Name: We’re Giving Nature a Vitamin Deficiency
Uploaded: 2021-05-13T14:19:24.000Z
Duration: 11 min 50 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

In the 1990s, researchers were puzzled by struggling trout populations in the Great

Even though pollution levels were low, the fish were acting really weird.

They were having a hard time swimming upright,

all very strange behaviors for these fish.

A not-small number of them were actually dying before they could reach adulthood —

and no one could really figure out what was going on.

That is, until a team of researchers suggested that these fish might be missing something

Only... it turned out it wasn't just these fish.

scientists have found dozens of other creatures living in the Northern Hemisphere

including fish, birds, reptiles, and maybe even mammals.

Some experts think that's evidence that something much bigger is going on: that nature

And that's led to a flurry of research into what could possibly

be causing this impending ecological crisis.

And… well, spoiler alert, the studies basically all point a finger at humans being the problem…

And ultimately, while these deficiencies themselves are a big problem,

they're also an indicator of an even bigger one: a planet under stress.

Thankfully, now that scientists are aware of the potential crisis and have some solid

ideas for what could be causing it, they can move forward with trying to alleviate it —

, it was probably because of a multivitamin or health supplement.

That's because thiamine is an essential nutrient for all organisms.

Only plants and some fungi and microorganisms can.

The rest of us have to get thiamine by eating those thiamine makers,

Basically, the vitamin slowly spreads up the food chain.

Physiologically, thiamine is important because

it helps your cells turn the food you eat into fuel that your body can use.

It's involved in the chemical reactions that mitochondria use to generate energy for

So, without thiamine, an organism's cells are simply unable to turn food into cellular

And a severe thiamine deficiency will eventually lead to illness and death,

because cells basically stop functioning.

But what's especially awful about thiamine deficiencies is that even mild ones can have

Like, strange behavioral issues, as scientists observed in the Great Lakes trout.

That's because brain cells need a lot of cellular fuel,

so they're extra sensitive to low thiamine levels.

And these quote “sublethal” effects can vary widely, so it can be super hard to diagnose

which makes it harder for people to act quickly,

before the problem becomes much harder to solve.

Now, scientists have known for a really long time

that a thiamine deficiency is a huge problem for people.

For example, the disease beriberi, which is caused by a lack of thiamine,

was first described by Western physicians in the mid-1600s.

But in part because it's so tricky to spot,

it wasn't until the 1990s that thiamine deficiency was discovered to be a big problem

Those struggling Great Lakes trout populations got a lot of people thinking about thiamine

And once they were aware of the potential issue,

researchers found deficiencies in all sorts of other creatures.

This included other underwater inhibants, like alligators and mussels,

as well as land animals, including dozens of kinds of birds!

Of course, when people lack thiamine, the usual fix is to change their diet or give

Unfortunately, those don't really work for ecosystems.

Even if we could figure out how to dole out a supplement,

it'd be like slapping a tiny bandaid on a gaping wound.

So, in order to devise a solid, long-term solution,

researchers need to get at the root cause for the deficiencies.

And, well, it's kind of taking awhile to figure that out because there are likely multiple

For starters, in some areas, there seem to be shifts happening in those tiny critters

For example: a study in 2012 of the southern California-Baja coast found

that there was a lot more variability in B vitamins than other commonly found nutrients.

The researchers think that's because climate change is messing with ocean circulation patterns,

which in turn is altering the abundance of certain microbes.

You see, researchers think that, in the ocean,

the microbes that make thiamine are often found in deeper waters, since that's where

they get the parts they need to make it —

So, the thiamine they make wouldn't get into shallow water unless they're dragged

like, in places where ocean currents move deeper waters to the surface.

And that's where the system is starting to break down.

As the Earth's atmosphere gets warmer —

you know, thanks to us and all those greenhouse gases we keep producing —

But this warmth isn't evenly distributed —

the top layer of the ocean is absorbing a lot more heat than the depths.

And these much warmer waters not only float on top of the colder waters,

they don't mix well with the lower layers, leading to a phenomenon called stratification.

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We’re Giving Nature a Vitamin Deficiency

weird

ultimately

potential

struggle