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Chapters

0:00 Introduction
0:23 Types of Beri Beri
0:45 Symptoms of Beri Beri
1:15 Causes of Beri Beri
1:47 Treatments of Beri Beri
2:16 Prevention of Beri Beri




Thiamine deficiency is a medical condition of low levels of thiamine (vitamin B1).[1] A severe and chronic form is known as beriberi.[1][5] The two main types in adults are wet beriberi and dry beriberi.[1] Wet beriberi affects the cardiovascular system, resulting in a fast heart rate, shortness of breath, and leg swelling.[1] Dry beriberi affects the nervous system, resulting in numbness of the hands and feet, confusion, trouble moving the legs, and pain.[1] A form with loss of appetite and constipation may also occur.[3] Another type, acute beriberi, found mostly in babies, presents with loss of appetite, vomiting, lactic acidosis, changes in heart rate, and enlargement of the heart.[6]

Risk factors include a diet of mostly white rice, alcoholism, dialysis, chronic diarrhea, and taking high doses of diuretics.[1][4] In rare cases, it may be due to a genetic condition that results in difficulties absorbing thiamine found in food.[1] Wernicke encephalopathy and Korsakoff syndrome are forms of dry beriberi.[4] Diagnosis is based on symptoms, low levels of thiamine in the urine, high blood lactate, and improvement with thiamine supplementation.[7]

Treatment is by thiamine supplementation, either by mouth or by injection.[1] With treatment, symptoms generally resolve in a few weeks.[7] The disease may be prevented at the population level through the fortification of food.[1]

Thiamine deficiency is rare in the United States.[8] It remains relatively common in sub-Saharan Africa.[2] Outbreaks have been seen in refugee camps.[4] Thiamine deficiency has been described for thousands of years in Asia, and became more common in the late 1800s with the increased processing of rice.[9]
Signs and symptoms

Symptoms of beriberi include weight loss, emotional disturbances, impaired sensory perception, weakness and pain in the limbs, and periods of irregular heart rate. Edema (swelling of bodily tissues) is common. It may increase the amount of lactic acid and pyruvic acid within the blood. In advanced cases, the disease may cause high-output cardiac failure and death.

Symptoms may occur concurrently with those of Wernicke's encephalopathy, a primarily neurological thiamine deficiency-related condition.

Beriberi is divided into four categories. The first three are historical and the fourth, gastrointestinal beriberi, was recognized in 2004:

Dry beriberi especially affects the peripheral nervous system.
Wet beriberi especially affects the cardiovascular system and other bodily systems.
Infantile beriberi affects the babies of malnourished mothers.
Gastrointestinal beriberi affects the digestive system and other bodily systems.

Dry beriberi

Dry beriberi causes wasting and partial paralysis resulting from damaged peripheral nerves. It is also referred to as endemic neuritis. It is characterized by:

Difficulty with walking
Tingling or loss of sensation (numbness) in hands and feet
Loss of tendon reflexes[10]
Loss of muscle function or paralysis of the lower legs
Mental confusion/speech difficulties
Pain
Involuntary eye movements (nystagmus)
Vomiting

A selective impairment of the large proprioceptive sensory fibers without motor impairment can occur and present as a prominent sensory ataxia, which is a loss of balance and coordination due to loss of the proprioceptive inputs from the periphery and loss of position sense.[11]
Brain disease

Wernicke's encephalopathy (WE), Korsakoff syndrome (also called alcohol amnestic disorder), and Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome are forms of dry beriberi.[4]

Wernicke's encephalopathy is the most frequently encountered manifestation of thiamine deficiency in Western society,[12][13] though it may also occur in patients with impaired nutrition from other causes, such as gastrointestinal disease,[12] those with HIV/AIDS, and with the injudicious administration of parenteral glucose or hyperalimentation without adequate B-vitamin supplementation.[14] This is a striking neuro-psychiatric disorder characterized by paralysis of eye movements, abnormal stance and gait, and markedly deranged mental function.[15]

Korsakoff syndrome, in general, is considered to occur with deterioration of brain function in patients initially diagnosed with WE.[16] This is an amnestic-confabulatory syndrome characterized by retrograde and anterograde amnesia, impairment of conceptual functions, and decreased spontaneity and initiative.[17]

Alcoholics may have thiamine deficiency because of:

Inadequate nutritional intake: Alcoholics tend to intake less than the recommended amount of thiamine.