Die biologische Bedeutung der Vitamine

Summary The vital importance of the vitamins resides in theircoferment function, which enables them to catalyse enzymatic processes in living tissues. The term coferment is used in this connection to designate organic compounds of relatively low molecular weight, which in conjunction with the specific proteinous apoferments bring about the transformation of definite substrates. The vitamins are, however, catabolized like ordinary substrates when they come into contact with enzymatic systems in which they have no coferment function. This explains why normal life cannot be sustained, if the living organisms do not receive asnutritional factors the vitamins which they cannot synthesize. From a biochemical point of view not only exogenous hypo- or avitaminoses but all pathological changes may be regarded as the sequelae of disturbances in one or several enzymatic systems. The vitamins may exert a regulating influence also in these enzymatic disturbances which are not directly caused by vitamin deficiency. In such cases they will act asrèmedies.