Thiamine

Use of polished rice as a dietary staple has long been known to lead to the development of a disease known as beriberi, which was first described as affecting Japanese sailors as well as prisoners in the Dutch East Indies. Signs of beriberi include paralysis due to polyneuritis and congestive heart failure. Christian Eijkman, a medical officer in Java, was the first to show (1890) that a paralytic illness resembling beriberi could be produced in chickens by feeding them polished rice (Jansen 1950). He, and his successor Gerrit Grijns, also demonstrated that the polyneuritis of beriberi could be cured by feeding rice bran.

In 1912, Funk extracted a substance from rice bran that he believed was the anti-beriberi substance and that he characterized chemically as being an amine. He then coined the term “vitamine” as a contraction of “vital amine.” With the discovery of other organic compounds that were “vital” but not amines, the term “vitamin” was used instead. The anti-beriberi vitamin was named thiamine. The biologically active coenzyme form of thiamine is required for the oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvic acid. Thiamine is also required in the metabolism of glucose and many other enzyme-catalyzed reactions.

It has been shown that alcoholics may develop an acute thiamine deficiency if they drink heavily and concurrently go without food. Their condition of acute thiamine deficiency, which is manifested by a confu-sional state and paralysis of certain eye muscles, is designated as Wernicke’s encephalopathy. It responds to high doses of intravenously administered thiamine. If this confusional state is not recognized and treated with thiamine, a chronic organic brain disorder develops, associated with dementia. Those who have this disorder may require institutionalization. Korsakoff ’s psychosis is believed to be a chronic form of Wernicke’s encephalopathy, and the health costs of caring for persons with this disease have led to the fortification of beers with thiamine in an experimental public health intervention in Australia (Yellowlees 1986).