Despite the pioneer work of James Lind and Nikolai Lunin, many vitamin deficiency states were still thought to be of infectious origin, even in the early 1900s.
Nikolai Lunin and the concept of vitamins
Vitamins are defined as a group of complex organic compounds present in minute amounts in natural foodstuff that are essential to normal metabolism and lack of which in the diet causes deficiency diseases. Vitamins are required in trace amounts (micrograms to milligrams per day) in the diet for health, growth and reproduction.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Nikolai Lunin and the concept of vitamins
The concept of “vitamin” suggested in 1881 by Nikolai Lunin (1853-1937)
and coined in 1911 by Casmir Funk (1884-1967), refers to a group of
organic compounds that are in very small amounts, essential for the
normal function of the human body, since most of them cannot be
synthesized in the body tissue.
An early landmark leading to the recognition of vitamin as a dietary
essential occurred in 1881, when Lunin demonstrated that mice could not
survive on purified diets consisting of proteins, carbohydrates, fats,
and inorganic salts but would developed normally when milk was added.
Lunin concluded that ‘a natural food such as milk must therefore contain
small quantities of unknown substances essential for life’.
Despite the pioneer work of James Lind and Nikolai Lunin, many vitamin deficiency states were still thought to be of infectious origin, even in the early 1900s.
Nikolai Lunin and the concept of vitamins
Despite the pioneer work of James Lind and Nikolai Lunin, many vitamin deficiency states were still thought to be of infectious origin, even in the early 1900s.
Nikolai Lunin and the concept of vitamins