Vitamins in "malattie evolutive".

Vitamins are playing an increasingly important role in "malattie evolutive", both in the newer sense meaning diseases connected with general development and in the original sense of progressive diseases. Examples of the preventive use of vitamins in certain development phases are the prophylactic administration of vitamin E in premature and new-born babies as protection against retrolental fibroplasia, vitamin K against haemorrhage and vitamin D against bone deformation. Deficient ossification in osteogenesis imperfecta can be prevented by high doses of vitamin C. Recently, greater medical interest has centred around the preventive use of high vitamin dosage in "malattie evolutive" in the original sense. Here, the main interest has been in vitamins E and C which, as recent investigations show, are capable of retarding or preventing deleterious cardiovascular or oncological diseases.