TAKE-BERI- a disease resulting from a lack of vitamin B1. Beriberi is observed when eating mainly peeled rice and finely ground flour products that do not contain vitamin B1. The word "beri-beri" means "great weakness" in Sinhala. This disease was known in ancient China 2000 BC, but real reasons the diseases were established by the Dutch scientist H. Eijkman only in 1897. Working in Batavia (Jakarta), he conducted experiments on chickens that became ill with beriberi from feeding boiled hulled rice and were cured when rice bran was introduced into their diet. It was subsequently discovered that the healing agent in rice bran was vitamin B1.
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Vitamin deficiency occurs when the diet is insufficient or insufficient in essential vitamins. Inadequate levels of vitamins can lead to many miserable conditions and make the body weak and vulnerable to many diseases. Vitamin deficiency can be divided into two types.
How does hypovitaminosis differ from vitamin deficiency?
The main disadvantage is that insufficient intake of the vitamin causes a person to become deficient. This is because you are not getting the required levels of the vitamin from your diet, and this type is essential; it can be easily cured by taking a special vitamin diet or taking vitamin supplements.
The daily requirement of an adult for B1 is 2-2.5 mg, depending on the intensity of his work, and for a child - 0.5-2 mg, depending on age. In the absence of this vitamin, the carbohydrate balance in the body is disturbed and the most important intermediate metabolic product, pyruvic acid, accumulates. This leads to nervous, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disorders and swelling. Nervous disorders (polyneuritis) cause the patient’s characteristic gait (when walking, a person tries to step on the toes and the outer edge of the foot, sparing the heel). In the Hindustani language, the word “beriberi” is translated as “sheep” and is associated with the similarity of the movements of this animal and the characteristics of the patient’s gait. As the disease progresses, crutches become necessary. Cardiovascular disorders are expressed in an increase in heart size and increased heart rate. From gastrointestinal disorders constipation and loss of appetite are observed.
Common Causes of Vitamin Deficiency
When a deficiency occurs as a result of a disease or lifestyle factor, it is called a secondary deficiency. This deficiency can affect calcium absorption, which is essential for healthy bones. Vitamin deficiency disorders are uncommon in developed countries due to adequate nutrition. However, there are other factors that can lead to these conditions.
Vitamin deficiency can lead to serious illnesses
Anticonvulsants may reduce absorption folic acid, and drugs such as methotrexate and sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim may affect folic acid metabolism.
- Alcohol consumption affects folic acid levels.
- Medicines can also cause vitamin deficiency.
To prevent beriberi, the diet should not contain more than one third of foods lacking vitamin B1 - products made from premium white wheat flour, sugar. Richest in vitamin B1 Rye bread, wheat from wholemeal flour, some cereals (buckwheat, oatmeal, barley).
The first disease that was directly related to vitamin deficiency was scurvy. Scurvy is characterized by general malaise and lethargy, progressing to patchy skin, loss of teeth, bleeding and swollen gums. Slow wound healing and general weakness are also regular symptoms. If left untreated, scurvy can be fatal.
His recommendation has been proven as fact in Today, vitamin C is used to correct the deficiency leading to scurvy throughout the world. Rickets is not a common disease in the United States. Children between 6 months and two years of age are more prone to this condition if they are breastfed only by their mothers. It is characterized by disorders of the nerve, heart and brain. Beriberi symptoms include: numbness and tingling in the arms and legs, memory loss, breathing problems, possible paralysis, trouble speaking, confusion and depression.
The achievements of civilization are not always useful for humanity. Production of food on an industrial scale, processing of natural products to the stage of easily digestible (semi-finished products). It has a very detrimental effect on health, and this is what this article is about.
At the end of the distant 19th century, the countries of Indonesia and Japan were engulfed by a terrible disease that developed at lightning speed, affecting the cardiovascular and nervous system, and if measures were not taken in time, it could quickly lead to death.
A person who develops Pellagra also likely has constipation, diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. In this condition, the mouth and tongue become red, swollen and develop ulcers. This disease may be caused by malnutrition or over-dependence on a particular type of food or drink, such as corn or wine.
Vitamin deficiency can range from mild to fatal. It's always the best option to enable normal mode healthy eating to avoid deficiencies of any of the essential vitamins. Make sure you get enough of them and look for supplements if your levels do not improve with your planned diet. General symptoms include loss of appetite and general fatigue, digestive problems and a feeling of numbness and weakness in the limbs and limbs. In a form known as, there is a gradual degeneration of the long nerves, first of the legs and then of the arms, with associated muscle atrophy and loss of reflexes.
Bacteriologists tried to find the causative agent of the disease, but the cause of the beriberi disease was discovered by an ordinary prison doctor from Batavia, Theodore Eikman.
Causes of beriberi disease
The bulk of the population employed in construction railway, ate polished rice. Working in a prison hospital, Eijkman conducted his observations as a scientist. He noticed that chickens that ate polished rice, like most people with beriberi, developed the same symptoms.
B, the more acute form, occurs mainly from heart failure and poor circulation. In infants breastfed by thiamine-deficient mothers, beriberi can progress rapidly. Heart symptoms, in both infants and adults, usually respond quickly and severely to thiamine administration. When neurological interference is present, the response to thiamine is much more gradual; V severe cases structural damage to nerve cells may be irreversible.
Long-term thiamine deficiency results in beriberi, a disease that was endemic in populations where the staple food White rice. Thiamine deficiency is still observed in areas where white rice or flour forms the bulk of the diet, and thiamine lost during milling is not replaced through fortification.
After switching the birds to brown rice, the disease went away. When the prisoners were switched to eating brown rice, they noticed amazing results. Out of forty people who ate peeled, polished rice, one fell ill with beriberi. Whereas among those who ate brown rice, such an indicator, i.e. There was one sick person per ten thousand people. 1 in 10,000 is an amazing figure.
Thiamine is widely found in food but can be lost during processing, especially when grains are milled. In countries East Asia, where polished white is a staple, beriberi is a long-standing problem. The history of the recognition, cause, and cure of beriberi is dramatic and well documented in the medical literature. Before this time, almost half of the sailors probably developed beriberi, and many died from it. Stanton later confirmed that vitamin deficiency in humans is also associated with the consumption of polished white rice.
Then the question begged to be asked: what is in the shell of brown rice that prevents this terrible disease from developing? Later it turned out that the shell of brown rice contains small amounts of special substances, but nevertheless, they are vital for the normal functioning of our body.
So, thanks to the disease beriberi (polyneuritis), humanity learned about vitamin B1 - thiamine.
Prevention of beriberi can be achieved by eating a balanced diet, as thiamine is present in most raw and unprocessed foods. The incidence of beriberi in Asia has decreased markedly because an improved, more varied diet has been allowed and partly due to the gradual popular adoption of partially processed, puffed and fortified rice containing higher concentrations of thiamine. IN Western countries Thiamine deficiency occurs almost exclusively in chronic cases.
It is common in parts of Southeast Asia where white rice is the staple food. In the United States, beriberi is primarily seen in people with chronic alcoholism. Beriberi has baffled medical experts for years as it has devastated people of all ages in Asia. Doctors thought it was caused by something in the food. Thiamine was the first vitamin identified.
Causes of thiamine deficiency
It’s spring now and many people experience a lack of vitamins in their bodies, vitamin deficiency. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to fill this gap with food, but nevertheless, polyneuritis is not as common as in the 19th century.
Many health problems can be avoided by taking enough vitamins and minerals. B1 (thiamine), the person experiences: depression, may be high arterial pressure, constipation, muscle weakness, poor coordination of movements, bad memory, swelling of the feet, weakness in calf muscles, decreased reflexes, cardiac hypertrophy (enlargement).
Differences between vitamin deficiency in adults and vitamin deficiency in children
In adults, there are different forms of beriberi, classified according to the body systems most affected. Dry beriberi involves the nervous system; wet beriberi affects the heart and circulation. Both types usually occur in the same patient, with one set of symptoms predominant.
A less common form of cardiovascular or wet beriberi is known as "shoshin". This condition is associated with rapid onset of symptoms and acute heart failure. It is very lethal and is known to cause sudden death in young migrant workers in Asia whose diet consists of white rice.
Today, the secondary form of beriberi disease is common, caused by periodic gastrointestinal disorders, etc.
Prevention of polyneuritis
Vitamin B1 is found in legumes, grains, liver, kidneys, heart, yeast, try to choose bread made from wholemeal flour, and it is better to completely avoid, if possible, baked goods made from white flour, including white rolls, cakes, etc. Including these foods in your diet can help prevent secondary beriberi. Vitamin B1 is necessary for the nervous system to function normally, and it also plays an important role in carbohydrate metabolism.
Cerebral beriberi, also known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome, usually occurs in chronic alcoholics and affects the central nervous system. This may be caused by a situation that aggravates chronic thiamine deficiency, such as heavy drinking or severe vomiting.
Infantile beriberi occurs in thiamine-deficient infants living in developing countries. Although severe beriberi is rare in the United States, less severe thiamine deficiencies do occur. About 25% of all alcoholics admitted to the hospital in the United States show some evidence of thiamine deficiency.
The daily requirement for an adult is 1.5-2.5 mg, infants up to one year old 0.3-0.4 mg, children under ten years old 0.7-1 mg.
Approximate thiamine content in some foods per 100 grams of product:
- Beef, pork liver, pork kidneys – 0.3 mg
- Beans – 0.5 mg
- Soy – 0.94 mg
- Oatmeal – 0.49
- Green peas – 0.34 mg
- – 0.43 mg
- Hazelnuts – 0.3 mg.
So that the body receives 1 gram. Vitamin B1, you need to eat, for example, 300 grams every day. beans, but every day - this is almost impossible, so vitamin and mineral complexes come to the rescue. For example, health cocktails.
Alternative treatments for beriberi involve first correcting the thiamine deficiency. As with conventional treatments, alternative methods Treatments for beriberi include a diet rich in foods that provide thiamine and other B vitamins, such as brown rice, whole grains, raw fruits and vegetables, legumes, seeds, nuts and yogurt. Drinking more than one glass of liquid with food should be avoided, as this can wash out the vitamins before they can be absorbed by the body.
Thiamine should be taken daily, with a dose depending on the severity of the disease. Other alternative treatments may help relieve a person's symptoms once the thiamine deficiency is corrected. Berebery is fatal if left untreated, and the longer a deficiency exists, the sicker a person becomes. Most symptoms can be reversed and full recovery is possible when thiamine levels return to normal and are maintained with a balanced diet and vitamin supplements as needed.
And this is the need for only one vitamin, and for normal functioning of the body much more is required.