Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE) is an acute neuro-psychiatric syndrome due to inadequate supply of thiamine (vitamin B1) to the brain which leads to significant morbidity and mortality. Although alcohol use is the most common predisposing factor but Wernicke’s encephalopathy can occur in any patient with nutritional deficiency conditions such as hyperemesis gravidarum, hemodialysis, malignancy, ...

Erythrocytes contain much enzyme activity; serum or plasma contains negligible amounts. Measurement of the activity in the erythrocyte has been used to assess thiamine (vitamin B1) nutriture in man. The easy availability of this tissue makes it the choice for clinical diagnosis of thiamine deficiency. There are several methods for evaluating transketolase activity. Brin et al. (1) were perhaps ...

Thiamine (vitamin B(1)) is essential for normal cellular functions and growth. Mammals cannot synthesize thiamine and thus must obtain the vitamin via intestinal absorption. The intestine is exposed to a dietary thiamine source and a bacterial source in which the vitamin is synthesized by the normal microflora of the large intestine. Very little is known about thiamine uptake in the large intes...

On the Belgica expedition (1897-1899), Dr F.A. Cook described a disease that he called 'polar anaemia' and on this expedition it affected most of the expedition members and caused one death. The symptoms were shortness of breath, abnormalities of the pulse and oedema (swelling of the legs) and the disease was clearly cardiac failure. During the heroic age of Antarctic exploration a similar dise...

The natural reproduction of lake trout Salvelinus namaycush in Lake Michigan is thought to be compromised by nutritional deficiency associated with inadequate levels of thiamine (vitamin B1) in their eggs. However, mortality driven by thiamine deficiency (commonly referred to as early mortality syndrome [EMS]) is not the only significant cause of low lake trout survival at early life stages. In...

Several antimalarial drugs exist, but differences between life cycle stages among malaria species pose challenges for developing more effective therapies. To understand the diversity among stages and species, we reconstructed genome-scale metabolic models (GeMMs) of metabolism for five life cycle stages and five species of Plasmodium spanning the blood, transmission, and mosquito stages. The st...

BACKGROUND A significant proportion of homeless people drink alcohol excessively and this can lead to malnutrition and consequent medical problems. The aim of this review was to assess the evidence on the range of nutritional deficiencies in the homeless problem-drinking populations. METHODS We conducted a comprehensive search of nine scientific literature databases and 13 grey literature sou...