A Commemorative Issue in Honor of 110th of the Formulation of Vitamins-Vitamins and Health and Disease

Dear Colleagues,

The year 2022 marks the 110th anniversary of the discovery of vitamins. In 1912, the Polish scientist Kazimierz Funk published the results of his research at London’s Lister Institute in the article “The etiology of the deficiency diseases”, which established the existence of vitamins in nutrition. Before then, for decades food was thought to be composed of proteins, carbohydrates, ash and water. This theory accompanied the common understanding of the microbiological etiology of variety of diseases. However, everything changed with the observation that a diet containing rice bran prevented beriberi in chickens. The water-soluble complex of micronutrients from rice bran, named oryzanin by Umetaro Suzuki, was used successfully to treat polyneuritis. Funk further refined its main component and concluded that it was an organic compound containing a nitrogen atom (an amine) which we know today as vitamin B1 or thiamine. Since then, over a dozen groups of vitamins have been identified, most of which are water-soluble, apart from vitamins A, D, E and K, which are lipophilic. These minute molecules have been recognized as enzyme cofactors, hormone precursors, modulators of signal transduction and antioxidants, and are vital in trace amounts for maintaining a stable homeostasis. A lack of vitamins can result in various medical conditions, including scurvy, beriberi, rickets, pellagra and night blindness, and predispose to osteoporosis, immunodeficiency, hemorrhagic diathesis and increased risk of cancer. More than a century later, with the growth in convenience foods and metabolism problems, the overuse of diet supplements, and of course the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of vitamins in our diet cannot be underestimated. A Special Issue of Nutrients has been arranged to mark the anniversary of the discovery of vitamins, and fellow members of the scientific community are warmly invited to submit a manuscript (regular articles, communications, reviews) for publication.

Prof. Dr. Dariusz Nowak
Prof. Dr. Boleslaw T. Karwowski
Guest Editors

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