Evening star., 1940-04-30
OF Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
InvFieId, Laboratory
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henri.


vitamins have scared into 100000
600 business in the United States in the
past few years.
Drug store counters are piled high with
bottles Of pills and boxes of capsules
Restaurants list on their menus the sup
posed vitamin contents of various dishes
as they used to list calories. The Ameri-
can public has become vitamin conscious
in an extreme degree.
Even five years ago the vitamins-only
five or six of then-were mysterious
such as spinach. carrots. tomato juice
and yeast. Complete lack of some of
them, it had been demonstrated, would
cause such horrible diseases as night
blindness, beriberi and pellagra. Other
wise very little was known about them
and the average citizen knew only that
a fair amount of all of them in the diet
was necessary for the general health.
few months. Some of the most essential
have been identified by chemists SO that
they can be prepared in pure FORM
Prices constantly have been reduced
Extensive experiments, using human
volunteers, have been conducted by such
research organizations as the United
States Department of Agriculture The
al Wit ar,,iy, Ect hnr LaI %o
between 20 and 30; nobody knows just
how many-each of which has specific
function. The old vitamin B, for ex-
ample, now has been split into at least
10 different substances, at least five of
which are essential in human diet.
The Committee on. Nutrition of the
| United States Department of Agricul-
| ture now lists the following nom -debat-
ably essential vitamins with their chief
| functions and richest sources:
Vitamln A, essential for life, health
and groWth-fish oils, green leaves and
yellow vegetables.
Tniamin, a sulfuS compound. essential
for the burning of sugar in the body
lean pork, chicken, liver. grain germs.
Vitamn C, ascorbic acid. essential for
! prevention of scurvy, fruit juices and
| fresh vegetables
Vitamln D, essential for building bones
cod liver oil, liver, brain green vege-
! tables.
! Riboflavin. essential for the breathing
of living cells-liver, kidney eggs and
| greens.
| Nicotine acid. essential for prevention
OF the nervous disease, pellagra-brewer's S
yeast milk, green vegetables.
| Vitamin x, essential for clotting of
blood-alfalfa leaves, grass. green vege-
| tables.
These seven, it has been determined
| eXperlmentaily, are absolutely essential
! to human welfare. There are half a
! dozen others necessary for different
! animals, There is no general agreement,
| as vet, concerning the parts they may
| play in human living processes. In
| addition there are six or seven other
| hypothetical vitamins such as some
! thing in green grass necessary for the
/ growth OF calves. 1t is possible that they
may be almost identical with some of
| those already described.
Thus Americans have added a $780,
| 100000 vitamin bill to their yearly ex-
| penses. In 1887, the last year for which
/ the United States Food and Drug Ad-
mlnistration has definite statistics, the
manufacturing cost alone was S37 7.OOO,-
| 900 and then the vitamin business had
| hardly gotten a good start Those peo-
! pie who can afford to pay for the
! prepared vitamins may be overdosing
| themselves, but Department of Agri-
| culture specialists do not anticipate any
dire results. In most cases, it appears.
the body will make use of the maximum
for its own needs and discard any sur
/ plus. In any event. it is generally
| agreed, vitamin dosing is less harmful
than most characterization, although some
of the end results still are debatable.
One result has been that folks are
able to fit their diets to their tastes and
make up the deficiencies with a few
pills, danger in this is that vitamins
constitute only one of the essential fac
tors in food. Minerals, proteins, fats,
etc. are just as essential 1t would be
best, the Department of Agriculture
food experts agree, if everybody chose
food containing the necessary vitamins
and could get plentiful supply of them
| without resorting to pill-taking
Probably the best solution, says Dr.
| Paul E. Howe. chief of the animal nutri-
| ton division of the Department of
Agriculture, will be to train the popu-
lation from childhood In good food
| habits.
Most animals, given a free choice of
foods when they are hungry, he ex-
plains, will pick out things containing
the vitamins they need. In some way
not understood deficiencies set up crav-
ings. This presumably would be the
case OF human beings in pure state of
nature. But mans taste has been edu-
Gated. sometimes in wrong directions.
His natural cravings, if they exist, often
have been submerged in habit and
prejudice. Even domestic animals have
been educated to the point where their
natural cravings are deficiency guide.
| fo<l~ d