Thousands of years ago people knew that certain foods could have specific health benefits. Folk healers applied this knowledge regularly long
before the advent of the modern vitamin supplement.
In the year 1880 a researcher from the Netherlands named Christian Eijkman created vitamin deficiency conditions in animals, and then reversed these conditions by applying the appropriate
nutrients. This is one of the earliest citings of what we would today term vitamin research.
By 1905 Frederick Hopkins, an English doctor, declared that all foods contained certain 'growth factors' which were required to sustain life.
These substances, Hopkins said, could not be entirely synthesized by the body and therefore had to be acquired through food.
In 1912 a Polish biochemist by the name of Casimir Funk dubbed these essential compounds 'vital amines' under the premature assumption that nitrogen was
a key component within each substance. Ten years later Funk summed up his studies in a book entitled The Vitamins
In the early 1930's numerous independent research products were launched. The various compounds were assigned letters (Vitamin A, Vitamin C, etc.) to simplify the process of identification and discussion.
Shortly thereafter commercial production of vitamin supplements came about. Vitamin supplements are now a multi-billion dollar industry with a multitude
of manufacturers and distributors working to bring the highest quality products to consumers around the world.
