A disease called beriberi, caused entirely by Vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency, was once widespread across Asia. For decades, India believed it had largely overcome this problem. A new government study now says otherwise.
Researchers at the ICMR–National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) have completed one of the largest community-based surveys of thiamine deficiency ever conducted in India. Covering 1,083 pregnant and lactating women across 120 villages in the Barak Valley region of Northeast India, the study found that roughly one in five women is deficient in this critical vitamin — a finding described by the researchers as a silent but preventable public health emergency.
Vitamin B1 is one of the most basic nutrients the human body needs to turn food into energy. Without enough of it, the heart weakens, the nervous system fails and in severe cases, the outcome can be fatal.
The functional blood test showed that 20.6 per cent of all women were deficient in thiamine — meaning their body’s cells were not getting enough of this vitamin to work properly.
The research pointed out that over 96 per cent of women in the study ate polished white rice as their main food every day. The study found that rice stored for a long time loses much of its thiamine content. Women who ate stored rice were roughly three times more likely to be deficient than those who did not.
Similarly, women who washed their rice two or more times before cooking — a widespread habit in the region — showed higher rates of deficiency, as each rinse washes away more of the water-soluble vitamin.
“On the other side of the equation, women who regularly consumed fermented fish or fish paste — a traditional food in the region — were less likely to be deficient. This suggests that preserving and eating these traditional fermented foods may offer some natural protection,” the study said.
The researchers also pointed out that when a breastfeeding mother is low in thiamine, her milk is also low in thiamine. A newborn who depends entirely on breastmilk, this can be life-threatening.
“Hospital records and outbreak investigations from the Barak Valley indicate that approximately one in five infant deaths in this region is attributed to suspected beriberi — a disease caused entirely by the mother”s lack of thiamine. A baby cannot protect itself from this. It depends completely on its mother”s nutrition. Every mother who goes into pregnancy or breastfeeding with enough thiamine is a baby protected from a death that should never happen,” the research said.
The lead investigator, Dr Mahesh Kumar Mummadi, a medical scientist in the Clinical Epidemiology Division at ICMR-NIN, said the deficiency burden uncovered by the study is entirely preventable. “The tools to address it exist. Thiamine needs to be explicitly included in India”s maternal nutrition strategy — not treated as a problem of the past,” he said.
