Meanwhile, it turned out that Funk’s vitamines were not nearly as coherent a group as originally thought. Vitamin B proved to be not one vitamin but several, which is why we have B1, B2, and so on. To add to the confusion, vitamin K has nothing to do with an alphabetical sequence. It was called K because its Danish discoverer, Henrik Dam, dubbed it Koagulations vitamin for its role in blood clotting. Later, folic acid (sometimes called vitamin B9) was added to the group. Two other vitamins—pantothenic acid and biotin—don’t have numbers or, come to that, much profile, but that is largely
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