Carbohydrate Metabolism in Thiamine Deficiency*

The relationship of vitamin Br to carbohydrate metabolism was one of the earliest functions of a vitamin to be observed. The problem has been more or less continuously investigated up to the present time and the majority of the evidence indicates that in vitamin B1 deficiency there is some interference with glycogen storage, hyperglycemia, and characteristic errors in carbohydrate metabolism. Ever since the discovery of the role of thiamine as a constituent of cocarboxylase (1) and its consequent effect on pyruvate oxidation (2), studies in vitro of cellular metabolism in thiamine deficiency have indicated that a rather generalized disturbance of carbohydrate metabolism exists. Thus Meiklejohn, Passmore, and Peters had reported that the brain of avitaminotic pigeons exhibited a lower oxygen uptake in the presence of lactate when compared to normal brain tissue (3). Barron and Lyman (4) in a study of the ability of kidney slices to synthesize carbohydrate in the presence of pyruvate reported that tissues from vitamin B1-deficient rats were unable to accomplish this transformation when compared to normal controls. Similar experiments by Lipschitz, Potter, and Elvehjem (5) revealed that liver and kidney tissue from vitamin Bl-deficient pigeons showed a diminished ability to remove pyruvate which was restored in the liver tissue when glucose was administered to the polyneuritic birds.