The Role of Ribofla4vin in Blood Regeneration*

Several reports in the literature suggest a possible relationship between riboflavin deficiency and anemia. Intramuscular administration of purified flavin prepared from liver was reported by Stare and Thompson (1) to have no effect on hemoglobin, erythrocyte, or reticulocyte response in patients with pernicious anemia. However, Miller and Rhoads (2) were able to produce in dogs a syndrome similar to sprue by diets deficient in riboflavin. These investigators (3) later reported the finding of an antipernicious anemia principle in egg white and in a rice polishings concentrate low in riboflavin, which confirmed the view of other workers that riboflavin is not the extrinsic factor of the deficiency state in pernicious anemia. Iiohls (4) found evidence in blood studies for the association of anemia with a deficiency of the vitamin G complex (presumably a riboflavin plus). A slight anemia was listed by Potter et al. (5) as one of the symptoms of this deficiency in dogs. Gyijrgy and coworkers (6) found that riboflavin causes a definite increase in hemoglobin production above the basal level when fed to standardized anemic dogs on a salmon-bread diet. Studies in this laboratory (7) on hemoglobin regeneration in dogs with a, synthetic ration free of the B complex vitamins, supplemented only with the crystalline B vitamins, have given ample proof of the adequacy of this ration for good hemoglobin production during long periods of phlebotomy. Such a ration, then, makes possible the investigation of the rSle of the B complex vitamins in blood regeneration, because it allows the use of a ration relatively free of any one member.