Evening star., 1940-04-25
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henri.

oy AftOUCUo ~. HCUIy.
The biggest seller of those seven or
eight vital and elusive diet ingredients,
the vitamins, which has swept into phe-
nomenal popularity in the past few
months, is chemical known as thiamin
chloride, prepared in the form of tablets
1t is being used for everything from
growing sweet peas to staving off hang
overs. Wherever one goes to lunch
men are pulling bottles of the stuff
from their pockets. or women spilling
stray pills from their handbags. It is
probably responsible for third or more
of the soaring vitamin business, although
the United States Food and Drug Ad-
ministration Is unable to break this down
into specific products. Unlike most drug
fads which sweep the country this, so
far as anybody knows. is harmless.
Thiamin chloride is otherwise known
as vitamin B one. 1t is the spark of
the body engine. This vitamin, says the
current year book of the Department of
Agriculture, "is essential for the well
teing of every living cell. This is neces-
metabolism or breakdown of foods that
furnish energy. Biological research in
recent years has shown the complex
steps by which carbohydrate foods are
broken down during the processes of
digestion and metabolism in order to
release in an available form the energy
from the sun originally bound up in
these compounds by the plant.
THE vitamin acts in combination with
phosphoric acid as coenzyme called
cocarboxilase, which functions to prevent
the accumulation of pyruvic acid, an
intermediate compound formed in the
breakdown of carbohydrates. Thus, the
amount of thiamin chloride required
each day by man or animal depends
directly on the amount of energy that
man or animal expends. It has been
demonstrated, however, that there is
smaller demand for the vitamin when
dlets containing large proportion of
lat are consumed. This is to be ex-
pected, since the energy derived from
fat is made available by a chain of
chemical reactions, in which the vitamin
is not directly necessary. Therefore,
the vitamin requirement bears a direct
relation to the number of non-fat
calories used by the body"
Until few years ago this vitamin
was supposedly OF little consequence in
the United States. 1t was known as the
elusive substance in the polishings of
rice which was responsible for the
dreaded oriental disease, beriberi. This
highly fatal malady, affecting primarily
the nervous system. was practically un-
known in the New World. It's place
seemed to be filled by the widespread
pellagra of the South, due to another
vitamin deficiency in the diet.
Now, it has developed, there is a very
widespread condition in the United States
Of which beriberi is the extreme mani
festation. 1t would be very hard for an
American getting minimum diet of al
most any sort available In this country
not to get enough of the thiamin to stave
OH the disease at its worst. The amounts
necessary in the diet are extremely small.
The maximum estimate of Department
OF Agriculture dieticians is two milli-
grams. There are nearly 10000 milli-
grams in an ounce.
The Department of Agriculture has
just completed 80 common foods for their
content Of this vitamin. Excellent sources
are lean pork, chicken, kidney, liver, green
peas. lima beans, whole grain wheat, rye
and barley. whole rice, soy beans, COW
peas and navy beans. Egg yolk, brains
lean beef, Goldfish, sardines, potatoes,
sweet corn cabbage, mushrooms, spin
ach, turnip greens, onions and a wide
list OF other vegetables contain some of
1t. Unfortunately, it is largely absent
in mllled grains. AS result, the present
generation would receive naturally much
less of it than their ancestors, were it
not for the fact that millers now are
replacing it>in flour
Basically it keeps the fires of life
burning with steady fame and the
CRATES Of the furnace from being clogged
with a lot Of clinkers. Presumably it
plays much the same role in plant life
where some Of its effects on growth are
phenomenal. Almost any Imaginable
condition might result from dampening
OF the fires. The nervous system seems
to be particularly affected.
It's value now Is recognized in the
treatment Of alcoholism. Drunkards are
subject to severe upsets of the peripheral
nervous system known as peripheral
neuritis. Sometimes this progresses to
the point where movements of the arms
and legs cannot be controlled A major
cause, it is ascertained, is lack of ade-
quate thiamin chloride in the diet. This,
IN turn, is due to the fact that alcohol
decreases appetite and the drunkard does
not eat the foods rich in the vitamin.
Extra supplies of the vitamin are es-
sential for nursing mothers. It is es-
sential for growth of children. Those
deprived of 1t are stunted. In some way
Nature has devised that an extreme slow
ing up of growth take the place of the
fatal beriberi, which seldom occurs ex-
cept in adults.
A long list of diseases allegedly are
benefited by doses of thiamin. One of
the latest reports, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Associ-
alton, is of the extremely painful facial
neuralgia known as tic douloureux being
cured. Hitherto it could be treated, and
not very successfully, only by a delicate
surgical operation. It is the most funda-
mental Of all the vitamins. There is
hardly q malady of man which MIGHT