Milestones In Vitamin History
Post date: October 5th, 2008The importance of vitamins was recognized during ancient history. The Egyptians recognized that foods with Vitamin A could improve night blindness. Of course they didn’t know 3500 years ago that what they were missing in their body was Vitamin A! Each generation has recognized the importance of vitamins and then assumed they had learned all there was to know. That has been proven false over and over again. New discoveries were made and knowledge was changed as new discoveries caused old ways of thinking to be discarded.
After the Egyptians first discovered the importance of nutrition the knowledge was largely forgotten for centuries. People thought diseases we now know are caused by vitamin shortages were caused by angry gods, witchcraft, or just bad luck. We know today that nutrition is an important part to our general over-all health.
A major milestone in nutrition research happened in 1747 when a Scottish scientist discovered that citrus foods prevented scurvy. Symptoms of scurvy include loose teeth, bleeding, and lack of energy. This disease was typical of sailors who went on long sea voyages and were without fresh fruit months at a time. The British lost more sailors to scurvy than war during that time. In the following forty years, over 100,000 sailors died of this hemorrhagic disease. The reason? The discovery was largely ignored!
More than one hundred years later, Louis Pasteur found that many diseases were caused by tiny organisms and revolutionized the way the medical world thought of disease. Infection was the leading cause of death until the 20th century. Beri-beri and pellagra were still thought to be infectious diseases and not diseases caused by nutrition deficiencies. In 1905 a book was published stating the diet only acts as a predisposing factor caused from improper food handling.
In 1911 there came a major shift in the way the scientific world thought of nutrition. A Polish chemist first coined the term vitamines, which was later changed to vitamins by dropping the final e. He discovered and proved that small amounts of these vitamins could cure some diseases like beri-beri and scurvy. It soon became obvious that certain foods were critical to good health. Scientists stated that some materials the body needed for good health were only available from foods they ate. The scientist of the time believed that vitamins A and B were the only vitamins needed and let the subject drop with no further experiments.
It became clear in the 1920’s and 30’s that certain vitamins could be used to cure some vitamin deficiency diseases. They were certain that scurvy was the last signs of death instead of the first signs of a lack of nutrients.
Another milestone came in 1954 when scientists discovered the blueprint for our body. DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid was instrumental in developing modern molecular biology.
Today, research is still needed to discover everything that happens when a body begins to age. They need to understand the role of free radicals and their damage to DNA and how this leads to the decline of the body and diseases caused by aging. The future of nutritional medicine is full of possibilities. Scientists believe there are many wonderful discoveries yet to be made concerning vitamins and nutrition.
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