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NEWS
EDITION
Putting Vitamins in Their Place Riboflavin Returns to Food D. H. KILLEFFER
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EW and powerful impetus has been given to the movement to restore vitamins to processed foods by the success of a new biochemical synthesis of riboflavin (also known as vitamin B2 vitamin G, and lactoflavin). This synthesis now makes riboflavin available in practically unlimited quantities and at a price which allows its use to expand into the grocery as well as the pharmacy. The new synthesis (2), operated by the Commercial Solvents Corp., employs the natural growth of certain bacteria, already working in industry to manufacture the vitamin. Usually we think of malnutrition as being the sole property of people in the lowest income classes. Present studies of vitamin deficiencies point to the fallacy of this view. No longer can it be maintained that a normally diversified diet is satisfactory, for it is becoming increasingly sure that our views of normal individuals and of normally diversified diets are quite unsound. There may even be a sound scientific explanation for the legend that "there were giants in those days". Days, that is, before foods were selected and processed in ways to reduce vitamin intake. Initially, vitamin B was the term applied to water-soluble food essentials found in grain husks and like materials. This substance (or group of substances, as we now know) was further defined by its potency in curing beriberi and certain other nerve disorders. It was distinguished from the fat-soluble vitamin A of butter and cod liver oil and from the scurvy-preventing vitamin C in fruit juice. The sources of vitamin B were husks of rice and other grain brans, potato peelings, and a variety of other roughages commonly removed in the processing of foods to meet the desires of our pampered palates. Gradually, investigation revealed, that, far from being a single simple substance, the original vitamin B consisted of a number of different compounds having functions somewhat related but actually differing essentially among themselves. The first member of the complex to be completely identified by both analysis and synthesis was the anti-beriberi compound once designated B1 and now known as thiamin. Its effectiveness against beriberi was promptly proved, but many other symptoms similar to, but not identical with, those of beriberi were not cured.
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For example, pellagra, a disease resembling leprosy in its symptoms, yielded to some natural concentrates of vitamin B but not to thiamin. Ultimately it was shown that nicotinic acid, which could be identified in pellagra-preventing concentrates and which could also be synthesized, was the prime factor in curing this disease. Later that conclusion had to be modified because not all pellagra yields to nicotinic acid. To explain this, the medical profession invented the term "pellagra sine pellagra" to designate a group of symptoms like those of pellagra but yet involving some differences, particularly being unaffected by nicotinic acid. Riboflavin, found in vitamin concentrates from grain, liver, and milk, cures some of them, and since its identity has been definitely established by synthesis, it becomes another known factor in the B complex. Other members of the group similarly identified and synthesized are pantothenic acid and adermin (B2). Present evidence suggests the existence of 10 or 12 other yet unknown members of the family composing the vitamin B complex. While theunknownsare being more completely investigated, the five known members are proving extremely useful. Riboflavin, like the other members of the vitamin B complex, seems to be involved in the health of the nervous system. In addition, it apparently controls healthy respiration of the individual cells of the body. Among the symptoms of riboflavin deficiency are several disorders of the skin including loss of hair, which is pronounced in some animals. A type of blindness characterized by clouding of the transparent cornea, or window, of the eye, known as interstitial keratitis, has been lately shown to be cured by administration of riboflavin. Previously this disease was believed to be caused by syphilis. Numerous possibilities are being explored to learn more of the relation of riboflavin to human health. Among these are its relations to proper functioning of the ductless glands, digestive disorders, and numerous other functions controlled by the nervous system. These are yet unfinished business. Sugar and wheat provide about 50 per cent of the energy value of the daily food of the American people. Refined sugar, which is completely freed of any possible vitamins in the refining process, forms a
Vol. 18, No. 17 rising proportion of our energy intake and replaces an increasing quantity of other foodstuffs which would normally supply essential vitamins. The introduction into America about 1874 of the roller mill for milling wheat initiated the decline of wheat flour as a source of vitamins. The process of grinding wheat between burr stones converted 81.4 per cent of the original wheat berry into flour which possessed approximately 62 per cent of the original vitamin potency. Modern roller mill practice yields 72.5 per cent of the berry as patent flour containing barely 5.5 per cent of the original vitamins. Cowgill (1), who gives thesefigures,states that the major part of the diet represented by wheatflourand cane sugar today contains only about one twelfth as much vitamin Bi as it did a century ago. Obviously this poses a vital problem in public health and requires action. The wheat germ, which makes up only about 2.5 per cent of the whole berry and contains only 4 to 6 times its vitamin B1 and B1 concentration, can, if entirely returned to theflour,restore to the product only 15 per cent of the original vitamin content of the whole grain. To make up flour's deficiency with wheat germ alone would necessitate adding nearly six times as much wheat germ as the original grain contained. Obviously this is impossible on a full scale. Presumably the answer for wheat flour might be found in the use of whole wheat exclusively. Here one encounters the developed and inherited taste of the people. Despite the obvious advantage of the unrefined produce and the efforts of nutritionalists to promote its use, only about 2 per cent of the wheat flour milled in the United States today is whole wheat. To convert the great body of consumers to the unrefined product and to provide means for offsetting its poorer keeping qualities, which are commercially important, are two tasks that presently seem impossible. Easier, and quite as logical, is the inclusion in present commercial products of vitamins secured from other sources. This can be done with a minimum change in present practice in manufacture, distribution, andfinaluse. To this solution of the problem, synthesis of riboflavin by a natural biological process is important in two respects—it assures virtually unlimited production and a cost which permits wide-spread use.
Literature Cited (1) Cowgill, Geo. R.. J. Am. Med. Assoc, 113, 2146 (1939). (2) Miner, Carl S. (assigned to Commercial Solvents), U. S. Patent 2,202,261 (May 28, 1940).
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