Eva wrote:
<Is'nt it likely that beriberi in Japan meant that those that got it only
ate rice; that they were in fact very poor? As far as I know the condition
was unknown of in Sweden in the old days even though people were very poor.
Perhaps because we ate peas, cabbage, pork and fish and only rich people
could eat sugar and white flour?!>

I had an e-mail saved with some notes on beriberi and scurvy I thought you
might find interesting. I do think you are right about the Japanese. I'm not
sure but I think it was this list or another list I'm on where someone
mentioned they ate white rice when possible instead of brown rice because it
seemed so much more like the rich people to do so. -- Jay

A couple of interesting links with some
highlights pulled out for those short on time:

How Vitamins were Discovered:
http://hbci.com/~wenonah/new/howfindv.htm

* The deserted [sailor with scurvy] chewed on fresh grass that he found in
tufts here and there on the island. To his amazement, in a few days he could
walk a little! His strength soon returned and eventually he managed to get
picked up by a passing ship and he returned to his London home.

* Did not the crews of some ships drink lemon juice and still have scurvy?
Unfortunately, this was true, but they had boiled the lemon juice,
destroying what we now know as vitamin C.

* Working on Java, where beriberi then was rampant, Eijkman made an
observation that changed his whole approach to the problem. Some chickens
kept for experimental purposes had been exposed to what was then thought to
be the beriberi "infection." Yet, instead of dying, in time they all
recovered. How could this be, pondered Eijkman? He checked every possible
variable and found only one clue. For a time the chickens had been on the
polished "white" rice, but then they had been put back on their usual fare,
the native, unpolished "brown" rice.

With tests made upon humans, Eijkman soon established that those who ate the
unrefined rice did not get beriberi, while those who ate the supposedly
better, polished rice did. Initially, this seemingly "too simple to believe"
answer was rejected, but Eijkman doggedly supported his claims with more and
more research.


The Hunger: A Food Allergy Mystery:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26327-2002Jun21.html

* "The problem," says Marinkovitch, "is that the allergists who have taken
over this field don't want to deal with anything except [IgE] allergy. And,
that's because -- you'll think I'm being cynical -- it's very lucrative.
It's the only kind of allergy a skin test will show, and by giving skin
tests and shots, allergists can make a lot of money. It's an accepted but
flawed paradigm.

* A problem in using the commercially produced antigens used in skin or
blood tests, he says, is that they contain preservatives, which can affect
test results.

"I recall one study," says Galland, "where people were tested with fresh
extracts of potatoes and eggs and soy. They were allergic, but when the
commercial extract with those foods was used, there was no reaction. If
somebody has allergies, generally they'll have a fair number of positive
results, but the foods that they test positive to and the foods that they
actually react to in life may be different."

*In 1998, the New England Journal of Medicine reported on a study conducted
at the University of Palermo in Sicily showing that non-IgE-mediated
allergic reaction to cow's milk was a cause of severe constipation in
children. "So, if it can happen with milk," suggests Sampson, "there's no
reason it couldn't happen with another food or more than one food.

"I'll be honest with you. When I started . . . I didn't believe that food
was an issue. I was mainly looking at atopic dermatitis [eczema] because
there were people who said food allergy was a factor, but I wasn't really
convinced it was. So I set up methods to do double-blind challenges. I very
quickly found, although I had a hard time believing, that, yes, food was a
very significant cause. We now know that with moderate to severe atopic
eczema in children, food affects 40 percent [of the cases]. And if we look
at children and asthma, it's probably around 10 percent. These are primarily
driven by IgE."

*Much about allergies is unknown. The crime, as it were, is reluctance among
allergists to acknowledge this and move forward. The migraine sufferers or
snifflers -- or patients with any number of difficult-to-diagnose
symptoms -- whose IgE tests come back negative will, if lucky, find an
allergist who believes they are experiencing symptoms and question their
test results. Unfortunately, it seems more likely that they will be told
that it's all in their heads and, by the allergist's refusal to look beyond
narrow definitions of allergy, that it -- the migraines, the stuffiness --
may indeed remain quite literally in their heads. Allison Hoover Bartlett is
a San Francisco-based writer.