By Amber T, Supplements Buyer & Amateur Sleuth
I am a creature of virtually infinite curiosity. For me, there's no subject matter I don't want to know about (which probably leads to the vast scope of topics I blog about for CN). I've always had a keen interest in the history of medicine in particular (as a kid, I used to read my mother's pharmacy textbooks for fun), which dovetails nicely with my adult career as a supplements buyer for Cambridge Naturals.
Recently, while organizing the store shelves, a question popped into my brain for which I had to ready answer. We've got Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K, but what happened to the letters between E and K? Was there ever a Vitamin F? What about G, H, I, and J? The absurdity of it struck me, and I knew I needed to know what the deal was with those missing letters.
The answer, it turns out, makes surprising sense. In short, there once were these other vitamins, but repeated reclassifications gave them new identities. (And if you've ever wondered why there are so many different B vitamins, the answer to that question ties into that gap in the alphabet.)
The early 20th century was a hotbed of activity for the field of chemistry. The (excellently-named) Polish scientist Casimir Funk is credited with coining the term 'vitamin' (from 'vital amine') around the year 1912, using it to mean nutrients essential for life. Over the next thirty years, driven in part by the destructive effects of two World Wars, the arenas of chemistry and medicine saw intense growth. Vitamins were originally classified as either fat-soluble or water-soluble, a distinction that still remains today (and in fact influences Cambridge Naturals' shelving preferences); as more vitamins were discovered, they received new letter identities corresponding roughly to the order of their discovery. But as the field of chemistry progressed, scientists realized that simple letter identities weren't quite accurate for some of their newly-discovered compounds, and began to reclassify them in categories that better fit their uses.
Vitamin F, as it turns out, eventually became the Omega Fatty Acids (specifically 3 and 6). In 1939, Hungarian scientist Paul Gyorgy classified another substance as Vitamin H (from the German words haar und haut, meaning 'hair and skin'), though it was later renamed due to its similarity to the B vitamins. Which one, exactly? Well, if you've ever taken it, you probably won't be surprised to learn that Vitamin H became Vitamin B7, or what we commonly call Biotin. Vitamins G and M also once existed, but were later reclassified as B vitamins (riboflavin, also called B2; and folic acid, also known as B9). Vitamin J was deemed necessary in too small of quantities to warrant the 'vitamin' label; it was renamed choline.
And as for Vitamin I? There's actually no record of it ever existing.
Science has always been an evolving discipline, so it stands to reason that we adjust it as we learn new things. Categories get tweaked, names adjusted, unsung discoverers given long-belated credit for their work. Part of my enduring appreciation for science is its adaptability, its willingness to change as the situation requires.
(I feel it's appropriate to close this post by mentioning that I sit here writing this while munching Bjorn Qorn, grateful indeed for the riboflavin, niacin, and thiamine that make its nutritional yeast topping so delicious. B Vitamins are truly magic.)