Vitamin requirements: Relationship to basal metabolic need and functions

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Abstract
The dietary requirements for most water‐soluble vitamins in homeothermic animals, particularly vitamins utilized in energy‐related pathways, are related directly to metabolic rate. As a consequence, vitamin requirements are similar when expressed relative to empirical functions of metabolic body size, e.g. (Wtkg)3/4 or body surface area. The vitamin requirements for a range of animals are expressed relative to their corresponding rates of basal metabolism. Data for the rates of ascorbic acid production and turnover in animals that produce ascorbic acid are also compared with the ascorbic acid requirements and turnover in humans and guinea pigs, species that require ascorbic acid as a dietary essential. Factors that are most important in dictating the relative need for a given vitamin from a chemical perspective include chemical stability, the relative number of catalytic events that are involved in the process, the nature of the interactions with associated enzymes, and the presence or absence of pathways for partial synthesis or regeneration of the given vitamin. Vitamins that are required daily in millimolar amounts are usually less stable chemically, are involved in numerous reactions, and often exist in tissues as dissociable cofactors. In contrast, vitamins that are required daily in micromolar amounts are involved in fewer reactions and are often covalently bound to the proteins or enzymes for which they serve as cofactors. Development of the preceding concepts allows linkages of relative vitamin requirements to energy utilization and related biochemical and oxidative processes, which can aid in developing a better understanding of the integrative nature of nutritional and biochemical relationships.

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