How Were Vitamins Discovered? The History of Vitamins and Their Role in Nutrition

Until the end of the 19th century, people had little idea that food contained not only proteins, fats, carbohydrates and minerals, but also other components without which the human body could not function normally.

By that time, proteins, fats and carbohydrates were already known to science, so it seemed logical to assume that if food contained these nutrients in the right proportions, nothing else was needed.

Yet reality repeatedly contradicted this theory. People could consume enough food and still develop serious illnesses. The cause turned out to be deficiencies of substances whose existence science had not yet discovered.

This was the beginning of the long history of vitamin discovery.

Scurvy: the disease that suggested there was something else in food

One of the most notorious health problems among sailors was scurvy. During long sea voyages, when diets consisted mainly of foods that could be stored for months and contained very little fresh fruit or vegetables, sailors developed weakness, bleeding gums, loose or lost teeth and other severe symptoms.

Today we know the cause: scurvy develops as a result of severe vitamin C deficiency.

Sailors recognised the benefits of citrus fruits long before science could explain how they worked. In 1747, Scottish physician James Lind conducted his famous experiment involving sailors with scurvy. Of the various treatments tested, oranges and lemons produced the most noticeable improvement.

Many more years would pass before scientists understood what fresh foods contained and why the body became ill without it.

Beriberi and the mystery of polished rice

Another important step towards the discovery of vitamins involved the disease beriberi.

It was widespread in regions where polished white rice formed a major part of the diet. The disease could affect the nervous and cardiovascular systems, causing weakness, sensory disturbances, difficulty walking and, in severe cases, death.

Today, we know that one of the principal causes of beriberi is a deficiency of vitamin B1, or thiamine.

An important chapter in this story was written by Japanese naval physician Takaki Kanehiro. In the 1880s, he observed a connection between sailors’ diets and the incidence of beriberi. After the diet of Japanese sailors was changed to include foods such as meat, milk and barley, the number of beriberi cases fell dramatically.

Takaki did not yet know about vitamin B1 and incorrectly attributed the result to protein deficiency. Nevertheless, his observations provided further evidence that the composition of food mattered for reasons beyond its protein, fat and carbohydrate content.

Nikolai Lunin’s experiments: something unknown was hiding in milk

One of the most important early experiments was conducted by Nikolai Lunin.

In 1880–1881, he studied the nutrition of laboratory mice. Some animals received natural milk, while others were given an artificial diet made from the components of milk known at the time: protein, fat, carbohydrates, mineral salts and water.

In theory, all the necessary components appeared to be present.

But the mice fed the artificial diet failed to thrive, whereas those receiving natural milk survived.

Lunin reached a remarkably important conclusion for his time: natural food must contain additional unknown substances essential for life.

In effect, this was one of the earliest experimental clues leading towards the future concept of vitamins.

However, the scientific community did not give Lunin’s work the recognition it deserved at the time, and his research remained largely overlooked for many years.

Christiaan Eijkman and the chickens that helped reveal the mystery

In the 1890s, Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman was working on the island of Java, trying to determine the cause of beriberi.

Like many physicians of his era, he initially searched for an infectious agent.

Then chance intervened.

Experimental chickens that were fed leftover polished white rice developed a neurological disorder resembling beriberi. When they were switched back to unpolished rice, their condition improved.

Eijkman conducted further experiments and established a connection between polished rice and the development of the disease.

There is, however, an important detail: Eijkman himself did not initially arrive at the modern explanation of vitamin deficiency. He suspected that polished white rice might contain something toxic and that the outer layers of the grain contained a substance capable of counteracting its effects.

His colleague Gerrit Grijns took the next important step. He proposed a much more accurate idea: natural foods contained special substances whose absence alone could cause disease.

Science was getting increasingly close to the concept of vitamins.

So who actually discovered vitamins?

There is no single simple answer.

The discovery of vitamins was the result of work by many scientists over several decades. Some observed links between diet and disease; others experimentally demonstrated the existence of unknown dietary factors; later researchers isolated these substances, described them and determined their chemical structures.

However, the Polish biochemist Casimir Funk holds a special place in this story.

Casimir Funk and the origin of the word “vitamin”

In 1911–1912, Casimir Funk worked with rice bran in an attempt to isolate the substance that prevented the polyneuritis associated with beriberi.

He succeeded in obtaining an active concentrate from rice bran. Funk proposed that similar essential substances might prevent not only beriberi but also other diseases caused by deficiencies in the diet.

It was Funk who introduced the term “vitamine.”

The name combined the Latin vita, meaning “life,” with amine, because Funk believed these essential substances belonged to a class of nitrogen-containing compounds called amines.

Scientists later discovered that not all vitamins are amines. The final “e” was therefore dropped in English, changing vitamine to vitamin. The term itself, however, survived and is now used throughout the world.

It is also important to note that the substance Funk worked with was not yet pure vitamin B1 as we understand it today. The pure anti-beriberi factor was isolated later, and its chemical structure was established in the 1930s. We now know this substance as thiamine, or vitamin B1.

The Nobel Prize for vitamin research

In 1929, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was shared by Christiaan Eijkman and British biochemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins.

Eijkman was recognised for the discovery of the antineuritic vitamin, while Hopkins was honoured for his discovery of growth-stimulating vitamins.

Interestingly, Casimir Funk — the scientist who gave us the word “vitamin” and made a major contribution to the concept of vitamin-deficiency diseases — did not receive a Nobel Prize for this work.

This is another reason why the history of vitamin discovery cannot be reduced to a single scientist or experiment.

How the discovery of vitamins changed nutrition

By the beginning of the 20th century, it was becoming clear that the calorie content of food and the presence of proteins, fats and carbohydrates were not enough to determine whether a diet was nutritionally complete.

The body also required substances present in much smaller amounts but essential for vital biological processes.

Over the following decades, scientists isolated and described different vitamins and determined their chemical structures, biological functions and the consequences of their deficiency.

These discoveries helped explain the causes of scurvy, beriberi, rickets and a number of other diseases that had puzzled people for centuries.

What role do vitamins play in nutrition?

Vitamins are essential micronutrients. The body needs them in much smaller quantities than proteins, fats and carbohydrates, but this does not make them any less important.

Different vitamins participate in different biological processes, including energy metabolism, nervous and immune system function, blood formation, the maintenance of healthy skin and mucous membranes, bone health and many other functions.

However, the principle “the more vitamins, the better” is incorrect. Both deficiencies and excessive intake of certain vitamins can have undesirable effects.

A varied and nutritionally balanced diet remains the foundation of good nutrition. Whether additional supplementation with a particular vitamin is appropriate depends on diet, age, physiological status, the presence of a confirmed deficiency and other individual factors.

From a mystery to modern science

The history of vitamin discovery is a good example of how science develops.

At first, people simply observed a strange connection: change the diet, and a disease could disappear. Then came Lunin’s experiments, the observations of Eijkman and Grijns, Funk’s research and the work of many other scientists.

It took decades to progress from the idea of “something unknown in food” to the isolation of individual substances, determination of their chemical structures and an understanding of their roles in the human body.

And the research did not end there. Today, science has a far better understanding of vitamin functions, metabolism, interactions with other nutrients and the consequences of both deficiency and excessive intake.

And it all began with one simple question: why are proteins, fats, carbohydrates, minerals and water alone not enough to sustain life?