Biochemical Evidence of Nutritional Status

Abstract

The assessment of nutritional status is a separate problem for each individual nutrient, and the type of test appropriate for one nutrient may fail completely for another. With a given nutrient a single type of measurement may be suited to one purpose and not another. The urinary excretion of thiamine may describe the thiamine status of a large group quite adequately, yet the finding that a particular person has excreted only 50ug. thiamine in the past 24 hrs. is not very helpful. The blood level of vit. A is a good measure of vit. A status with incipient deficiency, but it completely fails to measure the vit. A stored in the liver. In studying and treating obesity the one dominant fact is the wt. of the patient. For the study and treatment of other nutritional problems the amt. of a particular vit. in the body and how this relates to the most desirable amt. is equally basic. Limitation of the discussion to 3 nutrients (ascorbic acid, thiamine, and riboflavin) exclude many possibilities for biochemical evaluation of status. There may remain to be discovered innumerable chemical means for measuring adequacy of status in regard to each of the nutrients. The author stresses the significance of tissue concentrations, and indicates how these relate to performance, intake, excretion, blood levels, etc.