Look through any physical or online vitamin shop, and you’ll see hundreds of options. The vitamin and supplement market is bigger than ever, and more people are introducing these products into their daily routines to optimize their health. Vitamins can help you achieve and maintain good health while addressing deficiencies that cause you problems.
While we have the luxury of wide availability and accessibility today, that wasn’t always the case!
Who Discovered Vitamins?
Many people take vitamins without giving them a second thought. But there was once a time when the leading scientists and healthcare experts had no idea they existed! Believe it or not, we didn’t have much understanding of vitamins and their importance until the 20th century.
Vitamin research dates back to 1910 when Japanese scientist Umetaro Suzuki extracted water-soluble vitamins from rice bran. However, it wasn’t until 1912, when Casimir Funk isolated the same vitamin complex, that the world took notice. He called this new micronutrient “vitamine,” and the name stuck.
Ongoing Research and Setbacks
Contrary to what many might think, the discovery of vitamins wasn’t a sudden breakthrough. It was a long process that involved decades of research from physicians, chemists, physiologists and epidemiologists.
It was slow-going, with tons of refutations and controversy. Research began when the germ theory became prevalent in the late 19th century. At that point, experts believed that proteins, carbohydrates, fats and minerals were the only nutritional factors to worry about. However, conditions like scurvy and rickets ran rampant, and health care providers soon realized those health problems weren’t a product of infections or toxins.
Animal testing played a big part in early vitamin and nutrition research. While it was far from perfect, the research process allowed chemists to make great strides. Every product you see at a vitamin shop was the product of hard work from chemists who isolated countless vitamins and studied their chemical structure. Eventually, experts learned how to synthesize vitamins while expanding their knowledge of their important role in human health. From the point of discovery, chemists and researchers continued to learn more, paving the way for what we have today.
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