Abstract

                                Converging lines of research by nutritonists, chemists and clinicians lead to something entirely new in dietary requirements. Nutritional requirement had usually been in terms of whole complex compounds like the fats, carbohydrates or vitamins or in terins of simple elements like calcium, phosphorus etc. But for the first time and for probably the only unique instance of dietary requirement a group like the methyl group emerges out as an entity in Nutrition. Its discovery came about in the study of the diverse metabolic reactions of apparently totally unrelated compounds like casein, cysteine, methionine, choline, folic acid and recently Vitamin B12

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