Vitamin C been observed that while serum or blood plasma concentrations follow a circadian rhythm or reflect short-term dietary impact, content within tissues is more stable and can give a better view of the availability of ascorbate within the entire organism. However, very few hospital laboratories are adequately equipped and trained to carry out such detailed analyses. The vast majority of animals and plants are able to synthesize vitamin C, through a sequence of enzyme-driven steps, which convert monosaccharides to vitamin C. Yeasts do not make -ascorbic acid but rather its stereoisomer, erythorbic acid In plants, this is accomplished through the conversion
Chemistry of ascorbic acid from animal adrenal glands. In 1932 Charles Glen King confirmed that it was indeed the antiscorbutic factor. In 1933, sugar chemist Walter Norman Haworth, working with samples of "hexuronic acid" that Szent-Györgyi had isolated from paprika and sent him in the previous year, deduced the correct structure and optical-isomeric nature of the compound, and in 1934 reported its first synthesis. In reference to the compound's antiscorbutic properties, Haworth and Szent-Györgyi proposed to rename it "a-scorbic acid" for the compound, and later specifically -ascorbic acid. Because of their work, in 1937 the Nobel Prizes for chemistry and medicine were awarded to