Vitamin C Szent-Györgyi was awarded the 1937 Nobel Prize in Medicine, and Haworth shared that year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1957, J.J. Burns showed that some mammals are susceptible to scurvy as their liver does not produce the enzyme -gulonolactone oxidase, the last of the chain of four enzymes that synthesize vitamin C. American biochemist Irwin Stone was the first to exploit vitamin C for its food preservative properties. He later developed the theory that humans possess a mutated form of the -gulonolactone oxidase coding gene. In 2008, researchers at the University of Montpellier discovered that in humans and other primates
Vitamin deficiency Vitamin deficiency A vitamin deficiency can cause a disease or syndrome known as an avitaminosis or hypovitaminosis. This usually refers to a long-term deficiency of a vitamin. When caused by inadequate nutrition it can be classed as a "primary deficiency", and when due to an underlying disorder such as malabsorption it can be classed as a "secondary deficiency". An underlying disorder may be metabolic as in a defect converting tryptophan to niacin. It can also be the result of lifestyle choices including smoking and alcohol consumption. Examples are vitamin A deficiency, folate deficiency, scurvy, vitamin D deficiency, vitamin E deficiency,