182 Vitamins in Human Nutrition
referred to above. Most mammals appear to be very in-
efficient in transferring thiamin to their milk; in order to
supply their young with an adequate amount they need
several times as much as normal or even pregnant animals
do. About five or six times as much has to be fed to a rat
mother to provide for the needs of her young as when the
vitamin is fed directly to the pups.
Another group of individuals who are liable to suffer
from deficiency of thiamin are the too-faithful devotees of
John Barleycorn. Alcohol has long been blamed for pro-
ducing a polyneuritis similar to that of beri-beri, but the
alcohol is no more directly responsible for this than for
injuries sustained in an automobile collision resulting from
drunken driving.
The alcohol, like sugar, provides an abundance of calories
with few vitamins. In addition, topers are notoriously
neglectful concerning the non-alcoholic constituents of their
diet. The result is a thiamin deficiency brought on by
heightened demand and lowered intake. If alcoholics would
supplement an otherwise adequate diet with about 0.125
mgs. (40 units) of thiamin per ounce of liquor consumed
they would no longer suffer from the neuritis which is so
distressing to many of them.
In its relation to carbohydrate metabolism thiamin is
intimately related to insulin. In mild cases of diabetes a
diet rich in thiamin over a long period will often improve
and sometimes cure the condition. On the other hand, a
scarcity of thiamin commonly leads to over-development of
the islands of tissue in the pancreas which produce insulin.
Insulin and thiamin seem to be partners in the business of
managing carbohydrates in the body, and insufficiency of
one may be made up to a limited extent by an over-
abundance of the other.