Vitamins

Vitamins are organic molecules that are required by living organisms in minute amounts for proper growth. 

Vitamins are either soluble in water or fat soluble. Water soluble vitamins dissolve in water and are absorbed by living organisms. Fat soluble vitamins are only absorbed in the intestinal tract with the help of digestive juices like lipids.

An organism obtains their source of vitamins mostly via their diet. Vitamin A is produced from beta carotene, and Vitamin D is produced through the exposure of skin to ultraviolet rays.

The term vitamin was coined by a biochemist Casimir Funk from Poland in 1912. The term was deprived from Latin, where Vita- is life; and -amin is amine in short, which was widely known at that time as vitamins. Thus the term vitamin is coined.