Vitamin B1 Thiamine

About Vitamin B1 Thiamine

Thiamine, or vitamin B1, was the first B vitamin to be identified. Its story began with Christiaan Eijkman, who showed in the 1890s that a diet of polished rice caused a beriberi like illness in chickens, and in 1912 Casimir Funk, studying a factor from rice bran, coined the term vitamine. Official recommended intakes vary by age, sex and life stage. Its active coenzyme form, thiamine pyrophosphate, is required for decarboxylation of alpha keto acids and for transketolase in the pentose phosphate pathway, making it central to glucose metabolism in the brain and heart. Deficiency causes beriberi, divided into dry beriberi, with peripheral neuropathy and muscle weakness, and wet beriberi, with heart failure and edema. Wernicke encephalopathy, with confusion, ataxia and eye movement abnormalities, and the related Korsakoff syndrome, with lasting memory loss and confabulation, occur mainly in alcohol use disorder and severe malnutrition. Thiamine is given urgently in the treatment of suspected Wernicke encephalopathy. Food sources include pork, whole grains, legumes and seeds.