A New Vitamin

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 13, 3 July 1944, Page 32

A New Vitamin

In these days of restricted wartime diet vitamins have become of first-rate importance on the food front. Extensive publicity has made us familiar with vitamins A, B, C, and D. Science now presents another vitamin Vitamin H. Like vitamins already known, it is remarkable in being required only in minute quantities. Less than one-hundredth part of an ounce is sufficient for a man’s whole lifetime. Yet the symptoms of deficiency are alarming. In rats, prolonged lack of the vitamin results in emaciation and, finally, death. In man, deficiency is characterized by baldness, dermatitis, ashy pallor, lassitude, and muscular pain. All these symptoms disappear with spectacular speed on administration of the vitamin. The new vitamin is widely distributed, though in minute quantities, in both plants and animals. In animals it is apparently stored in the liver, just as vitamin D is stored in the liver of the cod. In plants it is found in yeast, grain, •and fresh vegetables. Vitamin His fairly resistant to cooking, but the best safeguard against deficiency is a diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables. Monthly Science News.