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For most of human history, people understood—intuitively and through experience—that food could heal, strengthen, or harm. Long before anyone spoke of “nutrients,” communities knew that certain foods restored energy, prevented illness, or helped children grow. Yet the scientific explanation behind these effects remained a mystery until surprisingly recently. The story of why vitamins carry letters rather than poetic names is, in many ways, the story of modern nutrition itself.
When Food Became Chemistry
By the late 19th century, scientists had already identified proteins, fats, and carbohydrates as the major building blocks of food. But these macronutrients couldn’t explain everything. Why did sailors develop scurvy on long voyages? Why did polished rice cause paralysis in some populations? Why did children in northern Europe suffer from rickets during winter?
Researchers began to suspect that food contained additional, invisible substances essential for health—substances present only in tiny amounts, yet powerful enough to prevent disease.
The Breakthrough of the Early 1900s
The turning point came in the early 20th century, when scientists finally isolated these mysterious compounds. Polish biochemist Casimir Funk played a pivotal role. In 1912, he proposed the term “vitamine”—a blend of vita (Latin for “life”) and amine (a type of chemical compound he believed these substances belonged to). Although not all vitamins are amines, the name stuck, minus the final “e.”
As more of these life‑preserving compounds were discovered, researchers needed a simple, systematic way to classify them. Instead of naming each substance after its discoverer or its chemical structure—both common scientific traditions—they opted for something more accessible: letters of the alphabet.
Why Letters?
The alphabetical system emerged for three key reasons:
- Neutrality and simplicity Early researchers didn’t yet know the chemical structures of these compounds. Letters offered a neutral placeholder that didn’t assume too much.
- Flexibility As new vitamins were discovered, they could be slotted into the sequence—A, B, C, D, and so on.
- Grouping related compounds Some vitamins turned out to be families rather than single substances. The B vitamins, for example, include B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, and others. Numbers allowed scientists to distinguish between related but distinct nutrients.
Interestingly, not all letters survived. Some early “vitamins” were later found not to be essential, so their letters were retired. That’s why there’s no vitamin F or vitamin H in the modern sense, even though those labels once existed.
From Alphabet Soup to Biochemical Precision
As chemistry advanced, each vitamin eventually received a full scientific name—retinol, ascorbic acid, cholecalciferol, tocopherol. But by then, the public had already embraced the alphabet. Vitamin C is far easier to remember than “ascorbic acid,” and vitamin D rolls off the tongue more smoothly than “calciferol.”
The alphabetical names also helped shape public health campaigns. Posters urging people to drink milk for vitamin D or eat citrus for vitamin C were far more effective than chemical jargon.
A Legacy That Lives On
Today, vitamins are among the most recognizable nutrients in the world. Their lettered names—simple, universal, and intuitive—reflect a moment in scientific history when researchers were racing to understand the invisible forces that keep us alive.
The alphabet may seem like an odd naming system for molecules, but it captures the spirit of discovery that defined early nutrition science: a blend of curiosity, urgency, and the desire to make complex knowledge accessible to everyone.
- Hector Pascua/picture: pixabay.com
