Beriberi infants

Korea. Hot water extract of the dried entire plant is taken orally for beriberi, coughs, influenza, measles, syphilis, nephritis, jaundice, dysentery, and ancylostomiasis for thrush in infants and as a diuretic. Extract of the dried entire plant is used externally for prickly heat k... 

Signs of infantile beriberi include tachycardia, vomiting, convulsions, and, if not treated, death. The deficiency syndrome can have a rapid onset in nursing infants whose mothers are deficient in thiamine. Adult beriberi is characterized by dry skin, irritability, disorderly thinking, and progressive paralysis. 

In one form of thiamine deficiency, Wernicke s syndrome may be noted. Therein is paralysis, or weakness of the muscles that causes motion of the eyeball. Oosely associated with thiamine deficiency are dietary problems of alcoholism. The psychotic disturbances of alcoholism, including delirium tremens, frequently respond to thiamine and other B complex vitamins. Injections of thiamine often produce dramatic improvements in persons suffering from beriberi. Beriberi sometimes occurs in infants who are breast-fed by mothers who suffer a thiamine deficiency. Beriberi remains of concern in the Orient where polished rice is a dietary staple. 

Acute infantile beriberi in infants breast-fed by deficient mothers may involve high-output cardiac failure, as in shoshin beriberi, as well as signs of central nervous system involvement similar to those seen in Wernicke s encephalopathy (Section 6.4.4). 

Thiamin is a water-soluble vitamin. The RDA of thiamin for the adult man is 1.5 mg. The vitamin is present in a variety of foods of plant and aiumal origin, as well as in yeast. The populations most at risk of developing a deficiency are chronic alcoholics in Western countries and those with an overdeptendence on polished rice as a staple in underdeveloped nations. The consumption of large amounts of raw seafood can also induce the deficiency. Thiamin deficiency in humans is called beriberi. The disease occurs in a variety of forms and causes different problems in infants, adults, and alcoholics. 

Beriberi occurs whenever thiamine intake is less than 0.4 mg/d for an extended period of time. It occurs where polished rice is a dietary staple, and, in Western society, in poor and elderly populations and alcoholics. Beriberi has wet, dry, and cardiac types, and an individual may have more than one type. Wet refers to pleural and peritoneal effusions and edema dry refers to polyneuropathy without effusions. Cardiomyopathy is the principal feature of the cardiac type. An infantile form occurs in breast-fed infants, usually 2-5 months of age, nursing from thiamine-deficient mothers. The symptoms of beriberi remit completely upon thiamine supplementation. A subclinical deficiency of thiamine occurs in hospital patients and the elderly. Deficiency of thiamine and other vitamins may contribute to a generally reduced state of health in these populations. 

The question of vitamin supplementation obviously requires an affirmative answer when one considers therapy for overt, specific deficiency syndromes such as scurvy, rickets, beriberi, pellagra, megaloblastic anemia, ariboflavinosis, and convulsions due to pyridoxine deficiency. In some syndromes, biochemical evidence of deficiency occurring before overt symptoms is accepted as indication for general preventive supplementation. For example, the hydroxyphenyluria of premature infants and decreased serum phosphate and citrate, are taken as indications for early... 

In 1910, an autopsy study of 86 children with infantile beriberi concluded that 40% of these children had convulsions during their terminal illness. Nowadays, thiamine deficiency is very rare in developed countries. It may occur in breast-fed infants of thiamine deficient mothers. The onset of symptoms may be very abrupt and dramatic with high mortality rate. 

Infantile Beriberi. This form is usually found in infants living in areas of endemic beriberi who have been breast-fed by mothers whose milk is deficient in thiamin. Signs of the disorder are weakness of voice during bawling (complete lack of sound in severe cases), lack of appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, rapid pulse, and cyanosis (in severe cases). The disease results in a high death rate of infants from 2 to 5 months of age. There may be a rapid course of the disease from mild disorders to death. 

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