Most of the studies on human vitamin requirements have been conducted on young adults or children. Very little is known regarding the vitamiii requirements with advancing age. The favorable reports of the clinical application of vitamins, particularly thiamin, in geriatrics raise the question as to why such deficiencies exist. IS it reduced intake, inability to utilize, or an increased need? As a first step toward understanding this problem, a study of daily urinary excretion of thiamin in reasonably healthy older subjects was undertaken.In this study, 4 men and 4 women were used as experimental subjects. In order to determine the state of health of the individuals, a physician$ examined each one before and after the experimental period. All members of the group were ambulatory and in the seventh or eighth decade of life.It was impossible to control the type or amount of food eaten by the subjects, but complete dietary records were kept during the period of the experiment. The thiamin content of the daily diets was calculated, using the tables of Munselll and Booher.2The experimental period o f approximately 3 weeks was divided into 3 parts : A preliminary period on the usual diet, a second period during which the diet was supplemented with 2 mg of thiamin daily, and a final period during which the supplement was 4 mg of thiamin daily. The thiamin was given orally in the form of one milligram tablets at mealtime. Complete 24-hour urine samples were collected daily and analyzed for their thiamin and pyrimidine content by the fermentation method of Schultz, Atkin, and F r e~.~ Experimental Results and Discussion. The data concerning the experiment are summarized in Tables I and 11.
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