Article: Vitamins are simple, important molecules

HowStuffWorks.com

Every day of your life, chances are, you think about vitamins. You read about vitamin content on the nutritional label of every food you eat. Breakfast cereals and many drinks talk about vitamins right on the label. There are all the TV and radio spots advertising vitamins. You may even take a vitamin pill when you wake up.

It all begs the question: what, exactly, is a vitamin? Vitamin C, for example: What is it? And why do you need to "take" vitamin C every day?

A vitamin is a small molecule that your body must have in order to carry out a certain chemical reaction. In some cases, your body has no way to create vitamin molecules itself, so the vitamins must come in through ...

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