Vitamins are essential nutrients required by our body to maintain health. Thiamine, which is also known as vitamin B1, is an important vitamin providing a variety of health benefits. Some of those benefits include proper metabolism and healthy immune system. In this article, we are going to look at some of the very common thiamine deficiency symptoms.
Thiamine deficiencies result when our body fails to obtain appropriate amounts of thiamine from food. If such deficiencies are prolonged, they may cause a variety of undesired medical disorders. To read more about vitamin thiamine, click here. If thiamine deficiency is confirmed, you may treat it by consuming foods rich in thiamine regularly.
Causes of Thiamine Deficiency
Thiamine deficiency can be caused by a number of different reasons. Major reason for deficiency, among all other, is the quality of diet that we consume daily. A diet is considered poor or low quality when it contains significantly lower amount of essential nutrients. Similarly, a rich diet consists of one which includes all the requires nutritional elements.
Another major factor leading to thiamine deficiency is the imbalanced diet, not containing most of the vitamins required. When you are missing an essential nutrient from your diet, your body might cope with it for a short while, but not very long. Deficiency results when you fail to provide your body the nutrients it needs.
A well balanced diet, consisting of all essential nutrients, can significantly decrease the chances of becoming thiamine deficient.
Disorders Resulting from Thiamine Deficiency
Prolonged thiamine deficiency can lead to a number of different medical disorders. Some of those medical disorders include beriberi disease, edma, neuropathy, neurosis and Wernicke’s disease among many others. There are three types of beriberi diseases known as dry beriberi, wet beriberi and infantile beriberi. Thiamine deficiency symptoms for some of the listed medical disorders are shown below.
Symptoms of Thiamine Deficiency for Dry Beriberi
Beriberi disease generally affects the nervous system and cardiovascular system of human body. Some thiamine deficiency symptoms for dry beriberi disorder include the symmetric impairment of sensory, motor and reflex functions. Distal limbs are commonly affected due to such impairments. Calf muscle tenderness is another symptom of dry beriberi.
Thiamine Deficiency Symptoms for Wet Beriberi
Symptoms for wet beriberi include mental confusion, edma, muscular atrophy, tachycardia, cardiomegaly, peripheral neuropathy and congestive heart failure.
Symptoms for Infantile Beriberi
Infantile beriberi, as its name suggests, is associated with infants. Mothers best-feeding infants need to make sure that they are not thiamine deficient because that is a major cause of infantile beriberi. Symptoms of thiamine deficiency for infantile beriberi include crying out loud, vomiting, tachycardia and convulsions.
Thiamine Rich Sources
In order to prevent unwanted medical disorders due to thiamine deficiency, it is best to consume a diet rich in thiamine and all other essential nutrients. Balanced diet is the key to maintain healthy living. Some of the best sources of thiamine include pork, Brewer’s yeast, soybeans, kidney beans and beef liver. Thiamine is only required in minimal amounts and a balanced diet will eliminate thiamine deficiency symptoms most of the time.
You may want to check this article if you are looking for the benefits of thiamine, and this one to find out which foods contain thiamine. Please feel free to share this article with others if it helped. Thank you for reading.