Changes in Levels of Digestive Enzymes of Pancreas Associated with Thiamine Deficiency in Young Rats

Anorexia has been considered as one of the prominent symptoms associated with beri beri in man and experimental thiamine deficiency in various species. It is not known whether such anorexia is due to a defect in the availability of digestive enzymes from pancreas. It has already been observed in this laboratory that feeding of a thiamine-free diet to rats for a period of five weeks results in a considerable decrease in the thiamine content (by 73%) and transketolase activity (by 63%) in pancreas, this decrease being greater than that in many other tissues of the deficient rats. The present experiments were undertaken to explore the relationship between thiamine status and levels of digestive enzymes in pancreas.