Pyridoxine (Vitamin B6) was discovered in the 1930s as the result of a series of nutritional investigations of rats fed vitamin-free diets. The original compound that was isolated is pyridoxine, named due to its structural similarity with pyridine, but possessing an additional hydroxymethyl group in the para position. In the body, however, the parahydroxymethyl moiety is oxidized to an aldehyde and the similar group in the meta position is phosphorylated, resulting in the biologically active pyridoxal phosphate.

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