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Vitamins: An Evolutionary Perspective

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Abstract

Access to vitamins and the genetic endowment to utilize them maintain vitamin-dependent metabolic homeostasis in heterotrophs. Whereas the extent of adverse nutritional experiences has declined in modern human societies, phenocopies of deficiency diseases persist; accordingly, they have high heritability. The “vitamin-responsive hereditary metabolic diseases” identify DNA that specifies conserved apoenzyme domains interacting with coenzyme and the cellular processes providing access to coenzymes. Could heterozygosity at those loci also be a determinant of disease (or health) under certain circumstances?

This is publication No. 85009 from the McGill University-Montreal Children’s Hospital Research Institute

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G. M. Addison K. Bartlett R. A. Harkness R. J. Pollitt

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© 1985 SSIEM and MTP Press Limited

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Scriver, C.R. (1985). Vitamins: An Evolutionary Perspective. In: Addison, G.M., Bartlett, K., Harkness, R.A., Pollitt, R.J. (eds) Inherited Disorders of Vitamins and Cofactors. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8019-1_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8019-1_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-011-8021-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-8019-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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