EFFECT OF THIAMIN DEFICIENCY AND CONTROLLED INANITION ON OVARIAN FUNCTION

Abstract

EXPERIMENTAL studies have shown that a diet deficient in the vitamin B complex or thiamin (vitamin Bi) will interfere with ovarian function and produce anestrous (Evans and Bishop, 1923; Parkes, 1928; Shin, 1933; and others). However it is not clear from these studies if the resulting anestrous was due to a deficiency of vitamin B complex, or due to a thiamin deficiency per se, or an effect of the concomitant inanition. In more recent studies Coward and Morgan (1941) observed that rats fed a thiamin-free diet had two or three normal cycles and then entered into anestrous. Again the effect may have been due to the thiamin deficiency per se or the resultant inanition. Others have reported that partial or acute starvation will result in ovarian atrophy or loss of estrus in rats, which they attributed to insufficient pituitary gonadotropin secretion (Mulinos et al, .1939; Mulinos and Pomerantz, 1940; Werner, 1939).