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Vitamins and minerals are essential to our everyday health. Vitamins are organic substances or nutrients found in plants and animals, first discovered by Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkmann, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in medicine. The word vitamine was coined in 1912 by Polish biochemist Caismer Funk to classify these living substances (vita) that contained nitrogen-containing compounds (amines). When it was later discovered that not all of these organic substances contained nitrogen, the e was dropped, making it vitamin.

What Are Vitamins?
Vitamins play a strong role in hormone production, regulating metabolism, nutrient absorption and combine with proteins to create the enzymes responsible for hundreds of chemical reactions necessary for various systems in the body to function properly. You’ve probably heard the term “essential vitamin”—essential means that substance isn’t naturally made by the body and must be obtains through diet or in supplement form.

Vitamins are classified two ways, as either fat-soluble or water-soluble. While there are chemical differences between the two classes, the primary distinction is that fat-soluble vitamins can be stored in the body, while water-soluble vitamins cannot. Vitamin C, for example, is a water-soluble vitamin. Whatever the body can’t use or absorb is eliminated, meaning that you need to replenish it each day.

Fat-Soluble Vitamins
The four fat-soluble vitamins are Vitamins A, D, E and K. Usually referred to in the singular, each of these vitamins actually represents a grouping of smaller, related components.

Vitamin A is the general name for retinol (the most useable form), and you’re probably most familiar with the common forms found in supplements—palmitate and acetate. Carotenoids, notably beta carotene, is a pre-cursor to vitamin A, needed for proper formation and absorption. Vitamin A supports vision, immunity, cell growth and development, and growth.