Thiamin in food

Thiamin also known as vitamin B1 and aneurin was the first B vitamin identified.

Thiamin (vitamin B1), the structural formula of which consists of substituted pyrimidine and thiazole rings linked by a methylene bridge.

All plant and animal tissues contain thiamin and it is therefore present in all natural unprocessed foods.

Rich sources of thiamin include yeasts and yeast extract, wheat bran, oatmeal, whole grain cereals, pulses, nuts, lean pork, heart, kidney and liver.

Lack of thiamin causes the deficiency disease called beriberi, which has been known since antiquity. Beriberi is rare in United States because grain products that are not whole grain are routinely enriched.

A deficiency of thiamin in humans can also result in Wenicke-Korsakoff’s encephalopathy, which is characterized by mental confusion and deterioration of nerve function leading at worst to coma.
Thiamin in food

Thiamine and memory

Thiamine or vitamin B1 is one of the B vitamins with antioxidant properties. It’s found in whole grains, brewer’s yeast, molasses and meats.

Among its functions, thiamine helps manufacture acetylcholine, one of the brain’s major chemical messenger. A scarcity of this nutrient impedes human brain’s ability to use glucose, sapping the energy required to perform mental activities.

A study at the University of Connecticut noted that thiamine supplementation increased memory abilities. The result showed that the people who took the thiamine supplement reported feeling significantly more clearheaded, composed and energetic.

Severe thiamine deficiency has at times cause memory loss, although in society such cases are unusual, and thiamine deficiency alone generally produces peripheral neuritis and numbness as its most outstanding features.

The deficiency would induced metabolic central nervous system disease predominantly affects memory. This characterized by confabulation and defect in retentive memory.
Thiamine and memory

Discovery of Thiamine

Thiamine was the first vitamin to be discovered. Kanehiro Takaki, a Japanese naval doctor, was the first to report that beriberi seemed to be a nutritional deficiency based on reducing the incidence of beriberi in Japanese sailors by giving them additional meat, dry milk and vegetables.

Christiaan Eijkman, a Dutch military surgeon, who traveled to the Dutch East Indies to study beriberi, in 1890s began to clarify the role of diet in the development of beriberi.

Eijkman discovered that a disease similar to beriberi occurred in birds that were fed a diet of steam-cooked polished rice, as opposed to crude rice.

In 1926, thiamine was the first B vitamin isolated, as a crystalline, water soluble, yellowish white powder with a salty, slightly nutty taste. It was crystallized from rice polishing by two Dutch scientists Barend Jansen and W. F. Donald as antineuritic vitamin.

By 1936 it had been synthesized and its chemical structure determined by Robert R. Williams which he named ‘thiamine’.

The discovery of thiamine revolutionized the management of wet beriberi because thiamine quickly reversed the cardiac manifestations of the disease.
Discovery of Thiamine

Thiamine in general

Thiamine is a generic term applied to all substances possessing vitamin B1 activity, regardless of the anion attached to the molecule. Thiamine the biologically active thiamine pyrophosphate (diphospho-thiamine, cocarboxylase) has an important role in carbohydrate metabolism as a co-enzymes.

This substance is heat and oxygen stable in its dry form, heat and alkali reactive in solution and stabilized by acid.

Thiamine supplementation is usually provided in vitamin B –complex formulations, in most multivitamin preparation and in vitamin enriched foods such as cereals. Breakfast cereals and bread are often supplemented with additional vitamin B1. Thiamine is found widely distributed in foods. Thiamine is found in all plants and is synthesized by some microorganism, particularly yeasts.

Thiamine does not appear to be stored in the body to any appreciable extent; consequently, deficiency symptoms may be observed within a few weeks in subjects maintained on a deficient diet. The disease known as beriberi, which has neurological and cardiac symptoms, results from a severe dietary deficiency of thiamine.

In the diagnosis of thiamine deficiency, symptoms to be noted in particular are anorexia, fatigue, loss of weight, sensation of burning in the soles of the feet, tenderness in calf muscles, muscle cramps and general muscular weakness.
Thiamine in general

Thiamin in human body

The thiamin molecule comprises substituted pyrimidine and thiazole moieties linked by a methylene bridge. 

Vitamin B1 was given the name thiamin because it contains a thiol (sulfur) group and an amine (nitrogen) group.

Thiamin functions as a coenzyme in the metabolism of carbohydrates and branched chain amino acids. Although thiamin, per se, is not an energy-yielding nutrient, its coenzyme form TPP is needed for ATP production.

TPP or thiamin triphosphate functions as a coenzyme, catalyzing reactions that enable the body to use glucose, amino acids and fatty acids for energy.

Absorption of thiamin occurs mainly in the jejunum, at lower concentration as an active, carrier mediated system involving phosphorylation and at higher concentration by passive diffusion.

The classic pathological condition rusting from a gross deficiency of thiamin in humans is beriberi, which is prevalent in Far Eastern populations where unfortified polished rice is staple diet.
Thiamin in human body

Thiamin

Thiamin
Thiamin (vitamin B1) consists of a pyrimidines ruing and a thiazole moiety.

This vitamin is found widely distributed in foods, but the only foods considered good sources of thiamin are pork and whole grain or enriched grain products.

Persons who diets are made up primarily of refined, unenriched grain products are at extreme risk for becoming thiamin deficient and perhaps developing beriberi.

Beriberi is rare in United States because grain products that are not whole grain are routinely enriched.

Beriberi puzzled medical experts for years as it ravaged people of all ages in Asia. Doctors thought it was caused by something in food.

Not until the early 1900s did scientists discover that rice bran, the outer covering that was removed to create the polished white rice preferred by Asians, actually contained something that prevented the disease.

Thiamine was the first vitamin identified. In the 1920s, extracts of rice polishing were used to treat the disease.
Thiamin