Thiamine status in urban adolescents: effects of race

To evaluate thiamine status in an urban adolescent population, we performed two investigations. In Study I, we compared whole blood thiamine levels in 101 healthy adolescents from varied racial backgrounds with those that had been obtained previously in 146 healthy white adults from a different geographic locale. Blood thiamine values were significantly lower in the adolescents as a group, but the differences were entirely due to the lower levels in the black adolescents. To explore further these differences (Study II), we compared thiamine status in 34 adolescents with that of their parents using measures of both whole blood thiamine content and of erythrocyte transketolase activity. White adolescents had significantly higher total whole blood thiamine values than black adolescents, and white parents had significantly higher thiamine values than black parents by both total whole blood assay and level of transketolase activity. There were no differences in thiamine status between adolescents and parents of the same race. Racial composition is an important variable to consider in population surveys of thiamine status.