All About Vitamin B Complex (B1 to B12)

Early Observations – Beriberi and Diet

• Late 19th century (1897):
  Christiaan Eijkman, a Dutch physician, was studying beriberi, a disease causing weakness, nerve damage, and heart problems, in people eating polished rice in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).
• Eijkman observed that people eating unpolished (brown) rice did not develop beriberi, while those eating white polished rice did.
• Conclusion: Some essential nutrient in rice husk (later found to be Vitamin B1 / Thiamine) prevents beriberi.
• This was the first clue that diet contained unknown vital substances necessary for life.

Coining the Term “Vitamin

• 1912: Casimir Funk, a Polish biochemist, isolated a substance from rice bran that could prevent beriberi.
• He called it “Vitamin” (from Vital + Amine) because it was essential for life and he believed it was an amine compound.
• Initially, scientists thought Vitamin B was a single vitamin.

Realization of Vitamin B as a Complex

• During the 1920s–1930s, researchers realized that:
  
  • Some deficiency diseases, like pellagra (niacin deficiency) and anemia (B12/folate deficiency), could not be explained by a single vitamin.
  • Multiple substances in foods contributed to health and prevented different deficiency diseases.
• This led to the concept of Vitamin B Complex, a group of water-soluble vitamins each with unique functions.