> Not necessarily.  I heard a few times that when the Japanese ate brown
> rice they had no beri-beri.  Only when the westerners came who
> preferred
> polished rice and they adapted to that kind of eating they developed
> the
> disease.


Don't know that you can blame this on western diets. I think the
Japanese started eating white rice when they got rich enough to afford
it. Certainly few eat brown rice now, it is pretty hard to find. The
traditional Japanese diet was pretty severely deficient in several ways.

> Thomas, could there be any reference in Japan on that?

Don't have any specific things, just what I have picked up here and
there over the years. It was the Japanese Imperial Navy that made the
connection as I recall, when they switched to white rice they suddenly
got lots of beriberi, and it disappeared when they switched back.

Incidently, the same thing still happens. Recently the prisons here
tried to "upgrade" prisoners diets, but the prisoners complained
because the new food made their teeth fall out. I think they went from
barley mush to white rice mush.