Analgesic and antiinflammatory properties of vitamins.

A number of various mechanisms are prone to develop pain symptomatology. Among them infection, inflammation, degeneration, metabolic deviations, and traumas may be at the origin of complex reactions currently gathered under the terminology "rheumatism." For some time now, practitioners have introduced vitamins in the array of their antalgic supply; these were mainly vitamins of the B-group. Meanwhile research has enlarged knowledge about the oxidative mechanisms that are at the origin of inflammation, and has suggested the use of antioxidant substances, among them 9 vitamins. Finally, most of the antalgic drugs used for relief of pains have prooxidative effects, which in turn should be controlled by antioxidant substances. These different interrelations are discussed within the limits of the field of vitamins.