Thiamine refection

In 1927, J Yidericia and his co-workcrs described a condition in which rats became independent of dietary thiamine. It occurred spontaneously in some, but not all, of their rats when fed a vitamin B -free diet containing 57 % uncooked rice starch. Those animals in which it did not occur died of what we now know as thiamine deficiency. The condition, which Fridcricia called refection, was accompanied by the appearance of bulky white feces. This they showed was due to a large amount of undigested starch granules. It was, however, later demonstrated that refection could sometimes occur without bulky white feces (Schicblich and Rodenkirchen, 1929 Kon, 1931). 

Kon and his co-workers have shown that the amount of the vitamins made available by starch refection in rats is reduced when 0.5% sulfonamides are included in the diet (Coates et al., 1946 Ford et al., 1953). There is a reduction in the amounts of thiamine and riboflavin in the tissues and excreted in the feces, and of riboflavin excreted in the urine. 

With this device, Morgan and Yudkin (1959) and Cremer and Hotzcl (1959) showed that the prevention of coprophagy abolished the thiamine-sparing action of sorbitol. Similarly, Morgan (1960a,b) has shown that starch refection occurred in all rats kept on sawdust, in only about half of the rats kept on wire-mesh screens, and in none of the rats fitted with aiiticoprophagy devices. 

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