Vitamins include a wide range of biochemical compounds, very different
from each other, whose presence is essential for the wellness and health of a human
organism, given their importance in many enzymatic pathways of cell and tissue
biology. However, the body cannot produce them. For that reason, their intake must be
granted by a rich and highly differentiated diet which should include large amount of
fresh vegetables and fruits, but also meats, wheat and natural vegetable oils from
different seeds. During the years, every vitamin has been identified and produced
synthetically, so allowing to treat pharmacologically the diseases related to their
deficiency. The large amount of vitamin derivatives has led to development strategies
of food fortification enriching common aliments and dairy products with specific
vitamins but also to discover particular vitamin derived drugs, whose properties recall
the original vitamin, allowing to increase their therapeutic effects or decrease the
potential vitamin toxicity or their use through topical or mucosal routes even. Because
of the antioxidant properties of some vitamins as vitamin C, for instance, some
vitamins have been developed as food preservatives or food dyes. The increased
attention and fashion for body wellness has brought to an augmented consumption of
multivitamin, above all, in Western societies, believing that consumption of vitamin
megadoses could be a protective factor from degenerative disease. On the contrary,
vitamins may induce toxic effects as hypervitaminosis, but also, more rarely,
hypersensitivity reaction.
Keywords: Allergy, Cosmetics, Fat-Soluble Vitamins, Food Excipients, Food
Fortification, Hydrosoluble Vitamins, Hypersensitivity, Hypervitaminosis,
Multivitamins, Vitamers, Vitamins, Vitamin Deficiency, Vitamin Toxicity.