Following introductory chapters on historical and nutritional aspects of vitamins, the next four chapters cover relevant and detailed aspects of physiology and functional anatomy, biochemistry, immunology and the regulation of protein synthesis by nuclear hormone receptors. These background chapters, supported by a glossary of terms, provide the scientific principles upon which vitamin functions are based. The following thirteen chapters deal with each vitamin in turn. Subject areas include chemical structure, intestinal absorption, transport, metabolism, biochemical and physiological actions, immunoregulatory properties, deficiency-related diseases and potential toxicity. An extensive bibliography refers the reader to the original research literature.