Posts Tagged ‘water soluble vitamin’
Vitamin C – Ascorbic Acid
Ascorbic acid, or Vitamin C is a water soluble vitamin, related chemically to glucose, which is only a vitamin for humans, higher primates, guinea pig, some fruit bats and some birds. The vast majority of animals, including farm, they can synthesize it, so do not accumulate in your body (or, possibly, secreted in milk). This has the effect that food animals are generally poor in this vitamin.
Ascorbic acid has a lactone structure. The acidity is not due to a carboxylic group, but the possibility to ionize the hydroxyl located on carbon 3, forming an anion that is stabilized by resonance. Its pKa is 4.04. Eventually, it may even dissociate the hydroxyl located at carbon 2, forming a dianion, although its pK is much higher (11.4), because it is not stabilized by resonance, such as carbon 3.
Ascorbic acid deficiency causes a disease called scurvy, resulting in damages related to the synthesis of collagen, since ascorbic acid is an essential cofactor in this process. The clinical consequences ranging from weak to bleeding gums spread throughout the body.
Thiamine
Thiamine or vitamin B1 is a water soluble vitamin found in foods such as cereals, legumes, nuts, and meats. Vitamin B1 deficiency causes beriberi and, during pregnancy and other diseases can cause peripheral neuritis. Besides, being used to prevent deficiency states, thiamine is beneficial in the treatment of certain metabolic disorders associated with acute necrotizing encephalomyopathy, the aminoacidopathies of the BCAAs or lactic acidosis associated with deficiency of pyruvate carboxylase.
Mechanism of action: Thiamine combines with adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the liver, kidneys and leukocytes to form thiamin diphosphate. The DIPHOSPHATE thiamine acts as a coenzyme in the metabolism of carbohydrates, transcetolación reactions and the use of hexose. Without some adequate amounts of thiamine, pyruvic acid is incapable of becoming acetyl-CoA and therefore it can not enter the Krebs cycle. The accumulation of pyruvic acid in blood and its conversion into lactic acid has responsible for lactic acidosis that develops in vitamin B1 deficiency. Vitamin B1 is also expressed as a nonspecific syndrome characterized by malaise, headache, myalgia and nausea, and cardiac mafinestaciones (peripheral vasodilation, edema and ventricular failure) and neurologic (neuropathy, ataxia, retrograde amnesia, poor concentration, etc). Read the rest of this entry »