbic acid, vitamin C, under polarised light)

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Christiaan Eijkman (1858–1930), Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins (1861–1947), Gerrit Grijns (1865–1944)

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