Pantothenic Acid Deficiency Induced in Human Subjects 1

Bean and Hodges (1) gave a preliminary report of four young men in whom clinical disorders and metabolic faults were induced by a "diet" devoid of pantothenic acid, with omega-methylpantothenic acid, a vitamin antagonist (Figure It is proposed here to describe details of the experiments, results, and some interpretations. The background for using molecular antagonists (2, 3) in human nutrition had been explored previously using antagonists to nicotinic acid (4).