Vitamins are organic compounds required in small amounts in the human diet. They are instrumental to the way in which the human body carries out the physiological functions that sustain life. Vitamins help the body make cofactors to interact with enzymes and carry out these important roles. Without essential vitamins and their related cofactors, we are prone to diseases, deficiencies and possible death.
Definition
A cofactor is a non-protein molecule that binds to a protein to galvanize its biological activity. An enzyme is a particular kind of protein that facilitates chemical reactions. Organic compounds that bind specifically to enzymes are known as coenzymes. Some enzymes require several coenzymes to function.
Function
Many of the vitamins we consume are used as precursors through which cofactors can be synthesized. This is especially true of the B vitamins, which are needed for the body's metabolism. For example, vitamin B1, or thiamin, is required for the formation of pyrophosphate, the cofactor of several enzymes in sugar metabolism and other essential pathways.
Significance
Vitamins are one of the few molecules that can be utilized by the body to help the enzymes carry out their functions, so we have come to rely heavily upon vitamins to sustain life. Part of it is simply due to the way in which vitamin cofactors naturally interact with proteins. All biosynthetic pathways are used to modify molecules into a final form that keeps the body functioning. The cofactor pyrophosphate, for example, is essential to the process of cellular respiration, because it helps modify and oxidize glucose to create a usable form of energy for the body. Vitamins, it turns out, are useful for producing these cofactors. But organisms have also come to rely upon vitamins out of evolutionary necessity.
History
According to a paper published in "The Royal Society of Chemistry," vitamins and cofactors are thought to be early products of evolution. Early life forms would presumably have found all of the necessary compounds in the environment. Later, organisms evolved in such a way to synthesize these compounds on their own. Modern day higher plants and many other organisms still can synthesize vitamins for cofactors. Though humans have gradually lost this ability --- vitamin D, formed when the skin is exposed to sunlight, is one of the few that we can still synthesize --- we consume all of the necessary vitamins in the diet. Vitamins proliferate through the food chain from the major producers so that we can directly use them.
Warning
Without vitamins to act as cofactors, major deficiencies will result in the body. A deficiency of vitamin B9, or folic acid, will cause growth failure and anemia. A deficiency of vitamin C results in scurvy, which causes spots on the skin, spongy gums and bleeding from the mucous membranes.
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