Intravenous Administration of Wheat Germ to Patients with Pellagra

Abstract

During the past 200 years various diets, drugs, and minerals have been recommended as therapeutic cures for pellagra. Yeast and wheat germ are two of the materials sometimes used in the treatment of this disease. Both of them contain fat, protein, and carbohydrate and are especially rich in the vitamin B complex. Gold-berger and associates^{1, 2, 3} have found that both yeast and wheat germ are efficacious in the prevention of pellagra and possess curative properties when administered orally to the pellagrins. While studying various methods of treatment we observed 4 that the mortality rate was very high in those individuals who because of oral lesions or vomiting did not tolerate a good diet. In an unpublished study, we found that 53% of all cases with pellagra died despite the fact that they received the best of hospital treatment including a high vitamin, high caloric diet if they were able to eat it. Since many of our patients with pellagra are unable either to ingest highly nutritious food or retain it after ingestion, it seemed worth while to attempt parenteral therapy. A solution rich in vitamin B and poor in lipoids and proteins was made from wheat germ.∗ It was injected intravenously into several laboratory animals as a 10% solution in normal saline and when it seemed to do them no harm it was administered to the writer and 20 patients on the general medical wards without any serious ill effects. It then seemed safe to inject it likewise in patients with pellagra. Six pellagra patients showed definite improvement while receiving a restricted diet and repeated injections of the wheat germ solution. Intravenous injections of the solution were then given to 4 pellagrins with severe vomiting who at the same time were denied food.