Former and Vitamin-Like Compounds
The Pages (7)
Former Vitamins
Every retired vitamin name, from B4 to B17 and F to U, and what each substance really is.
Read the deep dive →Inositol
Former vitamin B8, a pseudovitamin studied for mood and PCOS.
Read the deep dive →Choline
Former vitamin B4, now an essential nutrient for brain, liver and methylation, and widely under-consumed.
Read the deep dive →PABA
Once sold as vitamin B10; not a vitamin, best known from the history of sunscreen.
Read the deep dive →Laetrile
Sold as “vitamin B17”: not a vitamin, not a proven cancer treatment, and a cyanide poisoning risk.
Read the deep dive →Orotic Acid
Former vitamin B13: a building block the body makes on the way to DNA and RNA.
Read the deep dive →Pangamic Acid
Sold as “vitamin B15”: not a vitamin, and with no fixed chemical identity.
Read the deep dive →Compounds sold as vitamins that are not. Some were given a B number and lost it (PABA as B10, orotic acid as B13, pangamic acid as B15), one never had a legitimate claim to the B17 it is still marketed under (laetrile), and two are genuinely important nutrients that simply are not vitamins — choline, which is essential, and inositol, which the body makes. The pages say which is which.