VITAMINS TO ORDER

Hokitika Guardian, 10 April 1928, Page 4

VITAMINS TO ORDER

LONDON, Feb. 1. British laboratories are now many moves ahead of the foreign .so far as food research is concerned. This was the opinion yesterday ol eminent medical men who were asked to comment on the statement of Air A. AT. Samuel. Financial .Secretary to the Treasury, that “Britain now leads tho world in bio-chemical products.”

Medical experts showed that so far as the vitamin and its secrets are concerned the eyes of the world wc re upon British laboratories. Almost recently, for instance:—

“British scientists have prepared a substance called “ergosterol.” existent in certain foodstuffs and parts of the human Isidy, which when acted upon by ultra-violet rays produces the invaluable “Vitamin D.”

“The ergosterol is produced from ergot, which grows on rye. Investigations in another laboratory into the vitamin properties of cereals generally has yielded rich supplies of Vitamin B. with the strong probability that Vitamin D is contained in the same resulting substance.” Air A. AI. Samuel said A’itamin D—a remedy for rickets—was on the market now in popular form, and was available to manufacturers of margarine to bring their product up to the standard of butter. He might have called it “boxed sunshine,” for the medical opinion generally expressed was that, used in margarine. it would provide what was lacking in winter, butter and milk—the products of cows no longer feeding on sunkissecl grass, but on hard c-owenke. A’itamin B. as Sir AVilliam Arbutlinot Lane has shown keens up the resistance to influenza and other infections, and is in that part of the grain which is rejected by people who eat white bread instead of wholemeal. Some of the most valuable research work is being done by qualified doctors on behalf of private food manufacturers.