A Contribution to the Problem of the Relationship Between the B Vitamins and the Protein, Fat and Carbohydrate Contents of Food.

This monograph deals with recent studies by Vogt-Møller and previous workers on the chemical nature and special nutritional values of the vitamin B complex. In addition to giving a fairly extensive review of the literature on the subject, Vogt-Møller presents the results of his own well controlled investigations on the quantitative relationship between the amount of vitamin B in the diet and its content of protein, fat and carbohydrate.

Evans and Burr had previously demonstrated that the addition of extra fat to the diet lowers the vitamin B requirement of experimental animals. Patients showing beriberi or pellagra usually are found to have subsisted on relatively high carbohydrate diets for long periods before the onset of the symptoms. These facts indicated the desirability of a study, such as the present, which includes a consideration of all the phases of the relationship of the primary food constituents to the vitamin B component