Double blind study prevents researcher from having an

Double-blind study: prevents researcher from having an influence on the
subject (the way they are talking, giving the medication). Therefore, the
researcher giving does not know which is which that he is giving.
 Randomized: in a particular group, you have a larger number of smokers, this
will have an effect. You have to take only random people to cancel that effect.
 Meta-analysis: study of study
o Vitamin D and cancer: there is a reduction in cancer in different types of cancer.

Chemistry of food
Topic 2: Micronutrients and vitamins
Topic 2 – Lesson 1: Vitamins I
 Vitamins are nutrients needed in small amount to prevent deficiency diseases.
 A balanced diet contains all the vitamins in the required amounts.
 13 vitamins
o Fat soluble: A, D, E, K
 Can be poisonous if consumed in large amounts
o Water soluble: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12, C
o Vitamin B1: Thiamine - Vitamin B2: Riboflavin - Vitamin B3: Niacin - Vitamin
B5: Pantothenic Acid - Vitamin B6: Pyridoxine - Vitamin B7: Biotin - Vitamin
B9: Folic Acid (Folate) - Vitamin B12: Cobalamin (Cyanocobalamin)
o No continuity because some vitamins that we thought were, weren’t so removed = gap
 Vitamins are marketing tools (ex: cereals, vitamin water)
 Price-fixing suit of vitamins: over 1.5 billion $ (USA)
 China: vitamin C makers price-fixing suit
 Vitamin C is ascorbic acid
o Discovery voyages (15 th -17 th centuries): scurvy occurs, mouth bleeds, skin patches,
legs swollen, flesh of the gums fell out, etc.
o Jacques Cartier cured his men with pine needle suggested by Indigenous people (full
of vitamin C)
o Very present in cabbage
o James Lind (1753): recognized that scurvy could be prevented with the proper foods.
They found that lime especially prevented scurvy. At first, they thought it was the
acidity of the lime that cured scurvy. British sailors are called ‘limey’ because they
drank lime juice to prevent scurvy.
o In 1927, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi found vitamin C as the active ingredient in lime (Nobel
Prize Medicine in 1937) to prevent scurvy
 Beri-Beri appeared in South-East Asia (Indonesia): ‘I can’t, I can’t. People have trouble with
their limbs.
o Christian Eijkman (1880s): people switched from brown rice to white rice (taste and
preservation). Both the people and the chicken were fed with rice. By improving the
quality of the rice (turning it white), it removed an important nutrient that prevents the
disease. He received the Noble Prize of Medicine in 1929. Very much later, we found
that this active ingredient was vitamin B (thiamine). It was found in the 1930s. It took
some time to isolate this molecule.
 Rickets: caused by a lack of vitamin D. Affected people who moved from rural to city and
received more light (inside the factory, than outside in the sun). Vitamin D is present in
certain oils (cod liver oil was given to prevent this).