Influence of Rice and Purified Diets upon Cardiac Behavior of Thiamine Deficient Rats

Abstract

Marked cardiac damage has been observed in severe chronic thiamine deficiency, both in the Orient and in the U. S. Oriental beriberi occurs chiefly in persons subsisting largely on polished white rice, while that in the U. S. is observed mainly in alcoholics. However, the reports on the Oriental beriberi show less severe cardiac damage than is observed in the Occidental beriberi. This difference suggested the possibility that rice might contain some substance or property that might protect the heart. Cardiac damage was produced in rats by feeding them thiamine-deficient diets. Ecgs. were taken at regular intervals. A new German silver contact ecg. electrode was developed to facilitate taking the tracings. Histologic studies of the hearts were made. Rats fed a natural polished rice diet and/or a purified diet with thiamine added to approximate that naturally present in rice had less severe physiologic and pathologic changes than rats fed a thiamine-free purified diet. The results indicate that the protection provided by the rice diet and by a purified diet with thiamine approx. equal to that of the rice diet,was due to the trace of thiamine and not to some unknown substance or property in rice.