Understanding Vitamins (1951)

[Music] well here's Health to everybody yes here's health health for everybody in homes all over the land the same little ritual takes place for breakfast fruit juice tomato juice or milk it's all part of a widespread respect for the vitamin for even though few people know what a vitamin actually is almost everyone knows that vitamins should somehow be part of the daily diet it was not always so a few hundred years ago no one realized that food offered more to the body than mere nourishment yet it was only after sailors and soldiers began to suffer in the course of long voyages or sieges from A peculiar disease of the eyes gums and skin called scurvy that someone noticed that the disease could be prevented if the seamen were given the juice of a lemon or a lime for this reason the expression limey even today stands for the British sailor but while this was a step in the right direction it was not to develop into a scientific fact until late in the 19th century on the island of java where the disease Barber paralyzed and killed countless victims a Dutch prison doctor by the name of Christian ikan discovered that chickens fed on the same rice meals as the prisoners developed the same disease that Afflicted the men by feeding the chickens a variety of foods ikan found the cure for barber in the discarded husks of rice he recorded his observations and as early as a75 he wrote there seems to be some food value in such Parts as the husks of rice that acts to prevent the occurrence of the disease called baraber still ikan was unaware of the broader implications of his Discovery it remained for the English scientist Frederick Hopkins to arrive by careful experimentation at a clearer statement of the principles involved in nutritional deficiencies by feeding laboratory animals special diets he concluded no animal can live on a mixture of pure protein fat and carbohydrate it is necessary to have an accessory Factor in the diet experiments went on finally in 1913 Dr Funk in Germany isolated the first of these accessory factors in his notes he called them vitamins because they appear to be factors essential to life and thus the science of vitamins came into being a science dealing with chemical substances which as Dr Funk stated it are essential to life but which the body must obtain from food vitamins are tiny crystals which can be photographed with a photomicroscopic camera this one enlarges the vitamin crystals 200 times there are many different kinds of vitamins known today from vitamin A down the alphabet and new ones are being added constantly and while we know that vitamins are essential for health we are only beginning to understand how they affect us first let us take vitamin A a vitamin essential for good Vision nature abounds with it in leafy vegetables in butter and carrots and it is from the carrot that chemists borrowed the name carotene this carotene is a substance which the liver breaks up into Vitamin A the blood then carries this vitamin to all organs of the body body one of these organs is the eye to see well the eye must be able to adjust itself rapidly to changes in brightness this experiment demonstrates it right now we are all adjusting our vision to Darkness and we are using up vitamin A here's why to see this Beaker the eye acts as a camera the image of the beaker is caught on the light sensitive surface of the eye which is composed of rods and cones the cones enable us to see the beaker in bright light while the rods do the same in dim light in order for the rods to function in dim light they need a substance called visual purple this visual purple is constantly formed and renewed with the help of vitamin A in bright light the visual purple releases vitamin A in the dark vitamin A helps to produce visual purple in this process we use up some vitamin A and must replenish it in addition to its role in Vision vitamin A helps maintain the health of the mucus membranes of the nose the throat and the sinus cavities thus vitamin A helps keep our eyes adaptable and our breathing organs healthy now let us consider vitamin D also called the sunshine vitamin because of the role which the sun plays in its formation vitamin D is essential in maintaining a healthy bone structure with the help of sunlight the human body manufactures its own supply of vitamin D given a proper diet the body utilizes the ultraviolet rays of the sun to change a fat substance of the skin into Vitamin D the bloodstream carries this vitamin to all parts of the body here is What vitamin D does to our bones a proper diet supplies the body with calcium and phosphorus which are necessary to form strong bones and healthy teeth but these minerals alone are not enough it is only with the help of vitamin D that the bone tissue is able to absorb and use these minerals in studying the role of vitamin D research workers periodically remove and examine the bones of experimental animals when vitamin D is removed from the diet the bone weakens gradually after only 5 days stepbystep minerals disappear from the bone but when such experimental animals are fed a diet rich in Vitamin D the minerals build again into the bone matter which reforms gradually without serious after effects therefore we must get a constant supply of vitamin D from sunlight or in our diet to maintain a healthy body frame probably the most widely known vitamins are those of the B family we get them from milk various nuts many of the garden vegetables wheat eggs and other Basic Foods vitamin B influences growth appetite physical alertness and affects our health in many other ways because it is essential for the production of Body Energy sugars and fats are body fuels which in the presence of B vitamins will burn and break up into carbon dioxide and water observe more closely these sugars and fats break up into carbon dioxide and water and release energy energy which drives The Body Machine one of the members of the same family vitamin B12 is effective against pernicious anemia here the chemist traces B12 by color analysis red indicates the presence of b12 vitamins are usually manufactured synthetically but B2 12 is obtained from living microorganisms which produce it in their normal life cycle the vitamins of the large B group all play an important role in maintaining good health to get these necessary B vitamins we must eat a balanced diet of vegetable and animal Foods another vitamin essential for survival is Vitamin K it has an all-important bearing on the ability of the blood to clot without vitamin K even a small wound could become fatal blood deficient in vitamin K will remain liquid when exposed to air while blood containing vitamin K will readily coagulate we have mentioned only some of the vitamins but there are many others one of them is Vitamin C which we have encountered in the lime juice as a cure for scurvy vitamin E vitamin P and there are many more in studying vitamin a thought occurred to the scientific mind if every living organism needs vitamins to survive why not kill harmful organisms by depriving them of vitamins this led to the discovery of antivitamins antivitamins are substances similar in structure to vitamins microorganisms must have vitamins to live and multiply however when they absorb antivitamins they are saturated and the life-giving vitamins cannot perform their function as a consequence these microorganisms perish of vitamin deficiency the sulfa drugs are an example of antivitamins the science of vitamins is still young and constantly looking ahead with the recognition of the importance of vitamins in nutrition research centers of universities and pharmaceutical Laboratories collaborate to satisfy the demand Specialists of many kinds pharmacists chemists and physicists work incessantly to find new substances new vitamins which will stand dry air or moisture arctic cold or tropical heat which will mix in liquids or crystallize in powder it is through the work of many that such complex machines were designed and whether the vitamins are pressed into pills whether they are filled into capsules or formed in coating pans whether liquids in bottles or ingeniously locked in soft gelatin in all cases they follow the samples compounded in the pilot plant of the research laboratory because vitamins are so readily available to the public the Temptation is great to rely more and more on the synthetic vitamins but the decision to supplement our daily diet with vitamin pills should always be a medical decision only the doctor can determine when vitamins are definitely needed and which one should be taken however it is in the ordinary food that a normal adult can generally find all the vitamins he needs of course it is true that Modern urban living is responsible for some vitamin loss and there are certain practices in food preparation that waste or destroy important sources of vitamins practices such as discarding outer leaves of cabbage and husks of many cereals it is in the outer leaves of leafy vegetables that many of the vitamins and minerals are found and often they are discarded only because they don't look [Music] attractive another waste of precious food values comes from overcooking vegetables or boiling them in too much water this destroys vitamins and yet it is one of the most common practices in many kitchens then there is another one the habit of throwing away the water in which vegetables are cooked the water which contains many of the minerals and vitamins that have dissolved out of the vegetables many foods will lose a great deal of nutritional value when exposed to too much light or air but on the whole it is right to say that most adults find the necessary vitamins in the daily diet but for those who don't there are always vitamins that the doctor May prescribe to prevent or to overcome efficiencies and so with science giving us an ever increasing understanding of problems of nutrition the world is marching toward a happier and healthier tomorrow [Applause]