Deficiency Diseases and Good Nutrition
Vitamin B1 (thiamin)
Vitamin B1 is a vital coenzyme in changing fats, carbohydrates, and proteins into energy your body can use. It mainly deals with carbohydrates though. Your body has what is called a Krebs cycle, which is how glucose (smallest component of a carbohydrate) is formed into energy. The Krebs cycle takes place inside living cells. It is a series of reactions that take place. There are a number of enzymes that are vital to the Krebs cycle, which cannot be stimulated without B1. So, without B1, you could not use your food to make energy and would shortly die.
C12H17CIN4OS Because B1 is so involved in the energy retrieving process, the RDA is set according to how much you eat. Children and adults should be eating 0.5 mg of B1 for every 1000 kcal, and a minimum of 1 mg every day no matter how many calories you are eating. If you are pregnant you should eat an additional 0.4 mg/day, and if you are nursing, an extra 0.5 mg/day. The average adult eats 0.68 or 0.69 mg/1000 kcal, and the average child, 0.79 mg/1000 kcal. So, you probably don't have to worry about getting a deficiency in thiamin. You might have to eat more B1 if you are elderly, under stress, a heavy drinker, or an athlete. You should also keep in mind that everybody needs different amounts of each vitamin and mineral. What is enough for one person might not be for another.
Foods High in Vitamin B1 Brewer's yeast, 1 Tbls. 1.25 mg Sunflower seeds, shelled, 1/4 cup 0.83 mg Pork chop, lean, 2 oz. 0.75 mg Ham, lean, 3 oz. 0.58 mg Malt-o-meal, 1 cup 0.48 mg Peanuts, roasted, shelled, 1/2 cup 0.48 mg Wheat germ raw, 1/4 cup 0.47 mg Beans, baked, 1 cup 0.34 mg Pasta, cooked, 1 cup 0.30 mg Orange juice, 1 cup 0.28 mg Salmon, baked, 2 oz. 0.18 mg Bread, white, 1 slice 0.10 mg Hamburger, lean, 3 oz. 0.05 mg Egg, 1 0.03 mgThiamin deficiencies are very rare in the U.S. nowadays. Deficiencies are really only found in alcoholics. There was a time, though, when this deficiency was a big problem. In the 17th century, the Dutch colonists took over the island of Java. Not very long after this, a huge wave of beriberi overtook the island. Beriberi makes your body tissues swell and your ankles pit. It enlarges your heart causing painful palpitations, causes limb paralysis, weakening of the stomach and intestinal muscles, and neurological changes. The disease only afflicted the Dutch, the Javanese living like the Dutch, and a few thousand Javanese prisoners in the Dutch prison. The scientists of the time all had different ideas as to what caused the disease. Some thought beriberi was caused by some kind of fungus, while other scientists thought it was caused by the damp air, and some even though it came from eating fish. They were all wrong, though. Chritiaan Eijkman came along many years later with his own hypothesis that beriberi was caused by a newly discovered organism called the "germ". He spent years injecting chickens with blood from beriberi victims. Of course none of the chickens got beriberi. One day Eijkman walked into his backyard and found all the chickens had come down with beriberi, even the ones not injected with the contaminated blood. What actually happened was the chicken feed ran out and the houseboy had been feeding the chickens leftovers from Eijkman's table! The chicken feed had "unfit" brown rice in it, which contained plenty of B1. The Dutch ate mainly white rice, which had all the B1 polished off, along with the brown covering. The Javanese knew all along that if you ate white rice you would get sick. Thousands of Dutch men, women, and children died each year from this horrible deficiency, and the cure was right under their noses. Chritiaan Eijkman published his findings in 1890, but he was not taken seriously. Other scientists could not believe that nice white fluffy rice would cause such a disfiguring disease.
Later, in 1911, Casimir Funk read Eijkman's work and decided to look into it. He took almost a ton of brown rice, gathered the polishings, and concentrated it until he had 6 oz. of chemical. That chemical was what we now call vitamin B1. He called it "vitamine", vita meaning life, and amine being the name for a nitrogen and hydrogen compound. He was wrong about the amine part, as not all vitamins have the nitrogen and hydrogen compound. The name "vitamin" stuck, though, minus the "e" on the end. Anyway, Casimir Funk sold his new 'vitamine' and made a lot of money, which is how the vitamin business got started.
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Revised: 14 Sep 99