Antivitamins and Other Factors Influencing Vitamin Activity

Dwelopment of the concept of antivitaminsWhen, at the end of the last century, Eijkman (1890, 1897, 1906) earned for himself the distinction of being the first to investigate a vitamin deficiency disease expenmentally in an animal, namely beriberi in the hen, he did in fact also enunciate what amounted to the theory of a vitamin and its corresponding antivitamin, although of course he did not use these words.What he said was that beriberi was caused by an excess of carbohydrate in the diet, and that an antidote was present in the rice germ, which counteracted the effect of the excess of carbohydrate.This statement is quite unexceptionable, even as read to-day in the light of the most recent knowledge.We now know that the antidote, the vitamin B, in the rice germ, is indeed needed by the animal organism to enable it to metabolize carbohydrate, and also that carbohydrate is a beriberi-producing agent, in the sense that the more carbohydrate there is present in the diet, the more vitamin B, is needed with it.Thus, a rat can be cured of experimental beriberi either by giving it more vitamin B, or by replacing the carbohydrate in its diet by more fat.I t is, therefore, quite legitimate to regard carbohydrate as an antivitamin factor, operating against vitamin B, , the term antivitamin being used in its widest sense.