for something so important to the body, why does our bodily unable to produce its own vitamins?

Question

for something so important to the body, why does our bodily unable to produce its own vitamins?

In: 0

Answer 1

It is because of the process of “specialization”.

Basically, humans’ evolutionary ancestors stumbled upon a situation where their cells didn’t need to make *everything* themselves because it was easier to get those resources by eating them… until eventually they came to rely on an ecosystem of many many situations like that.

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Think about having a typical “desk job” at some big corporation somewhere. Maybe you need a car to get to work, and a computer to read emails, and a telephone to make calls, and some clothing to wear, and some food to eat, etc. Those things are probably all pretty important and necessary… but just imagine for a second that you couldn’t just *buy* those things somewhere, but had to make them “from scratch”.

First you’d need food. So, you’d have to know how to farm, and be good at it enough to survive.

Then you’d need clothes. So you’d have to know how to make thread, and weave cloth, and sew clothes.

Then you’d have to know how to mine metals, and forge steel, and machine things, and assemble things.

Then you’d have to learn how dig up oil, and refine it into plastics, and make injection molds.

Then you’d have to know about semiconductor materials, and manufacture silicon wafers, and do photolithography.

And if you learned how to do all of those things so well and so fast, you might one day eventually be able to get to your desk job of making calls and reading emails.

…but that’d be really really really complicated.

Instead, some people specialize in farming. They do it really well, and don’t bother with the other skills so long as doing “their job well enough” means that they are able to buy the other things they need from a store elsewhere.

And some people just make thread, and others just weave, and others just sew. They do it really well, and are able to buy the other things they need from stores elsewhere.

And some people mine, and some people do metallurgy, and some people drill oil wells, and make silicon wafers, and do this, and do that, and yada yada, etc. They do it really well, and are able to buy the other things they need from a store elsewhere.

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Nature is kinda like that too. (Except a bit more harsh in that critters are eating other critters are eating plants, etc.)

We don’t have to make Vitamin-A “from scratch” because it has just been so much easier to go eat some carrots or whatever, and that gave our evolutionary ancestors more opportunities to specialize in other areas.