Hydrosoluble vitamins – basic info

These vitamins are B complex vitamins group(B₁,B₂,B₃,B₆,B₁₂) and ascorbic acid(vitamin C).

When concentration of these vitamins in serum overtakes value of saturation in tissues, they are excreted through urine. That is the reason why it is so necessary to enter these vitamins through food, even when for complete vitamin missing few months may be needed(ascorbic acid) or years(B₁₂). Excess of these vitamins is quickly urined out of organism, so they usually aren’t toxic, but there are data of unwished symptoms created by extreme high intake of niacine, ascorbic acid or pyridoxine.

 Hydrosoluble vitamins are very often found in food. Cereals, legumes, green leaves vegetables, meat and milk products are good sources of these vitamins, except of ascorbic acid and vitamine B₁₂. Ascorbic acid is found in fresh fruit and vegetables. Vitamine B₁₂ is synthetized by microorganisms, it is infiltrated into animal tissues, so it is found only in meat and milk products.

All hydrosoluble vitamins function like coenzymes or cofactors in enzyme reactions, with the exception of C vitamin. Roles of these vitamins are tightly mutually connected and few of them can have some function in same metabolic way or even in the same enzyme complex. Due to that, miss of one vitamine in nutrition can create negative influence to other vitamine usage or metabolism. So illnesses caused by missing of only one vitamine from this group are rare.

“Athletes’ nutrition”, Marina Djordjevic Nikic