Thiamine Metabolism of Women on Controlled Diets I. Daily Urinary Thiamine Excretion and its Relation to Creatinine Excretion

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

When 8 normal women were maintained on an intake of 500 μg of thiamine per 1,000 Cal. the average daily urinary excretions of thiamine ranged from 100 to 276 μg. When the thiamine intake was reduced to 300 μg of thiamine per 1,000 Cal. the average daily urinary excretions of thiamine ranged from 34 to 109 μg. The thiamine excretion expressed as per cent of thiamine intake ranged from 10.0 to 27.6 for the higher intake period and from 5.7 to 18.2 for the lower intake period. Urinary thiamine excretions expressed in terms of micrograms of thiamine per gram of urinary creatinine ranged from 80 to 276 for the first period, and from 26 to 107 for the second period of intake. Using an excretion of 100 μg of thiamine per 24 hours, an excretion of 13% of the daily thiamine intake and an excretion of 150 μg of thiamine per gram of creatinine as indications of good nutrition with respect to thiamine, an intake of 500 μg of thiamine per 1,000 Cal. was judged to be adequate for 6 of the 8 subjects and borderline for the other two. An intake of 300 μg of thiamine per 1,000 Cal was inadequate for 6 of the subjects and borderline for the other two. The response of 4 subjects to a 5-mg oral test dose of thiamine hydrochloride given on the last day of the period of lowered thiamine intake indicated that the tissues of all the subjects were low in thiamine. The determination of thiamine in micrograms per gram of creatinine in individual voidings seemed to indicate that the ratio of thiamine to creatinine is fairly constant and, except in two of 34 instances, could have been used as well as the 24-hour ratio for a rough estimation of the status of thiamine nutrition of the subjects.