Our body is made up of many different compounds. We need vitamins and minerals to function, some in large amounts and some in small. The reason we might need them varies, and in the case of micronutrients, we need them in small quantities mostly because our body cannot normally produce them by itself. 

What are they?

The vitamins and minerals needed by our body to function in day-to-day activities are called micronutrients. They are needed in small amounts, however their presence is critical to the functioning of many systems in our body. 

For example, in times when pirates used to sail the seas, scurvy was a prevalent disease in them, (and, in fact, in many sailors who stayed far from land) because of the lack of vitamin C in their diet. Scurvy showed symptoms after a month, including sailor’s teeth falling out, joint swelling up, and delirium. This is because the collagen in their body could not be replaced, which is a protein that is essential for our body structure - around 30% of our body is made of collagen. Another interesting thing to note is that all of our old scars would start opening up if we had scurvy, because the collagen holding them together would degrade. Thankfully in the modern world, we have many sources of vitamin C, so scurvy is very rare. Symptoms only begin to show after a month, so drink some lime juice or eat some oranges!

They are classed into two categories - vitamins and minerals. Vitamins are the organic compounds that are produced by plants, animals or microorganisms which can be broken down by our body. Minerals, on the other hand, are inorganic substances, cannot be broken down further, and usually are present in the soil or water. 

Now that we know what micronutrients are, we can discuss some of them and why they are important to us. 

Why do we need them?

The answer is simple! To keep our body working optimally, we need to include them in our diet. They serve a few important functions in our body. A few examples are vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium, and zinc which all play an important role in the functioning of the immune system, although in multivitamins, might exceed the daily recommended dosage. 

Vitamin A helps to form healthy skin and maintain our teeth, also helping out our musculo-skeletal system. It is commonly called retinol, since it makes up the majority of the pigment in the eye. Deficiency of vitamin A can cause night blindness in people. 

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that has been shown to keep the calcium and electrolyte level in our muscles stable, so as to not cause involuntary muscle spasms. It can also be synthesized or created by our own body using sunlight! 

A brief history

For a long time, the existence of vitamins and minerals were debated. Using the example of scurvy, it was discovered that hexuronic acid (vitamin C) deficiency was causing scurvy only in 1753 by James Lind, in his book “A Treatise of the Scurvy”. In fact, when the British figured out that vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy, they started storing citrus fruits on board. The American sailors, not believing that vitamin C deficiency caused scurvy, called them “limeys”.

Vitamin A was discovered in the year 1913 by the English biochemist Frederick Gowland Hopkins, and was the first vitamin to be discovered. He won a Nobel Prize in 1929 for this discovery. After it was discovered, more scientists began to observe these compounds present in organisms, that were neither fat nor protein, but were needed to sustain a certain quality of life - that were only required in small quantities. These compounds came to be known as micronutrients, and the discover of many vitamins and their functions in our body has helped to better nutrition throughout the world and prevent deficiency diseases such as beri-beri (caused by vitamin B1 deficiency), pellagra (caused by vitamin B3 deficiency) and scurvy (caused by vitamin C deficiency). 

Through centuries of trial and error, we have figured out the workings of the micronutrients in our body and although we know the cure for deficiency diseases, they continue to be common in many developing parts of the world.