Beriberi

Beriberi is a disease caused by thiamin deficiency that can damage the heart and nervous system. Its forms include wet beriberi, dry beriberi, and infantile beriberi.

Thiamin: Thiamin, or vitamin B1, is a water-soluble vitamin required for carbohydrate metabolism and normal nerve function. Its depletion is the direct cause of beriberi.
Wet beriberi: Wet beriberi is a form of thiamin deficiency marked chiefly by cardiovascular dysfunction and fluid retention. It shows the heart and circulation consequences of the deficiency.
Christiaan Eijkman: Christiaan Eijkman was a Dutch physician whose studies of poultry linked polished rice to beriberi-like illness. His experiments helped reveal that beriberi arose from a dietary deficiency.
Peripheral neuropathy: Peripheral neuropathy is damage or dysfunction of nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. It accounts for numbness, weakness, and impaired sensation in dry beriberi.
Thiamin pyrophosphate: Thiamin pyrophosphate is the active coenzyme form of thiamin used by several enzymes in energy metabolism. Beriberi impairs reactions that depend on this coenzyme.
Dry beriberi: Dry beriberi is a form of thiamin deficiency marked chiefly by peripheral nerve damage and weakness. It shows the neurological pattern of the disease.
Gerrit Grijns: Gerrit Grijns was a Dutch physician who developed the deficiency theory of beriberi through animal-feeding experiments. He advanced the interpretation that a missing food factor caused the disease.
High-output heart failure: High-output heart failure occurs when the heart cannot meet the body’s demand despite an unusually high cardiac output. Wet beriberi can produce this pattern through circulatory and metabolic effects.
Pyruvate dehydrogenase: Pyruvate dehydrogenase is an enzyme complex that converts pyruvate into acetyl-CoA for cellular energy production. Thiamin deficiency can limit this complex and hinder energy production.
Infantile beriberi: Infantile beriberi is thiamin deficiency in infants, often affecting the heart, voice, and nervous system. It occurs in infants whose feeding depends on thiamin-deficient maternal milk.

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