– Why are there so many B vitamins but not multiple of other letters. What’s the difference between them all?

Question

I’m eating cereal right now and it says it’s a good source of 5 B vitamins. You always see Vit B6 or B12. What are all these vitamins and why is there only one A or C vitamin?

In: 3269

Answer 1

In addition to what’s already been mentioned, there actually are numbers assigned to other families of vitamins. For example, there’s vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol), as well as K1 (phylloquinone) and K2 (menaquinone). However, in those cases, they’re very closely related chemically and serve similar biological functions, whereas the B vitamins are very different.