The Beriberi Heart
Derrick Lonsdale*
It has been said that those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it. The amazingly simple solution to the treatment of a disease that had existed for thousands of years was painstakingly discovered and it became a history in itself. Because several factory workers would develop the first symptoms of beriberi when exposed to sunlight, the early researchers were misled, thinking that beriberi was due to infection. Now, it has to be explained why the first symptoms of thiamin deficiency disease can be precipitated by exposure to the stress of exposure to ultraviolet light. Selye, who studied the biologic results of stress in animals, developed the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). He came to the conclusion that the diseases of mankind were failures of adaptation to environment. Although little was known about energy metabolism at that time, Selye said that it was a deficiency of “some form of energy” that resulted in his experimental animals succumbing to stress. One of his students was able to produce the GAS by causing animals to become thiamin deficient. Now that energy metabolism is well known, it is easy to understand why the brain and heart, the most energy consuming organs in the body, are most affected by thiamin deficiency. The details of cardiac beriberi are well-known, but because of an overall resistance of physicians to believe that a disease like this could occur in modern America, it is easily missed.
