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Humans can produce some vitamins from precursors they consume: for example, vitamin A is synthesized from beta carotene; and niacin is synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan. [54] Vitamin C can be synthesized by some species but not by others. Vitamin B 12 is the only vitamin or nutrient not available from plant sources.
Unlike the other twelve vitamins, vitamin D is only conditionally essential - in a preindustrial society people had adequate exposure to sunlight and the vitamin was a hormone, as the primary natural source of vitamin D was the synthesis of cholecalciferol in the lower layers of the skin’s epidermis, triggered by a photochemical reaction with ...
Humans can not synthesize all of these amino acids. Amino acid biosynthesis is the set of biochemical processes (metabolic pathways) by which the amino acids are produced. The substrates for these processes are various compounds in the organism's diet or growth media. Not all organisms are able to synthesize all amino acids.
(Many animal species can synthesize vitamin C, but humans cannot.) Certain vitamin-like compounds that are recommended in the diet, such as carnitine , are thought useful for survival and health, but these are not "essential" dietary nutrients because the human body has some capacity to produce them from other compounds.
The structure of vitamin B 12 was the first low-molecular weight natural product determined by x-ray analysis rather than by chemical degradation. Thus, while the structure of this novel type of complex biomolecule was established, its chemistry remained essentially unknown; exploration of this chemistry became one of the tasks of the vitamin's chemical synthesis.
A deficiency occurs if a person doesn't get enough vitamin D from sunlight or food, or if their body can't synthesize or absorb vitamin D properly due to an underlying condition or medication.
Mammals can only synthesize ten of the twenty standard amino acids. The other amino acids, valine , methionine , leucine , isoleucine , phenylalanine , lysine , threonine and tryptophan for adults and histidine , and arginine for babies are obtained through diet.
Vitamin K is a family of structurally similar, fat-soluble vitamers found in foods and marketed as dietary supplements. [1] The human body requires vitamin K for post-synthesis modification of certain proteins that are required for blood coagulation ("K" from Danish koagulation, for "coagulation") or for controlling binding of calcium in bones and other tissues. [2]