thiamine

Hyperglycemia and Low Thiamine: Gateways to Modern Disease

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Thiamine deficiency, hyperglycemia gateway to disease

In Thiamine Deficiency in Modern Medical Practice and Threats to Thiamine Sufficiency in the 21st Century, I introduced the concept that thiamine deficiency underlies many common conditions plaguing modern healthcare and identified exposures and mechanisms threatening thiamine stability. In this document, I will tackle the pattern of metabolic changes associated with the modern dietary practices leading to thiamine insufficiency, and resulting in, and sustaining hyperglycemia.

Hyperglycemia Through a Different Lens

Hyperglycemia, and the metabolic dysfunction it initiates, is a worldwide problem that has reached epidemic proportions. Due in part to overconsumption of sugary foods and in part to decrements in mitochondrial capacity that drive cravings for sugars, hyperglycemia fuels the metabolic derangements underlying obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and more recently, research suggests Alzheimer’s disease as well. These interconnected disease processes represent the top leading contributors to morbidity and mortality.

Conventional wisdom attributes these disease processes to over-nutrition and the solutions that follow involve the restriction of calories and/or the medical manipulation of the pathways initiated by hyperglycemia. Admittedly, excess caloric intake is a component, but this nomenclature suggests an overly simplified concept of nutrition; one where all that matters is calories consumed relative to calories burned. This view obfuscates the role of micronutrients in the conversion of these calories/foods into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy source for all cells. It ignores the fact that the aberrant cascades so commonly associated with hyperglycemia, are merely adaptive responses to the lack of micronutrient availability and consequent reduction in ATP. Finally, through this lens, the entirety of the blame for overeating is placed upon the individual.

In reality, while the initial choices that precipitated the hyperglycemia may have been the individual’s responsibility, once these patterns become entrenched molecularly, the resulting decline in ATP drives the cravings for high-calorie foods to compensate. In a very real way, these patients are starving despite sufficient or even excessive caloric intake. It is high-calorie malnutrition, but malnutrition nevertheless. Viewed from perspective, hyperglycemia is not a disease of excess, per se, but rather, one of deficiency. As such, the opportunities for treatment are expanded beyond the typical trend to reduce, block, or otherwise override a particular pathway, and shifted towards a rebalancing of metabolic health. Here, the question is not so much which pathways should be blocked to stave off the associated deleterious effects of hyperglycemia, but rather, what does the patient need to more effectively metabolize foods into energy? What is missing from his/her diet that will reduce the body’s drive for sugars as its primary energy source? In other words, what does he or she need to be healthy?

To answer those questions, one has to look more closely towards bioenergetics and ask what micronutrients are needed to convert consumed foods into ATP and whether or not the patient’s diet provides those nutrients. Research suggests that the energy metabolism enzymes from the cytosol through the mitochondria require at least 22 micronutrients to utilize the macronutrients from consumed foods to produce ATP. Many of these micronutrients are in short supply with high carbohydrate diets (see Threats for details). Thiamine is top among them, and because of its gateway role in energy metabolism, thiamine insufficiency is a significant contributor to the disease processes currently attributed to hyperglycemia.

Thiamine, Sugar, and Energy Metabolism

Thiamine is a required and rate-limiting co-factor to five enzymes involved in energy metabolism, including those at the entry points for the glucose, fatty acid, and amino acid pathways (transketolase, pyruvate dehydrogenase complex [PDH], 2-Hydroxyacyl-CoA lyase [HACL], and branched-chain alpha-keto acid dehydrogenase [BCKAD] and alpha ketoglutarate dehydrogenase [a-KDGH]. Insufficient thiamine leads to poor glucose handling resulting in hyperglycemia. It also induces poor protein and fatty acid metabolism resulting in the elevated branch-chain amino acids and dyslipidemias common to patients with hyperglycemic metabolic syndrome.

Conversely, high carbohydrate diets increase the demand for thiamine, which, if left unchecked, ultimately leads to thiamine deficiency, hyperglycemia, disturbed protein, and fatty acid metabolism. In healthy, thiamine-sufficient adults, high carbohydrate consumption results in a significant reduction of mean plasma thiamine concentrations in just over three weeks. Over the longer term, a high carbohydrate diet initiates many changes in thiamine and energy metabolism that ultimately result in reduced thiamine availability, higher circulating glucose, and poor energy metabolism. Thus, whether by cause or consequence, low thiamine and hyperglycemia are inextricably intertwined. One eventually leads to the other.

Altered Metabolism and Mechanisms of Damage

Under normal glycemic conditions and where thiamine is sufficient, excess sugars from glycolysis are shuttled through the pentose phosphate pathway via the thiamine-dependent enzymes transketolase to PDH and onward through the mitochondria. Under conditions of high carbohydrate intake/low thiamine, however, these sugars are diverted away from the primary metabolic pathways used for ATP production, inducing a net decline in ATP, and away from the synthesis of ribonucleotides and NADPH, substrates for RNA/DNA, and fatty acid metabolism and ROS detoxification respectively, to secondary metabolic pathways, specifically, the polyol/sorbitol, hexosamine, diacylglycerol/PKC, advanced glycation end product (AGE) pathways. Research suggests the upregulation of these pathways underlie the macro-and microvascular cell damage attributed to hyperglycemia, related cardiovascular and neural damage, while the decrements in ATP drive the general metabolic dysfunction associated with obesity and a host of other inflammatory conditions.

The high carbohydrate/low thiamine diet disturbs amino acid and fatty acid metabolism as well. Elevated branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) are common with hyperglycemia. Indeed, elevated BCAA may predict impending diabetes. Underlying the elevated BCCA is impaired catabolism due to a genetic or environmentally triggered defect in the BCKAD enzyme. BCKAD is dependent upon thiamine and elevated BCCAs are a manifestation of deranged energy metabolism precipitated by thiamine insufficiency. Genetic aberrations of BKCAD display similarly elevated BCAA, though typically much earlier, and respond favorably to thiamine supplementation.

With chronic hyperglycemia, the increased branched-chain keto acids, a secondary effect of poor BCAA catabolism, lead to excess short and medium-chain acylcarnitines. Surplus acylcarnitines increase the flux of fatty acids through the b-oxidation pathway beyond its capacity. This results in incomplete fatty acid metabolism, the dyslipidemias noted with hyperglycemia, and the formation of the pro-inflammatory diacylglycerol and ceramides that reinforce insulin resistance.

All of this, of course, comes against the backdrop of declining ATP capacity. Under conditions of insufficient thiamine/hyperglycemia, ATP production may be reduced up to 70% depending upon the severity and chronicity of disordered metabolism, the organ or tissue in question, and the model used to test. Decrements in the brain and heart, because of their high energy demands are the most severe, while reductions in the GI system and musculature present most noticeably in the early stages. Fatigue, weakness, and GI disturbances are among the earliest and most common unrecognized symptoms of the initial stages of insufficient thiamine.

Correcting Metabolic Dysfunction With Micronutrients

Ideally, ill-health would precipitate dietary changes, but in the case of hyperglycemia, particularly when it is chronic, the altered metabolic pathways and reduced capacity to synthesize ATP from consumed foods make this prospect difficult to impossible for some. Based upon thiamine’s role in this process, a more amenable approach might be to address thiamine and other micronutrient deficiencies first. Research from multiple disciplines demonstrates the remarkable improvement in metabolic capacity with thiamine repletion suggesting that simply replenishing this and other micronutrients may slow or reverse the progression of disease in these populations. Below are a few of the hundreds of studies published on this topic.

  • Thiamine reduced or reversed hyperglycemia-related activation of the secondary glucose pathways (polyol/sorbitol, hexosamine, diacylglycerol/PKC, AGE) via upregulation of the PDH enzyme. It improved cardiac contractility, reduced cardiac fibrosis and decreased the expression of the mRNA-associated proteins (thrombospondin, fibronectins, plasminogen activator inhibitor 1, and connective tissue growth factor), and prevented obesity in the overfed arm of an experiment using streptozotocin-induced diabetes in rats.
  • In streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats, high-dose thiamine and benfotiamine (a synthetic S-acyl derivative of thiamine) therapy increased transketolase and PDH activity increasing ribose-5-phosphate and reduced microalbuminuria and proteinuria by 70-80%. PKC, AGE, and oxidative stress were all reduced significantly.
  • In STZ-induced diabetic/leptin mutant type rats, benfotiamine improved heart function and prevented hyperglycemia-induced, left ventricular end-diastolic pressure increase and chamber dilatation in both models.
  • Benfotiamine administration 150mg thiamine daily thiamine significantly reduced blood glucose within a month, in a randomized, placebo-control trial of 24 drug naïve T2D diabetics.
  • In a three-month randomized placebo controlled trial, 50 T2D patients in the experimental arm were given 3X 100mg thiamine per day. Thiamine therapy significantly improved microalbuminuria, glycated hemoglobin, while decreasing PCK levels. Markers of oxidative stress and fibrinolysis were non-significant.
  • After 45 days of benfotiamine and vitamin B6 supplementation, 19 of the 22 patients enrolled in the study saw statically significant reductions in pain, symptom scores, neurophysiological and biological markers of diabetic neuropathy.
  • A 6 month randomized trial with 60 T2D with medication-controlled blood sugar and 26 age – and BMI-matched controls found that 100mg thiamine daily, significantly corrected lipid profiles and creatinine levels.
  • One time administration of 100mg IV thiamine, improved endothelium-dependent vasodilatation in 10 patients with TD2 during an acute glucose tolerance test.
  • One week of IV thiamine administration at 200mg/day in six patients with heart failure (HF) and who were also receiving diuretics (diuretics deplete thiamine) improved left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) in four of those patients from 24% to 37%.
  • A randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study of HF patients on diuretic treatment found that 300mg/day oral thiamine improved LVEF significantly.

Thiamine Insufficiency Versus Deficiency

Among the more common misperceptions about thiamine is that deficiency is delineated by laboratory testing. While this is true for severe deficiency and when the appropriate laboratory tests are utilized, far too often, the insufficiency syndromes that present months to decades before frank deficiency is detected, are missed completely. This owes in part to the variability of testing methodologies and in part to the very framework from which we determine sufficiency and deficiency. Thiamine testing, like the tests for many micronutrients, carries a high false-negative rate and fails to consider the nature of micronutrient deficiency relative to need. The next paper in this series will addressing testing methods.

As outlined above and in the Threats document, several environmental variables increase the demand for nutrients, a diet high in carbohydrates is top among them. The increased demand will not necessarily or immediately test positive for deficiency. Rather, it will present symptomatically and must be suspected based upon the symptoms of deranged energy metabolism. In these cases, thiamine supplementation is done to support and correct reduced enzyme activity so that consumed foods may be more efficiently metabolized and converted into ATP. This then reduces the use of the less efficient and generally deleterious secondary metabolic cascades linked to the constellation of negative health effects associated with hyperglycemia.

Consider Thiamine

Thiamine is a safe, non-toxic, essential nutrient that has become increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of modern dietary practices and chemical exposures. Thiamine sufficiency is fundamental to energy metabolism, mitochondrial capacity, and thus, health. Consider thiamine in your practice.

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Recovery From Reye’s Syndrome: A Case Report

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Reye's syndrome and thiamine

In a number of posts on this website I have mentioned the technical term “oxidative metabolism” in relationship to thiamine. I have tried to explain it by analogy, using the consumption of gasoline in a car. Gasoline is mixed with oxygen and ignited by a spark. In the human body glucose is the equivalent of gasoline and thiamine is the equivalent of the spark. This case tells us that thiamine has other effects of equal importance.

Many years ago, I learned of a naturally occurring derivative of thiamine that had been discovered in garlic. It had a more powerful clinical action than the original thiamine from which it had been derived. The Japanese investigators who discovered it had done many experiments with both animal studies and human subjects, with some remarkable results. For example, they had found that mice could be partially protected from cyanide poisoning by treating them with this derivative before the cyanide was given. It had been synthesized and is used in Japan as a prescription item (Alinamin) in many different diseases. I became intrigued by its potential and since it was totally unrecognized in the United States, I applied to the FDA for an Independent Investigator License (IND) that was granted to me in 1973. Because it has a long and complicated chemical name I shall call it TTFD. I used it in treating many patients, usually with great benefit and never saw the slightest sign of toxicity.

Reye’s Syndrome, the Flu, and Thiamine

In order to introduce its potential, I am going to describe the case of an 18-month-old girl who was admitted to our hospital with Reye’s syndrome. Some people reading this will remember that this disease kept cropping up in association with epidemics of “flu”. Many of the children died and although it has now been discovered that it was due to aspirin given to the child to bring down the fever, at the time that I treated this case, this fact was not known.

The infant was admitted to the hospital in a coma which had begun 48 hours previously with repeated vomiting. The initial treatment was given by neurologists, using exchange blood transfusion and as in other cases, was a complete failure. The coma deepened rapidly. Pupils became fixed and dilated and she was judged to be in a terminal state. The respirator that had been used to keep her alive was withdrawn. One week after her admission there was no change in her condition. She was deeply comatose and all treatment other than normal life support was withdrawn. In short, her case was considered to be hopeless.

High Dose Thiamine (TTFD) for Reye’s Syndrome?

Because from that point on the treatment was to be experimental, I obtained full consent from the parents. I gave 100 mg of TTFD by nasogastric tube every four hours and 150 mg by intravenous injection, a total of 750 mg in 24 hours. This was repeated daily. When you consider that the daily intake of thiamine under normal healthy circumstances is 1 to 1.5 mg a day, this was truly a humungous dose. Please understand that this is not vitamin replacement. It is clearly the use of a vitamin as a drug.

The first thing that happened was the lip vermilion became bright red, whereas it had previously been dusky, the color of deoxygenated blood. There was healthy flushing of the cheeks. Two days later there was some spontaneous movement of the limbs, her pupils responded to light and she developed a cough reflex. After one week the daily dose of intravenous TTFD was discontinued and the oral dose decreased to 300 mg a day. After nine days from the beginning of this treatment TTFD was decreased to 150 mg a day.

On the 15th day, eye contact could be established and she responded to sounds but was still unconscious, a state known as coma vigilum. Subsequently she began to take Jell-O from a spoon and began to show primitive crying responses. By the 21st day she was able to chew and could support her own weight with help. She began to walk with her hand held and self feeding began. Speech returned and gradually improved. She was discharged from hospital one month after this treatment had been started. The TTFD was continued at the same dose and three months later she was clinically well, although muscular tone was diminished. Not surprisingly, as she grew there was evidence of some permanent damage.

Thiamine, the Mitochondria and Oxygen

We now have reason to believe that Reye’s syndrome is mitochondrial in nature. Mitochondria are organelles within our cells that generate energy from oxidative metabolism. In this disease the mitochondria are affected in that part of the brain that maintains life. The return of lip vermilion and flushed cheeks was the first indication that oxygen was being picked up by the blood in the child’s lungs and conveyed to the tissues. The return of function in the brain indicated that oxidative metabolism had been restored. Hemoglobin is a protein that coats our red cells and combines with oxygen in the lungs to become what is called oxyhemoglobin. It is bright red in color and that is why oxygenated arterial blood is bright red. When arterial blood gets to the tissues, it delivers the oxygen to the cells and the hemoglobin loses its red color, becoming bluish, the color of venous blood and the color of hemoglobin after it has delivered the oxygen. The first indication of this transformation was the change in the color of the lips and the appearance of flushed cheeks.

Thiamine, Oxidative Metabolism, and Reye’s Syndrome

The administration of TTFD to this child had resulted in the formation of oxyhemoglobin, enabling the delivery of oxygen to the brain. Because function increased we also have to assume that the oxygen was unloaded to the cells that needed the oxygen. It also explains why the low concentrations of oxygen in arterial blood and high concentrations in venous blood were recognized by early investigators in beriberi. This is important new information because it indicates that thiamine has some effect on the ability of hemoglobin to pick up oxygen and even deliver it.

In 2004, Japanese scientists showed that the injection of a compound similar to TTFD could actually increase the concentration of oxyhemoglobin. This ability has never been recognized for the chemical functions of thiamine and TTFD has an action that is identical to that of thiamine. It forces us to wonder whether TTFD might be a benefit to those people with bluish lips and poor color attributed to heart disease and other situations labeled with the term cyanosis (deoxygenated blood). Using it at the time of hospital admission would probably have prevented permanent damage.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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This post was published originally on Hormones Matter on March 16, 2016. 

Photo: Histopathology of Reye’s syndrome, liver Histopathology of autopsy liver from child who died of Reye’s syndrome. Hepatocytes are pale-staining due to intracellular fat droplets via Wikipedia and CDC/ Dr. Edwin P. Ewing, Jr., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s Public Health Image Library.

This article was published originally on June 8, 2017. 

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Threats to Thiamine Sufficiency in the 21st Century

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challenges to thiamine sufficiency

In the first paper, Thiamine Deficiency in Modern Medical Practice , I provided an overview of why health practitioners should consider thiamine in general practice. In this paper, I would like to delve more deeply into how one becomes deficient in the 21st century.

Thiamine and Its RDA

Thiamine, or vitamin B1, is an essential and rate limiting nutrient required for metabolic health. Like the other B vitamins, it is water-soluble. Unlike some other B vitamins, it has a very short half-life (1-12 hours), and a limited reserve of about 30 milligrams. Absent regular consumption, deficiency arises quickly, manifesting symptoms that range from general fatigue, mood lability, anorexia, and nausea to cardiac irregularities, neuromuscular and neurocognitive deficits. In developed countries, where food enrichment and fortification programs have added thiamine to grain and other products, thiamine deficiency syndromes are considered to be rare and largely confined to specific populations and circumstances where thiamine ingestion, absorption, metabolism, or excretion are impaired such as poverty-based malnutrition, alcoholism, severe gut dysbiosis and/or hyperemesis.

The recommended daily allowance (RDA) put forth by health institutions considers 1.1-1.2mg of thiamine sufficient for most adults to stave off deficiency. This requirement is met easily with any modern diet, even a poor one, suggesting that the suspected low incidence of deficiency is accurate. And yet, across multiple studies that have measured thiamine status in different patient populations, none of whom can be considered malnourished by RDA standards, or alcoholic, the rate of deficiency is found to be between 20-98%; a discordance that suggests both institutional designations of thiamine sufficiency and deficiency are underestimated.

Insofar as thiamine is absolutely requisite for the conversion of food into cellular energy, e.g. ATP, and sufficient ATP is fundamental to metabolic health, something that has become an increasingly rare phenomenon in the Western world, it is possible that our understanding of thiamine sufficiency and deficiency is mismatched to the demands of modern living. If this is the case, then insufficient thiamine may be a key factor in many of the disease processes that plague modern medicine. Indeed, thiamine insufficiency and frank deficiency has been observed with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, gastrointestinal dysbiosis and dysmotility syndromes, post gastric bypass surgery, in cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and psychiatric patients. Combined, these patient populations represent a far larger percentage of the population than recognized within the current paradigm. From this perspective, it is conceivable that the older designations of sufficiency and deficiency no longer apply and that for the 21st century patient, thiamine stability is a much more fragile endeavor than recognized.

Micronutrients and Cellular Energy

The most fundamental process to health and survival involves the conversion of consumed nutrients into ATP. Absent adequate ATP, health is impossible. Energy metabolism requires a ready supply of macronutrients (carbohydrate, protein, and fats) and at least 22 micronutrients or vitamins and minerals (see Figure 1.).

In developed countries, macronutrients are readily available, often in excess. Micronutrient intake, however, is inconsistent. A review article from the University of Oregon report found that a large percentage of the population had inadequate micronutrient status (4-65% depending upon the nutrient) despite excessive caloric intake. Moreover, much of the supposed nutrient sufficiency came from enriched or fortified foods. In other words, absent food enrichment or fortification, most children, adolescents, and adults had insufficient micronutrient intake. Inasmuch as most fortified foods come with a high caloric content, which effectively demands a higher micronutrient content to metabolize it; this presents a problem.

mitochondrial nutrients
Figure 1. Mitochondrial Nutrients, from: Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition

Thiamine Dependent Enzymes

From the graphic above, note how many times thiamine (vitamin B1 or TPP) appears. Thiamine is required for the transketolase (TKT), pyruvate dehydrogenase complex of enzymes (PDC), branched chain keto acid dehydrogenase (BCKAD), 2-Hydroxyacyl-CoA lyase (HACL), alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase ([a-KDGH] – also called 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase complex [OGDC]) and for lactate recycling as a cofactor for the lactate dehydrogenase complex (LDH). Beyond its coenzyme role, thiamine allosterically regulates the expression and activity other mitochondrial proteins including:

  • Succinate thiokinase/succinyl-CoA synthetase: together with a-KDGH catalyzes succinyl-CoA to succinate.
  • Succinate dehydrogenase: oxidizes succinate to fumarate, uses the electrons generated to catalyze reduction of ubiquinone to ubiquinol for complex II (TCA>ETC linkage)
  • Malate dehydrogenase (MDH): interconversion of malate and oxaloacetate with cofactor NAD+ or NADP+.
  • Pyridoxal kinase: converts dietary vitamin B6 into the active cofactor form pyridoxal 5′-phosphate (PLP) creating a functional deficiency.

With low or absent thiamine, each of these enzymes downregulates from 10% to almost 30% resulting in a reduction of ATP from 38 to ~13 units (in culture).

Thiamine Is Fundamental

Among the 22 micronutrients needed to convert macronutrient ATP, thiamine, along with its cofactor, magnesium, sit at the entry points to this process. That means that thiamine availability controls the rates of carbohydrate, protein, and fat metabolism and their subsequent conversion into ATP. Insufficient thiamine, even marginally so, impedes this process resulting in not only reduced ATP, but also, impaired cellular respiration, and increased oxidative stress and advanced glycation end products (AGEs); the very cascades linked to the preponderance of modern diseases dominating the healthcare landscape.

  • Cellular respiration, the ability to use molecular oxygen, requires ATP, which requires thiamine. Insufficient thiamine causes cell level hypoxia and upregulates the expression of hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs). HIFs are responsible for oxygen homeostasis, regulating at least 100 other proteins including those involved in angiogenesis, erythropoiesis and iron metabolism, glucose metabolism, growth factors, and apoptosis. HIF stabilization is implicated in a range of illnesses from autoimmune disease, to heart disease and cancer.
  • Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a natural byproduct of ATP production and serve as useful mitochondrial signaling agents. Elevated ROS, relative to antioxidant capacity, however, creates oxidative stress, damaging cellular lipids, proteins and DNA. Antioxidant capacity is reduced with thiamine deficiency while ROS are increased.
  • AGEs, the toxic byproducts of hyperglycemia and oxidative stress, are modulated by thiamine. With sufficient thiamine, AGE precursors are shunted towards energy metabolism via the transketolase and the pentose phosphate pathway rather than accumulating in tissue as reactive carbonyl intermediates common with metabolic disease.

Each of these play a role in the pathophysiology of diabetes, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. This makes thiamine status, by way of its role in ATP production, cell respiration, ROS management, and AGE metabolism, a critical variable determining health or disease.

Given its position and role in these processes, it is not difficult to imagine how insufficient thiamine intake might derange and diminish energy metabolism and how that, in turn, might impact metabolic health both locally at the cell, tissue and organ level, and systemically. What is difficult to imagine, however, given the miniscule RDA requirement for a little over a single milligram of thiamine, is how anyone in the developed world where food scarcity is rare, where thiamine is readily available in both whole foods and in fortified foods, becomes thiamine deficient. And yet, a growing body of research suggests that is exactly what is happening. Recall from above, that depending upon the population studied, insufficient thiamine to frank deficiency has been found in 20-98% of the patients tested.

Modern Challenges to Thiamine Sufficiency From Consumption to Utilization

As an essential nutrient, thiamine must be consumed from foods, absorbed, activated and transported to where it is needed, and then utilized by its cognate enzymes. At each of these steps there are challenges that diminish thiamine availability, effectively increasing thiamine need well beyond the current RDA values. In fact, many of the products and amenities that make modern living what it is, imperil thiamine status and do so at multiple junctions. The additive effects of these challenges leaves many vulnerable to deficiency.

Dietary Sources of Thiamine

The highest concentrations of thiamine in natural and non-manufactured foods come from pork, fish (salmon, trout, tuna, catfish), many nuts and seeds (macadamia, pistachios, sunflower seeds, flax seed), beans (navy, black, black-eyed peas, lentils), peas, tofu, brown rice, whole wheat, acorn squash, asparagus, and many other foods. A diet rich in organic, whole foods is generally sufficient to meet the daily requirements for the thiamine and other vitamins and minerals. Likewise, though less ideal, a diet of processed foods that has been enriched or fortified with thiamine, will meet the RDA for thiamine quite easily, perhaps even exceed it. Indeed, one serving of breakfast cereal is sufficient to reach the RDA for thiamine.

Despite the ready availability of thiamine in both whole and processed foods, the data suggest that many people find it difficult to maintain thiamine status. This is due to the interactions between the endogenous chemistry of thiamine metabolism and the chemistry of exogenous variables affecting thiamine stability. The most common factors affecting thiamine status, include high calorie, high toxicant load diets, alcohol and/or tobacco use, caffeine products, and pharmaceutical and chemical exposures.

Dietary Impediments to Thiamine Sufficiency

While fortification provides access to thiamine, highly processed foods carry a high calorie and toxicant count making them metabolically deleterious despite any potential gains from vitamin enrichment or fortification. High carbohydrate, highly processed foods diminish thiamine status by multiple mechanisms.

Other common dietary contributors to insufficient thiamine.

Although food scarcity is not as prevalent in developed countries compared to undeveloped regions, poverty still impacts nutrient status. This owes largely to the fact that highly processed foods, high calorie foods are less expensive than whole foods and thus, there is an over-reliance on carbohydrate consumption to meet caloric requirements. Here, obesity and metabolic dysfunction co-occur with micro-nutrient and sometimes macronutrient, e.g. protein, deficiency.

Pharmaceutical and Environmental Threats to Thiamine Status

After high calorie malnutrition and other dietary habits that limit thiamine availability, the next most common threat to thiamine sufficiency is the use of pharmaceuticals. This variable cannot be stressed enough. Pharmaceutical chemicals deplete thiamine and other nutrients, directly or indirectly by a number of mechanisms.  Some of this is by design, such as with antibiotics that target folate and thiamine, some of it represents off-target effects, such as the blockade of thiamine transporters by metformin and the other 146 drugs tested for this action, an increase in demand in order to withstand other mitochondrial damage. Regardless of the intended purpose, however, pharmaceuticals represent chemical stressors to thiamine and nutrient stability. As such, their regular use necessitates a concerted approach to maintain nutrient status. Some of the most commonly used medications are the biggest offenders:

In addition to the ingestion of pharmaceutical chemicals, environmental chemical exposures damage mitochondrial functioning, even at low, and what are considered, non-toxic exposures. These exposures are pervasive, often unavoidable, and tend to accrue over time, with additive and synergistic effects to other stressors. Consider the totality of a patient’s toxic load when addressing the risk of nutrient insufficiency.

Absorption and Metabolism

Assuming sufficient thiamine is ingested from diet and is not blocked or otherwise degraded by food, pharmaceutical or environmental chemicals, it then has to be absorbed in the intestines before it can be activated and transported to organs and tissues for use. Epithelial injury, microbial dysbiosis, and genetic variation, all of which are common, limit the effectiveness of this phase. Epithelial injury and microbial dysbiosis slow passive absorption, while genetic, epigenetic, and environmental variables, slow or block active transport.

At low concentrations, thiamine is absorbed in the small intestine by active transport, while higher concentrations are absorbed by passive diffusion. Active transport is mediated by two primary thiamine transporters, ThTR1 and ThTR2, and a number of additional transporters that fall under the solute carrier family of genes:

  • SLC19A1: folate transporter, but also, transports thiamine mono- and di- phospho derivatives.
  • SLC19A2 (ThTr1): systemic thiamine transport, main transporter in pancreatic islet tissue and hematopoietic cells; most abundant, from highest to lowest in the intestine, skeletal muscle, nervous system, eye, placenta, liver, and kidney.
  • SLC19A3 (ThTr2): primary intestinal thiamine transporter, also located in adipose tissue, breast tissue, liver, lymphocytes, spleen, gallbladder, placenta, pancreas, and brain.
  • SLC22A1 (OCT1): organic cation transporter 1, primary hepatic thiamine transporter; competitively inhibited with transport of metformin, xenobiotics, and other drugs.
  • SLC25A19 (MTPP-1): mitochondrial thiamine pyrophosphate carrier.
  • SLC35F3: endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi thiamine transporter, implicated in hypertension.
  • SLC44A4 (hTPPT/TPPT-1): absorption of microbiota-generated thiamine pyrophosphate in the large intestine.

Although conventional wisdom suggests that only homozygous mutations affect the performance of these proteins, in reality, there is a gradation of abnormalities that challenge thiamine uptake, particularly when environmental or pharmaceutical variables block or otherwise limit the functioning of the same protein. In some cases, genetic difficulties can be compensated for providing nutrient support at supraphyisiological doses, among the better known examples:

  • Thiamine responsive megaloblastic anemia (mutations in SLC19A2/ThTr1); megaloblastic anemia, progressive sensorineural hearing loss, and diabetes mellitus.
  • Biotin-thiamine responsive basal ganglia disease (mutations in SLC19A3/ThTr 2) presents in infancy or childhood with recurrent subacute encephalopathy, confusion, seizures, ataxia, dystonia, supranuclear facial palsy, external ophthalmoplegia, and/or dysphagia or Leigh-like syndrome with infantile spasms. When presenting in adulthood, acute onset seizures, ataxia, nystagmus, diplopia, and ophthalmoplegia.
  • Thiamine responsive Leigh Syndrome (mutations in in the SLC19A3/ThTr2).
  • Thiamine metabolism dysfunction syndrome-4 (mutations SLC25A19/MTPP-1); episodic encephalopathy and febrile illness, transient neurologic dysfunction, and a slowly progressive axonal polyneuropathy.
  • Thiamine Pyrophosphokinase 1 (TPL1) defects cause problems in the activation of free thiamine to thiamine pyrophosphate, rendering much of the thiamine consumed unusable. TPK1 defects have been identified as condition called thiamine metabolism dysfunction syndrome 5 or Leigh-like syndrome because of the similarity in symptoms. More recently, TPK1 defects have been found associated with Huntington’s disease. High dose thiamine appears to overcome the defect in some cases.

Thiamine Activation/Deactivation

Before it can be used, free thiamine has to be phosphorylated into its active form thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP), also called thiamine diphosphate (ThDP/TDP). This is done by the enzyme thiamine pyrophosphokinase (thiamine diphosphokinase), which is magnesium dependent and requires ATP. Magnesium deficiency is common in developed countries. TPP accounts for almost 90% of circulating thiamine.

Additional thiamine metabolites include thiamine monophosphate (TMP) and thiamine triphosphate (TTP) along with the recently discovered adenosine thiamine triphosphate (AThTP) and adenosine thiamine diphosphate (AThDP). AThTP and AThDP are produced by E.coli during periods of nutrient starvation and have been found in most mammalian tissue. This likely represents a salvage pathway common in many pathogenic microbes.

Microbial Thiamine Synthesis

It is important to note, that although the consumption of dietary thiamine provides the main sources of this nutrient systemically, a smaller, but notable (2.3%), percentage of thiamine and other B vitamins is produced endogenously by various commensal bacterial populations in both the small and large intestines. At least 10 species of bacteria synthesize thiamine that is absorbed and utilized by the colonocytes. Endogenous thiamine synthesis is reduced by diets high in simple carbohydrates but increased with complex carbohydrates. Antibiotics and other medications inhibit endogenous synthesis of B vitamins directly by design as in the case trimethoprim and sulfamethoxazole and indirectly via additional that disrupt thiamine availability. Additionally, a number of pathogenic microbes produce enzymes that degrade bacterially produced thiamine suggesting the balance of gut biota is influenced by and influences nutrient availability.

In the large intestine, bacterially synthesized TPP is absorbed directly into the colon via a population of TTP transporters (TPPT-1) in the apical membrane and then transported directly into the mitochondria via the MTPP-1 for ATP production. The reduction of colonocyte thiamine and thus ATP, would force a shift towards the more pathogenic microbial populations that thrive in nutrient deficient environments and dysregulate bowel motility. This local thiamine deficiency may be a contributing factor in large bowel microbial virulence and the dysmotility syndromes so common in modern medical practice.

Enzyme Activation

The final step in attaining thiamine sufficiency is utilization. Returning to Figure 1., the key enzymes involved in this process include: TKT, PDC, HACL, BCKAD, a-KGDH and LDH.  This is an addition to the enzymes involved in the phosphorylation of free thiamine and the remaining enzymes in the Krebs cycle whose gene expression depends upon thiamine status. As with the variances and mutations in the transporters, supraphyisiological doses of thiamine may compensate for decrements in enzyme function. This has been observed in thiamine responsive PDC deficiency, characterized by excessive lactic acid; and in maple syrup urine disease, where mutations in the thiamine dependent BCKAD enzyme responsible for amino acid metabolism is impaired; also in Leigh-like syndrome, where mutations in TPK1 enzyme, which converts free thiamine to active TPP, is affected.

Is the Thiamine RDA Sufficient?

Both the chemistry and the data suggest that the current RDA of just a single milligram of thiamine is insufficient to meet the challenges presented by modern diets and chemical exposures. Owing to its role in energy metabolism, thiamine insufficiency may underlie many of the disease processes associated with metabolic dysfunction, where cellular hypoxia, increased ROS and AGEs are present. These disease processes develop long before, and sometimes absent, frank deficiency suggesting there may be gradations of insufficiency relative to the individual’s metabolic needs. Whether thiamine is a causative variable in these disease processes or simply a consequence of a complicated history of negative interactions between genetics, diet, and exposures is unclear. What is clear, however, is that thiamine insufficiency is likely far more prevalent than recognized and given its role in energy metabolism, ought to be addressed more consistently in clinical care.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Vitamin Therapy Paradox: Getting Worse Before Getting Better

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paradoxical reactions with thiamine

Does modern medicine accept the idea of vitamin therapy? The answer is a resounding no!  It has only been a little over 100 years since vitamins were synthesized. Of course, as everybody knows, all of these chemical substances were found to exist in natural food. They were very much part of the mystery of evolution. Essential to all animal life, they were there for the picking. Later, it was also found that a number of essential minerals were required. Both the vitamins and minerals need to be present in minute doses, covered under the eponym of recommended daily allowance (RDA). All we had to do was to obey the rules set out by Mother Nature. Our ancestors were classified as “hunter gatherers”. They hunted animals and gathered the bounty of nature. Yes, we were primitive savages and life was not the ideal by any means, but the food contained all that was necessary for life.

An Evolutionary Imperative To Eat Real Food

To ascertain what kind of food is required by an animal, you simply look at the teeth. We have front teeth called incisors for cutting, the pointed teeth called canine for tearing meat and the back teeth molars, used for grinding. Cows and horses are vegetarian and only have molar grinders. Human beings are omnivores (all foods edible) meaning that we are designed to eat meat, fruit and vegetables. Some of the vitamins are recycled through eating other animals. Others are recycled by being returned to the soil and passing into plants. That is why I have said to many people in answering the question as to what diet they should pursue, eat only nature made food and leave the man made food alone. Well, of course, you know that we didn’t do that.

We now have a food industry and it is quite unbelievable, at least to me, to see some of the stuff that passes as food, based solely on taste and appearance. Sometimes I find a person with these typical symptoms who is very careful with diet and does not practice taste hedonism, but because farming practices have changed in modern times, the produce does not have the same kind of non-caloric nutrient content. It may not be coincidental that such persons are almost invariably intelligent and physically and mentally active. It is reasonable to assume that their nutritional demand exceeds supply and they need non-caloric nutrients.

Sugar and the Vitamin Paradox

Now let me turn to the reason that I used “vitamin paradox” in the title. Anyone that wants to follow my reasoning can look back at previous posts on this website. You will find that there is a significant emphasis on the calamity of sugar ingestion and its association with vitamins, particularly thiamine. I am sure that I will look like a broken record to many people, but here is what happens to your health. Although it is obvious that all the vitamins and essential minerals are required, I am taking the example of thiamine because of its close association with the wide consumption of things called “goodies” or “sweets”.

All simple carbohydrate foods are broken down in the body to glucose. Research has shown that overloading the metabolism with sugar overwhelms the capacity of cellular machinery to burn (oxidize) it by producing a relative deficiency of thiamine, the vital catalyst that ignites (oxidizes) glucose to synthesize cellular energy for function. Recently it has been found that thiamine is required for the oxidation of fats, making the doughnut a perfect example of high calorie malnutrition. This is so important in the brain that I simply cannot overstate it.

High Calorie Malnutrition, Oxygen Deprivation and Brain Function

High calorie malnutrition is exactly equivalent to a mild degree of oxygen deprivation, so it is sometimes referred to as pseudo-hypoxia (false oxygen deprivation). If this is induced by poor diet where the pleasure of taste (hedonism) overrides appropriate nutrition, a curious thing happens! The lower part of the brain that deals automatically with your ability to adapt to a hostile environment becomes much more susceptible in its responsiveness.

I will give you one example: panic attacks, so extraordinarily common in our culture, are simply fight-or-flight reflexes that are triggered by pseudo-hypoxia. Messages go out to the body from this part of the brain, falsely initiated as though you were actually being “chased by a tiger”. Such an affected person will begin to experience the following symptoms as examples: palpitations of the heart, unusual sweating, a sense of anxiety or panic, irritable bowel syndrome, manifestations of allergy, emotional lability (emotions out of control) etc.  He or she will go to the doctor who will do a series of tests. If they are all normal, you will then be told that this is “all in your head” (psychosomatic). On the other hand, the doctor might find evidence for “mitral valve prolapse” (MVP), now known to be an early sign of “wear and tear” damage in the heart and the focus becomes “heart disease”(often used to explain heart palpitations) rather than its original cause, associated with nervous system dysfunction. I have seen MVP disappear in people from correcting their nutrition. It is rare for a patient to be asked about diet and rarer still to question the possibility of a vitamin deficiency.

Vitamin Deficiency: The Walking Sick

This kind of health situation may go one for a long time. The patient has symptoms but is not really a sick person. I refer to people like this as the “walking  sick”. Life continues as usual, but medications have failed to relieve the symptoms, or worse yet have introduced side effects. Over time, the loss of metabolic efficiency gradually leads to damage in cellular machinery (e.g. MVP) because the energy need to drive daily function is not being met. Thiamine activates the most important enzyme in energy synthesis and, in the early stages of nutritional deprivation, a thiamine plus multivitamin supplement would quickly abolish the symptoms. If neglected and the marginal malnutrition continues, it will be gradually more difficult to repair the damage.

Vitamin Therapy With Chronic Deficiency: Expect a Decline Before Improving

Physicians who practice Alternative Medicine have found that it is possible sometimes to retrieve function at this late stage of development by the use of a course of vitamins given intravenously. They have also learned that the symptoms of the patient actually get worse (paradox) in the initial stages of intravenous treatment but begin to get better following an unpredictable period of worsening. Naturally, the patient concludes that the treatment is bad or that it is causing side effects as in the use of vitamins. That is why I have christened it paradox, meaning that the unexpected happens.

Over the years of administering intravenous vitamin therapy for all kinds of conditions, irrespective of conventional diagnosis, I quickly learned to inform a patient about paradox before instituting treatment. Surprisingly, this paradoxical response usually heralds a good outcome. I do have some ideas about the cause of paradox, but it is so technical that I cannot attempt it here, perhaps in future posts. Intravenous vitamins are tremendously effective in the improvement of most chronic diseases, an effect that is almost impossible to achieve with the standard treatment of drugs as used in modern medicine today.

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Thiamine Deficiency in Modern Medical Practice

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thiamine deficiency in modern medical practice

Modern medical practices are plagued with patients who present with chronic, complex, and seemingly treatment resistant illness; illnesses that defy most laboratory testing and abound current diagnostic categories. Some data suggest that 25-75% of symptoms experienced by these patients fall under the umbrella of ‘medically unexplained symptoms’.

What if some of those symptoms were not only explainable but treatable and the expression of these illnesses manifested not from some complicated new disease but from a simple but forgotten nutrient deficiency? What if this nutrient was uniquely critical to mitochondrial competence such that its insufficiency would derail energetic capacity, affect cellular function broadly and diversely, and produce many of the symptoms currently ascribed as medically unexplained? Wouldn’t this be worthy of investigation in your patient population?

That nutrient is thiamine or vitamin B1 and it is essential to mitochondrial energetics – the conversion of food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). This process is the backbone of all health, and absent sufficient thiamine, it grinds to a halt producing many of the diseases processes vexing modern medicine.

Thiamine is a critical and rate-limiting cofactor to five key enzymes involved in this process, including those at the entry points for the glucose, fatty acid, and amino acid pathways. It has a very short half-life (1-12 hours), limited storage capacity, and is susceptible to depletion and degradation by a number of products that epitomize modern life.

When thiamine is insufficient to overcome these variables, oxidative metabolism falters and the ability to generate molecular energy declines. Over time, aerobic respiration turns anaerobic, oxidative stress increases, and cellular, tissue, and organ function dependent upon steady state energetics deteriorates.

Anaerobic glycolysis, the telltale sign of everything from general metabolic dysfunction to cancer, is, at its root, an adaptive response to insufficient micronutrients like thiamine. Replenish thiamine, recover mitochondrial capacity, and aerobic metabolism and health improve.

Critically Ill Versus Walking Sick: Gradations of Insufficient Thiamine

Conventionally, thiamine deficiency syndromes have been described relative to overt, and often later stage illness in the hospital setting. The most common designations include: Wernicke’s encephalopathy marked by nystagmus, ataxia, and cognitive deficits; wet beriberi or high output cardiac failure with edema and dry beriberi, central and peripheral nervous system and cardiovascular disturbances without edema. More recently, sensorimotor polyneuropathy or neuritic beriberi, gastrointestinal dysmotility syndromes, and the dysautonomias have been included in the spectrum, but recognition is lagging.

These designations give the false illusion of a disease process that happens acutely and one that can be categorized by the afflicted organ system. Neither is accurate. While overt thiamine deficiency is certainly a medical emergency and may sometimes develop acutely, the vast majority of cases represent a culmination of years, if not decades, of insufficient thiamine intake relative to need. Until fulminant, these disease processes are marked by low mortality, but high, chronic, and polysymptomatic morbidity. This suggests ample opportunity to treat and prevent more serious illness, improve the patient’s quality of life, and possibly even regain health. Even in overt and emergent cases, where symptomology is obvious, resolution is possible with thiamine repletion.

Thiamine Depleting Factors

Thiamine deficiency is most commonly associated with food insecurity and chronic alcoholism; a narrow view that risks missing early signals of accruing disease across patient populations. Contributors to this deficiency are far more prevalent in first world countries with westernized food production than is recognized. Among the key dietary contributors to insufficient thiamine:

  • Alcohol
  • Tobacco
  • High carbohydrate, highly processed foods
  • Coffee, tea, energy drinks

Additionally, the regular use of common medications and/or exposures to environmental chemicals independently and synergistically provoke thiamine deficiency. Every medication and environmental chemical depletes thiamine directly or indirectly by a number of mechanisms including blocking thiamine uptake, increasing its degradation, preventing synthesis in gut microbiota, increasing excretion and/or by inducing mitochondrial damage by other means that then necessitates a higher thiamine intake to compensate. Some of the most commonly used medications are the biggest offenders:

Sadly, poor dietary habits trigger thiamine insufficiency independently, leading to the prescription of many of these medications, which then further derail thiamine status and mitochondrial capacity. It is an illness spiral that can only be resolved by addressing diet and mitochondrial nutrients like thiamine.

Genetic Contributors to Thiamine Deficiency

While thiamine deficiency diseases are predominantly attributable to diet and lifestyle variables, a number of common genetic polymorphisms in the solute carriers responsible for thiamine uptake, and in enzyme activity involved in thiamine metabolism, increase the demand for thiamine intake. In these cases, disease expression, particularly later in life, represents a latent genetic vulnerability triggered by environmental or lifestyle stressors. Many medication and vaccine reactions fall into this category.

Prevalence Across Patient Groups

Inasmuch as thiamine status is not regularly evaluated in clinical care, it is difficult to know how pervasive thiamine deficiency is within the general population. Moreover, there are no universally accepted cutoffs demarking the progression from suboptimal to frank deficiency. Of the data that do exist, it is likely far more common than recognized across a broad swathe of patient populations.

Strikingly, diabetes confers one of the largest risks for thiamine deficiency across patient populations. This is largely do to metabolic derangements (to be discussed in a subsequent post) initiated by the hyperglycemia. These include the increased excretion of thiamine, and interestingly, the endogenous production of the anti-thiamine molecule oxythiamine.

Thiamine Testing

Laboratory assessment of thiamine status varies in sensitivity and specificity, with some tests carrying a high false negative rate (standard serum and plasma), particularly when thiamine status is marginal and with recent intake of thiamine. The two most sensitive tests are whole blood HPLC and the erythrocyte transketolase activity/thiamine pyrophosphate effect combination, neither of which is readily available. Urinary organic acid tests, while indirect, may provide useful patterns for determining the need for thiamine and other mitochondrial nutrients.

How To Recognize Thiamine Insufficiency

In light of the difficulties associated with laboratory testing, clinical acumen is required. Given its role in energy metabolism, lack of energy, in multiple manifestations, is a cardinal indicator of insufficiency.

  • Chronic fatigue, muscle weakness, or pain
  • Hypersomnia or anorexia
  • Dysautonomic reactions – exaggerated, ill-timed, or inadequate autonomic responses to stressors, most notably in the brain, heart and/or GI system

Office observations to support thiamine insufficiency:

  • Subtle changes in gait, stability, muscle tone, speech, decrements cognitive or affective acuity or stability
  • Asymmetrical pulse pressure, postural hyper- or hypotension, general tachycardia (early stage), bradycardia (later stage)

Standard labs pointing to problems with energy metabolism:

How to Treat

While clinical practice guidelines exist for overt thiamine deficiency in hospital, which include the use of IV thiamine and additional nutrients at a range of doses dependent upon severity, there are no established guidelines for out-patient thiamine deficiency or insufficiency syndromes. This is partly due to its lack of recognition and partly due to the fact that individual need for thiamine, other mitochondrial co-factors, and response to repletion, varies considerably.

There are no known toxicities to high doses, however, there can be negative reactions in the initial phases of thiamine repletion for a subset of patients. These reactions can occur at any dose. In some cases, the reaction involves the specific formulation of thiamine. In other cases, electrolyte disturbances and/or other micronutrient deficiencies unmasked by thiamine are at fault. To mitigate these reactions, thiamine should always be given with magnesium (~50% of the population consumes less than the RDA and magnesium is required to activate thiamine), a clean, lower dose multi-vitamin and a potassium rich diet. It should be noted that additional calcium may also be needed (here, here), especially when dietary calcium has been low for an extended period. Hypophosphatemia may develop as well in patients with recent or extended GI illnesses and/or have a history of low protein consumption and sodium disturbances are also common.

Consider Thiamine

Thiamine is a safe, non-toxic, essential nutrient that has become increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of modern dietary practices and chemical exposures. Thiamine sufficiency is fundamental to energy metabolism, mitochondrial capacity, and thus, health. Consider thiamine in your practice.

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More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

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Western Medicine: A House Built on Sand

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Let Food Be Medicine

At the risk of repeating myself too much as in former pages of this website, I want to return to discussing in some depth the fallacies incorporated in our present approach to health and disease. You may or may not remember that I have stated a number of times that Hippocrates (400 BCE) uttered the formula “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food”. Having been construed as the “father of modern medicine”, it has seemed to me for a long time that he has been ignored as a “parent”.

For centuries, there was no idea about disease. The early Egyptians bored holes in people’s heads “to let out the evil spirits”. Throughout medieval history the only treatment seems to have been “bloodletting”. In our modern world, horns from the rhinoceros are regarded so highly for their medical properties, that this wonderful animal is reaching the point of annihilation. Pharmaceutical drugs, with the exception of antibiotics, only treat symptoms. I ask you, does this make any sense at all in the light of what Hippocrates suggested?

Because humanity tends to follow a collective pattern and only rarely listens to an idea derived from rational deduction, I view medicine as like a traveler on a road without a known destination. In my imagination, he comes to a fork in the road, but the signpost records information on only one fork. It reads “kill the enemy”, reminding me of the story of Semmelweiss, a lone thinker in his time and who “gave thought to the message on the signpost”. Most physicians are familiar with this story but it is worth repeating.

Semmelweiss was a physician who lived at a time before microorganisms had been discovered. He presided over an obstetric ward where there were 10 beds on one side and 10 beds on the other. The physicians would deliver their patients without changing their clothes or washing their hands. As we would expect today, the death rate from infection was extremely high. Semmelweiss said to himself, “they must be bringing [the enemy] in on their hands” and he devised the first known clinical experiment. He made it a rule for the physicians on one side of the ward to wash their hands in chlorinated lime before they delivered their patient. The physicians on the other side of the ward continued to deliver their patients in the same old way. As we would easily recognize today, it did not require a statistician to see the difference between the incidences of infections on the two sides of the ward. Irrespective of the fact that this was a dramatic discovery that later had obvious meaning, Semmelweiss was accused by the medical authorities of the day of being non-scientific because he could not explain what it was that was supposed to be on the hands of the physicians. Of course the medical establishment had no idea that their model for disease was catastrophically wrong, although collectively certain that their philosophy bore all the hallmarks of scientific truth. Semmelweiss had offended the medical establishment and they threw him out of the hospital. He died a pauper in a mental hospital.

The First Medical Paradigm: Kill the Enemy

When microorganisms were discovered to be responsible for infections, it fulfilled the message on the signpost and it became the first paradigm in medicine. Kill the bacteria: kill the virus: kill the cancer cell, but try not to kill the patient. If we look at the history of this time, we find that a lot of patients were killed in the concerted attempts to find ways and means of killing the enemy. We all remember the discovery of penicillin and how it led to the antibiotic era, still the major therapeutic methodology, even though we know that it is running into bacterial resistance and has never been a good idea for viruses or cancer cells.

Although the germ theory had been around for a long time, Louis Pasteur, Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch were able to prove it and are regarded as the founders of microbiology. However, Pasteur was said to have uttered the words on his deathbed “I was wrong: the microbe (germ) is nothing. The terrain (the interior of the human body) is everything”. Perhaps he had unknowingly voiced the principles of the next paradigm in medicine.

The Second Medical Paradigm: Genetic Determinism

The monk, Mendel, by his work on the segregation of peas, formulated what came to be known as the genetic mechanisms of Mendelian inheritance and the discovery of DNA modeled the next stage in our collective development. The fact that each of us is built from a complex code that dictates who we are was a remarkable advance. The fact that the construction of the code sometimes contained mistakes (mutations) led us to explaining many diseases and for a long time we believed that the genes were fixed entities, dictating their inexorable commands throughout life. However, the newest science of epigenetics has shown us that the DNA that makes up our genes can sometimes be manipulated by nutrition and lifestyle, as well as by artificial means in the laboratory.

Health: The Ability to Respond Effectively to a Hostile Environment

We are surrounded by germs that exist everywhere, many of which cause disease as we are all too well aware. Nevertheless, whatever evolutionary mystery guides our development, we are all equipped with an extraordinarily complex, genetically determined, defense system. We now know that this is organized and directed by the brain. Assuming that the genetic determinations of the terrain are completely intact, we can be reasonably assured that we can defend ourselves from any germ that Mother Nature can throw at us. Built in mechanisms in the brain require a huge amount of energy when it goes into action directing the traffic of the immune system. It is a crisis and can be likened to a war between the body and the attacking organisms. Thus, if Pasteur may have stated the next paradigm in medicine, what does it mean?

As an example, a typical microbial attack causes a common disease that goes by the name of febrile lymphadenopathy (strep throat). The throat becomes inflamed, perhaps because the increased blood supply brings in white blood cells, acting in defense. An increase in circulating white cells also occurs, bringing a brigade of defensive soldiers. The glands in the neck become swollen because they catch the germs that get into the lymph system.  Lastly, the increased temperature of the body is also part of the defense. Germs are programmed to have their most intense virulence at 37°C, the normal body temperature. If this temperature is increased, the attacking germ does not have its maximum efficiency. In other words, what we are looking at as the illness is really the act of brain/body defensive interaction. Besides attempting to kill the attacking germ as safely as possible, should we not be assisting the defense? The answer calls into question the relationship between genetic intactness and the required energy to drive the complex defensive action. Perhaps a genetic mistake (mutation) can sometimes be manipulated by an epigenetic approach through nutrients, just as advised by Hippocrates.

Disease: The Inability to Adapt to the Environment

If we look at health as the ability to respond effectively and adapt to environmental, mental and physical stressors, it is possible to re-conceptualize illness by the manner in which that response is carried out. A healthy individual will respond to stressors without problem, because of an efficiently effective mobilization of energy dependent mechanisms. In contrast, individuals who are not healthy will respond in one of two ways. Either the defense mechanisms will be incomplete or absent or over-reactive and inconsistent. Listed below are examples of both. Note that this is in line with the ancient philosophy of Yin and Yang or, in modern terms “everything in moderation”. Too much of anything is as bad as too little.

Exhausted Defense Systems

When I was a resident in my English teaching hospital, before the antibiotic era, I admitted a patient with pneumonia who was known to have chronic tuberculosis. He was seen to be “unconsciously picking at thin air with his fingers” and the physician for whom I was resident pointed out that it was a classic example of “a sick brain” and that he would die. He never had any fever, elevation of white blood cells or any other marker of an infection but at autopsy, his body was riddled with small staphylococcal abscesses. He had lived in the east end of London, notorious for poverty and malnutrition at that time. In fact, as an organism, he never showed the slightest sign of a defense. His “sick brain” was completely disabled in any attempt to organize his defense.

Excessive or Aberrant Defense Mechanisms

Many years ago I was confronted with two six-year-old unrelated boys who for several years had each experienced repeated episodes of febrile lymphadenopathy. Both boys had been treated elsewhere as episodes of infection. In each case the swollen glands in the neck were enormous. One of the boys had been admitted to a hospital for a gland to be removed surgically for study. It had been found that the gland was just enlarged but had a perfectly normal anatomy, only contributing to the mystery. One of the curious parts of the history was that each of these boys had been indulged with sweets. Because I was well aware that sweet indulgence could induce vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency, I tested them and found that both were indeed deficient in this vitamin. Treatment with large doses of thiamine completely prevented any further attacks. The mothers of the boys were advised to prohibit their sweet indulgence. I needed some evidence and asked one of the mothers to stop giving thiamine to her son. Three weeks later he experienced a nightmare, sleep walking and another episode of lymphadenopathy that quickly resolved with thiamine.  A nightmare and sleep walking supported the contention that the brain was involved in the action. In addition, his recurrent illnesses had been associated with increased concentrations of two B vitamins, folate and B12, both of which decreased into the acceptably normal range with thiamine treatment. Of course, this added complexity to an explanation.

What I had already learned about thiamine deficiency is that it makes the part of the brain that controls automatic mechanisms much more sensitive. One or more reflexes are activated unnecessarily. No reflex activation is as bad as too much. Thus, the “trigger-happy” defense mechanisms were being activated falsely. Thiamine is perhaps the most important chemical compound derived from diet that presides over the intricacies of energy metabolism. All that was required was an improved energy input to the brain. Folate and B12 are vitamins that work in energy consuming mechanisms and I hypothesized that their respective functions were stalled for lack of energy, causing their accumulation in the blood. Whatever the explanation, the facts were as described. It is interesting that the high levels of folate and B12 had been found at the hospital where a lymph node had been removed. The mother had been accused of giving too many vitamins to her child. She had told me that she did not understand this explanation because she had not given any vitamins to him. I had measured them solely to verify this finding.

The Treatment of Disease Should Begin with Host Defenses

We exist in a hostile environment. Each day throughout life we live in anticipation of potential attack. A physical attack may be an injury, an infection or an ingested toxin. A mental attack, divorce, grieving, loneliness, generally referred to as “stress” may be virtually anything that causes the brain to go into increased action. In facing both physical and mental forces, it is the brain that organizes the defense and it demands an increase in energy output that depends solely on the ability to burn fuel. The fuel burning process is governed by a combination of genetically determined ability and the nature of the fuel. Thus, the treatment of all disease is dependent on this combination being effective. It can be seen as obvious that killing the enemy is insufficient. As our culture exists at the present time, trying to get people to understand the necessity of perfect nutrition is a pipe dream. This particularly applies to youth and the artificiality of the food industry. However, our culture is also virtually brainwashed to accept tablets as a means of treating anything.

In our recently published book “Thiamine Deficiency, Dysautonomia and High Calorie Malnutrition“, Dr. Marrs and I have shown that thiamine deficiency is extraordinarily common and that supplementary thiamine and magnesium together balance the ratio of empty calories to the required concentration of cofactors necessary for their oxidation. The question remains, would vitamin supplementation, just as artificial, be a more successful sell as a preventive measure? We have shown that the symptoms derived from prolonged high calorie malnutrition can last for years as an unrecognized polysymptomatic illness that haunts many physicians’ offices. Early recognition represents an easy cure. There is a good deal of evidence that ignoring the symptoms and the persistence of high calorie malnutrition creates a gradual deterioration that then turns up as chronic disease. Some drugs, metronidazole being an example, will precipitate thiamine deficiency, so we have to recognize the precarious nature of the present medical approach in the use of drugs whose action in treating disease is often unknown. Although recognition of the artificiality of thiamine supplementation is implicit in this proposal, it is better than allowing a common example of continued morbidity to exist.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

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This article was published originally on July 19, 2018. 

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Podcast Alert!

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thiamine podcast

Yes, I have been talking about thiamine again. This time with Dr. Kurt Woeller, as part of his series: Functional Medicine Doc Talk. We covered a range of topics from the chemistry to the clinic and everything in between. Importantly, we discussed why most of us need a little more thiamine that than we are getting from diet alone.

If you have a chronic health issue that seems intractable, consider the possibility that underlying nutrient deficiencies like thiamine are involved. Thiamine is a key metabolic regulator controlling a large portion of how we convert the foods we eat into the energy our cells need to function. When thiamine is low, energetic capacity and the ability to utilize and synthesize ATP wanes and along with it. The result is all sorts of compensatory reactions. Those reactions manifest as the symptoms of many of the modern illnesses that seem endemic these days – meaning that the root cause of these conditions is simply poor energetic capacity, or rather, insufficient thiamine. Could a simple vitamin hold the key to better health? Possibly.

If you or someone you love is suffering from a chronic and seemingly untreatable illness, have a listen and consider thiamine. If you would like more information about thiamine, consider: Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition and/or read any of the hundreds of articles on this site.

Episode 4: Chandler Marrs, Ph.D – Thiamine Deficiency

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

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Familial Beriberi: Discovering Lifelong, Genetic, Thiamine Deficiency

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Familial Beriberi - genetic thiamine deficiency

In 2017, at the age of 52, I had an unexpected call from my new doctor informing me “I know what’s wrong with you! Come to my office now!” Lifelong increasing chronic fatigue and untreatable Hashimoto’s thyroiditis were my chief complaints.

Past doctors prescribed high dose thyroid medication, which made me feel worse. An autoimmune diet kept me trim but provided no energy. I read adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is required for thyroid production, though ATP isn’t discussed in treatment. Baggage from Effexor and an adverse childhood were also contributors to my health.

Desperate, every relevant supplement and thyroid medication on the market, I tried. Only two were effective. GABA relaxed me, and d-ribose cured my depression 100%. I became bubbly. My personality changed, but after four weeks they both stopped working. Amour thyroid lifted my brain fog for a week. Then, I had side effects. Eventually, I would learn that I, and many members of my family, across several generations, had beriberi or thiamine deficiency. In my case, I had a defect in a key thiamine transporter that made getting sufficient thiamine from diet all but impossible. Unfortunately, I did not learn this crucial information, until I was in my fifties, after years of illness and suffering.

Women’s Issues and Unrelated Problems Begin

While my problems began decades earlier, they seemed to hit a crescendo as I hit menopause. The HRT patch relieved hot flashes, only to fuel a fruit-sized fibroid that split in half with one part covering my rectum. A GP prescribed colon therapy causing severe leg cramps and constipation. A fibroid ablation enabled normal bowel function. Afterward, ozone baths caused my bowel function to stop and I developed air hunger. An ENT said, “you don’t have sleep apnea, there’s another system in your body that is causing air hunger.” He recommends a university clinic over going to different specialists.  I pursued genetics.

Starting to connect my cognitive decline, prediabetes, and depression in my grandparents to myself, I went to the MTHFR expert that wrote the report.  Her extensive 15-page genetic/supplement report offered no results. After failed treatments from endocrinologists, functional doctors, and big-name clinics like Mercola, I took a chance on Orthomolecular Medicine.

Discovering a Familial History of Beriberi

On the day I was diagnosed with thyroid treatment failure, I found a nutrient interaction article and had a light bulb moment, I’m missing a nutrient for thyroid production. I went to the author, the late Dr. Richard Kunin, San Francisco’s legendary go-to doctor for solving mystery illnesses through nutrients. He was a pioneer in antioxidant therapies, utilizing diet, nutrient and genetic testing since the seventies.  His orthomolecular research was the first to verify the use of a mineral therapy in a drug-induced disease.

When his door flung open, I saw wisdom. A rare commodity. Here was this brilliant doctor and a poster of his early collaborator Linus Pauling, staring down at me. Dr. Pauling coined the term orthomolecular meaning “the right molecule in the right amounts.” A doctor like this comes once in a lifetime and I handed him my three-inch binder.

A true scientist, he was able to assess my biochemical individuality, in two sessions.

In the doctor’s intake, the first clue is asking what my parents ate. They ate both Chinese and Western foods, which seemed like no big deal. After lab results, he searches through 300 genes, to find the biggest picture, the gene. Instead of trying to treat multiple gene defects with a supplement. He addresses the root cause first.

He announces, “You’re deficient in thiamine,” and gives me the SNP, called Transporter 2 (SLC19A3) which provides instructions for making a protein called the thiamine transporter, which moves thiamine into cells. Over time, the transporter dissolves.

I had thiamine and asparagine deficiency and riboflavin and glutathione borderline deficiency. The thiamine or vitamin B1 deficiency caused the other deficiencies, but he stays on point and discusses thiamine and only thiamine. He prefaces the session with a history of beriberi and birds fed white rice.  Looking back, it’s rudimentary B1 history, but as a patient stuck in the Hashimoto’s/Adrenal Fatigue paradigm for so long, my mind went blank. I remained silent, I didn’t know if I could die from it.

To make matters more confusing. I had stopped taking thiamine after an OATS showed B1 adequacy.

When he told me I can’t convert energy from food, I thought how absurd. He reminded me “the bottom line is how well you absorb the thiamine; not how much I tell you to take”. A Meyer’s Cocktail IV is an initial part of treatment. The next step is collecting data to prove the relevance of thiamine as an essential nutrient required to make energy.

When I Added Thiamine, My Body Began To Recharge

For the first time, I saw a difference in labs and body function. At 300 mg of HCL, my increasing A1C levels fell below the prediabetes range. I almost took metformin at one point, recommended by an integrative doctor. I felt the effects of B1 utilizing B6, through a lucid dream. Treating methylation since 2006, he says “B1 is the gateway to methylation.”  With before and after data, he points out B1 upregulating the folate cycling. My energy was increasing. Muscular problems resolved, elevated branched chain aminos were absorbing and TMJ and bruxism disappeared. This was just the beginning. familial beriberi - thiamine deficiency

I found the thiamine experts, Dr. Derrick Lonsdale and Dr. Chandler Marrs during my titration period. Nuances of thiamine used as a drug to make ATP are available with a detailed overview of beriberi, throughout Hormones Matter. Post to post, the doctors’ addressed every missing piece to my complex puzzle and more. They prompted me to take a closer look inside my dad’s past, one he rarely spoke of, and connections were made.

While titrating up, I had a short bout of diarrhea in the middle of the night. When I decreased the dose, I developed POTS for the first time, the room would spin 24/7 whenever I stood up. My GP referred me to the ER. I was unaware that I was having a paradox reaction. I just upped the thiamine, POTS, and diarrhea resolved.

Chronic TD is called beriberi means “I can’t, I can’t” in Singhalese. The problem is Chinese typically under 80, have never heard of beriberi, and in the US, beriberi is known but assigned as a disease that does not exist anymore or a condition only seen in alcoholics and bariatric patients. Genetic beriberi is passed through families, causing the inability to absorb thiamine from foods.

Beriberi In Two Families Going Back Three Generations

My family history revealed apparent genetics expressing as neuropsychiatric disorders and other conditions that appeared unrelated. Thiamine deficiency (TD) is not easily identified, due to its polysymptomatic nature. Besides the brain, the heart, muscle skeletal, digestive system, and autonomic nervous systems (ANS) need thiamine to function.

My maternal side lived in prosperity and ate a traditional Chinese diet and tropical delicacies. There were 7 members, including my grandfather that had Alzheimer’s (AD) and one family member had Parkinson’s. My grandmother had TD from kidney dialysis. There was TD in AIDS. Untreated hyperthyroidism resulted in cardiac failure mortality at 58. An alcoholic uncle had deficits, anxiety, cancer, and AD. An anorexic cousin refuses whole meals, develops a damaged digestive tract, severe IBS-C, chemical sensitivities, and major depressive disorder.

My paternal side lived in poverty. White rice was a diet staple. There was an aunt that died from child mortality in China from starvation.

After migrating to the US, food scarcity persisted. My grandfather had obesity and type 2 diabetes. My grandmother had sadness after her husband sold their daughter’s papers in China, never to see them again. At 61, my 4’10” grandmother fell over and died from beriberi.

Her wake was the first time my dad went to a restaurant at age 16. He often licked food and preserved it for later. Falsely accused of stealing, the detention center fed him regular meals. Five siblings had short stature and high IQs. His Chinese brother pictured right, was saved by the U.S. Army from malnutrition and assigned to be the radar instructor. There was bullying, anger, and irritation in the three boys. One, a bar owner exhibited extreme behavior like bringing a gun over a trivial conflict that would leave in-laws aghast.

Ocular diseases, restless leg syndrome, circadian rhythm disorder, cancer, some OCD and hypermobility, and osteoporosis appear. There was TD from chemotherapy. Two aunts left behind in China lived to be centurions and a daughter has fibromyalgia, depression, and other deficits.

Connect the lineage with a pregnancy gone wrong.

Genetics and a Traumatic Pregnancy Sets the Stage for Life

Pregnancy, a hypermetabolic state, requires sufficient thiamine for the development of a healthy child. My mom, a robust woman, was overmedicated and bedridden for a month post-pregnancy. She recovered but my brother was permanently disabled. My brother was born with uncontrollable hyperactivity and oppositional disorder. Our theory was his oxygen supply was cut off to his brain, but it was thiamine deficiency.

Two years later I was born. As a young child, I was hypoactive and didn’t move much. In grade school hearing loss was detected. Early memories included some clumsiness and not having the strength to swing on monkey bars like other children. My first feelings of frustration were over homework, especially math. My overall health waxed and waned and would not draw attention until high school when tiredness, poor memory and learning disabilities appeared. I was bullied by my older brother.

Nine years later my younger brother was born, bruxism as a baby, was his first sign of thiamine deficiency.

The next generation, symptoms of thiamine deficiency show in a gifted child.

Neurological deficits ranging from severe to minor were a sign of impaired methylation since birth.
My mom’s prenatal diet was traditional and American, and we were bottle-fed. This was in the ’60s when women were weaned off breastfeeding.

Now connect the genetics, the pregnancy and untreated thiamine deficiency in a parent and sibling.

A Genius Mind Uses More Energy and Requires More Thiamine

My dad invented the on-line TV guide in the eighties. In a constant state of fight-or-flight, working through the middle of the night on patents, sugary snacks were comfort foods to compensate for early years of food deprivation. The “night owl” term we used was circadian rhythm dysfunction. Thiamine is an overlooked nutrient required for sleep and the breakdown of cortisol.

When my brother’s hyperactivity was unmanageable, breaking things, beating the ADD out of my brother was habitual. A dysfunctional limbic system causes knee-jerk reactions to uncontrollable rage. I just learned that my seemingly nice uncle, an alcoholic, frequently tried to beat the homosexuality out of his young child.

A psychologist thought violence only happens in alcoholics. I think this limited view needs to be updated to include excess processed food intake. I remember “children should be seen and not heard” commercials as a child when hitting and spanking was more accepted.

In 1983, Dr. Kunin cited Dr. Lonsdale’s research that describes the B vitamin link with violence in Mega Nutrition for Women, “patients whose violent behavior was inexplicable by conventional medical diagnosis were found to be deficient in one or more B vitamins, notably B1, B3, and B6”.

During the Covid-19 shutdown, I thought of TD when incidences of abuse spiked, homelessness and random violence spread, and middle-class families now become dependent on food banks.

Poor Health After Antibiotics

As a young teen, I lost my glow, I looked tired, and my skin had a jaundiced yellow-greenish tint. In high school, after a round of tetracycline for transient acne, I was never the same. My metabolism stopped and I gained 40 lbs. I also have leptin deficiency and so I am always hungry. Napping after school was an everyday event. My limited thyroid test given showed normal thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH). I was also constipated but didn’t know it until middle-aged after I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. In my 20’s I took antibiotics for chronic strep throat. Uninterested in nutrient dense foods, I subscribed to carb loading and high-intensity aerobic activity, the trend of the day.

Changes in My 30’s and the Promise of Modern Medicine

When my dad had side effects from sleep medication, he did his research, bought supplements for every system in the body, and stopped going to doctors. He got the family off of rice and put us on B vitamins. Uneducated in vitamins, I gave up on them too soon. I wasn’t taking enough! My mom’s acupuncturist treated my ADD, but I strayed when a well-meaning friend steered me towards pharmacology, and I took Effexor. The damage showed up over the next decade when increased nervous system and mitochondrial dysfunction begin.

Loud bar music in the back of my unit initiated chronic insomnia in my forties. I had open mouth breathing. Elevated cortisol and night sweats woke me at least 8 times a night. If I was mad, I’d have an instant hot flash and sizzle like a red bull. I lost my sex drive. After quitting Effexor, elevated thyroid TBO antibodies appeared. Later diagnosed with sensorineural hearing loss, the psychiatrist prescribed sound therapy but the condition isn’t curable.

Musculature problems began, I had an unrelenting frozen shoulder from a gym accident, and at one point, I had ataxia and couldn’t walk straight. After a trip, while in Hurricane Ivan, I was unable to walk for a month with ataxia. I once met an advanced multiple sclerosis patient, that experienced the exact same symptom from Ivan. The cause was thiamine deficiency in the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement and walking.

For work, I illustrated 300 skylines from around the world and market them on Etsy. My fine motor skills and artistry remain superior, but my spatial organization was nonexistent. I was very messy. Taking GABA hampered work stress, but I couldn’t cycle it from thiamine deficiency. Managing inventory and college students wore me out. One told me “You can’t retain what I tell you”.  Finding my car in large parking lots was often challenging. The hippocampus circuitry requires thiamine for short-term memory function.

Orthomolecular psychiatry has proven to treat and manage these types of disorders with nutrients and diet, as the first line of defense. There was no need for antidepressants.

After My Diagnosis, I Learned My Parents Were Already Taking Thiamine

When I told my dad about my thiamine deficiency, he pulled out a bottle of thiamine labeled anti-beriberi. He was taking B1 for cardiac support. The heart and brain consume a vast amount of energy and require thiamine to meet the demand. My mom took benfotiamine successfully for shingles, a neuropathic pain.

When I told my original acupuncturist, about my diagnosis he said, “I already know you have beriberi, just take B vitamins and lots of them. You don’t need my herbs.” He had been treating me for dysautonomia, twenty years before I developed POTS. I detested the point because his needling pressure hurt. No questions asked; he needles points by observation and pulse, Western characterization in diseases have no significance.

Part of the treatment for dysautonomia is a needle to the center of the philtrum, this point prevents fainting. Another needle is inserted into the center of the forehead and one on top of the head for balance. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) healers identify liver and lung channels weakness two decades before western medicine.

The New Doctor Damaged My Health In Only Eight Months

Twenty nineteen was a bad year. Dr. Kunin sees Vitamin C deficiency and signs of anemia and then retired. I stopped getting IVs. I would still nap after taking them. My trusted acupuncturist, also a nutritionist moved. I began dry coughing a lot, which later I learned was a sign of TD. Then I met the worst doctor ever.

I showed her, Thiamine Deficiency, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition and she handed it back to me and said “Oh, another patient brought this in the office.” I interviewed another doctor and told him I have TD and he replied with, “what’s your point!” and referred me to a doctor out of state.

I settled on the first doctor, and everything started wrong. She put me on a high-dose thyroid medication without titrating, and Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN), which gave me a stomachache. She wanted me back on LDN after I told her I had side effects. She recommends NAD instead of Meyer’s Cocktails which includes thiamine.

By the time I realized I was in a hyperthyroid state, the damage had begun. A cascade of beriberi symptoms begins. When one symptom would go away, another would begin. The neuropathy was more long-term. I had resting tachycardia, lactic acidosis after five days of yoga stretch that caused feet neuropathy and then trigger finger. All the doctor could say was “I had candida overgrowth”.  The cause of candida was that I had a weakened immune system from TD. I watched videos on lactic acidosis to explain it to her.

When I saw an eleven year old’s homework on glycolysis it made me wonder how much doctors remember from medical school.” I tested the doctor and asked her “What does pyruvate convert to?” She answered incorrectly.

I was developing non-alcoholic Wernicke’s encephalopathy (WE), acute short-term memory loss. I almost walked out of a restaurant thinking I paid the bill. I couldn’t remember putting a credit card back in my wallet and arguing with the clerk after she had handed it back to me. Once I read, “if you think you’re deficient in thiamine, get an IV right away.” After a series of Myers Cocktails with phosphatidylcholine, the progression stopped.

Another doctor got me off the thyroid meds, yet wet and dry beriberi symptoms continued. My left-hand lost circulation and turned hard and purple. The back of my neck hardened and my backside turned into butter. I had unintentional weight loss and my hand reflexes slowed. My minerals were becoming unbalanced. I contacted a refeeding syndrome clinic, for a consult, but was turned away because I wasn’t anorexic. A few months later I traveled to Hawaii and made a mistake.

Orthomolecular Medicine Rescues Me Again

Accidentally packing thiamine HCL instead of TTFD, the HCL initiated my paradox reaction and I had diarrhea several times the first night. Every day I napped from the sun’s UV rays. Excruciating muscle cramps sent me to Dr. Pritam Tapryal, Honolulu’s IV doctor specializing in chronic fatigue syndrome. Thiamine handouts, a stockpile of capsules and vials of B1 were waiting for me.

He calculates that I needed 600 mg of IV thiamine based on the length of time I had been feeling unwell. With an iron load before the second IV, I felt a surge of energy – I got ATP! My vagus nerve stimulated peristalsis and excess fermentation stuck in my body for three months finally released. Elevated liver enzyme activity and low blood pressure normalized.  Afterward, I found a doctor willing to provide high dose thiamine therapy at home.

I went back to the doctor that said “what’s your point” when I told him I had thiamine deficiency and requested 600 mg of parenteral B1 instead of 100 mg. A bit taken back, he shows compassion and custom orders 500 mg of B1 in a Myers Cocktail, after I explained my recent experience. The IV manager thought I was an ICU patient, but I wasn’t. It was the dose I felt best on.

High Dose IV Thiamine Therapy: From  A Patient’s Perspective

A series of high-dose thiamine (HDT) IV treatments, turned into an epigenetic treatment going on two years and two months. I’ve taken 100,000 mg of parental thiamine to this date. Infusions continued to sustain therapeutic effects and increased thyroid production. Unknown cause of malabsorption required ongoing infusions. Resolved through extensive pre-and post-labs.

I self-directed my treatment and gauged myself. I found thiamine articles from all over the world, but high-dose thiamine information was limited to WE treatment only. I received no medical advice on thiamine therapy from allopathic doctors that had clinical nutrition education, or from a young orthomolecular doctor or GP. Familial beriberi - thiamine deficiency

I had two to three IVs per week the first year that included 500 mg of thiamine. The longest time without an IV was three weeks at the beginning of 2020 and eleven days at the end of 2021. Below is a 12-month summary, from a 55-year-old woman with unrecognized lifelong thiamine deficiency from a SLC19A3 gene defect.

Journal From Long Term, IV, High Dose Thiamine Therapy

My high-dose thiamine regimen began 11/21/2019. This is the Meyers Cocktail titration period:

  • 2 infusions of 200 mg of thiamine in 2 weeks in end of Nov. to Dec.
  • 5 infusions 300 mg of thiamine in 2.5 weeks Dec. to Mid Dec
  • 2 infusions 400 mg of thiamine in 2 weeks Mid Dec. to January.
  • 500 mg of thiamine 2 to 3 times a week were taken in the middle of January.

11/2019 Concerned about anaphylaxis. Only a few teeny bumps around lips developed and disappeared after the first day. Visual clarity is the first sign of improvement.

12/2020 – Foot neuropathy and trigger finger for 4 months, resolved with 7 IV’s spread out over 4.5 weeks. The IV thiamine doses were 300 mg or 200 mg. Dexa scan shows osteopenia in lower back and femur and only 3 lbs. of lean muscle mass, muscle wasting, a hallmark symptom of beriberi.

OATS test taken a day after HDT infusion – tested B1 borderline deficient. Borderline and deficient in minerals and vitamins except manganese, doctor thought something was wrong with lab.

1/2020 – Right mucosal lining was demyelinating and slightly bleeding for a month, saw glitter. Zonulin levels over 800, the doctor told me not to be concerned, but I was. Slight rectal bleeding.

An unintentional fast in cold weather caused syncope. Broke out in an intense sweat, became faint and lost appetite. Leaned against buildings every few feet to get home, no thiamine in am. Sitting on bench resolved symptoms. MCV increases to 100, normal range is up to 95.

Tested negative for panel of inborn errors of metabolism. Autoimmune panel negative except – Arthritis – equivocal, Thyroiditis- out of range, Epstein Barr – negative.

2/2020 – New formulation of phosphatidylcholine, with small amount of dextrose without B1 was a mistake.

On three-week break, nighttime driving vision had decreased. Resumed Meyer’s Cocktail after break, fatigued, fell asleep in IV chair after IV. Reduced thyroid medication from I grain a week, increased after break to 3.5 grains a week. A1C 4.8 increased to 5.2 after break.

Right quadrant of my upper teeth dropped down. Oral surgeon said “not pathogenic of disease”.

Last visit with Dr. Kunin. Concerned I looked just as depressed as when we first met. I was happy to see him, unable to express it. Continue a more DIY approach and TCM, “the Chinese have found ways to treat that western medicine has not figured out, and one day technology will be so advanced doctors won’t be necessary”.  He handed me the keys and said, “Figure it out on your own.”

3/2020 – Introduced high fat diet. Lost 3 lbs.in a week. Severe leg cramps from foot to shin. During an IV, felt leg cramping. Normal cholesterol increased from 260 to 400. Stopped diet. No B1 in fat.

4/2020 – Lowered stress from semi-retirement and resting. IBS starts to resolve for the first time at 55. Felt extreme chill one day.  Took injectables at another doctor’s office due to shut down. I took 100 mg B1 in a B complex in intramuscular (IM) with B12 to ease B1 ‘pinch’, plus IM biotin for a month.  Not as effective as HDT infusions.  Combination of B1 with complex and biotin had best results.

5/2020 – Meyer’s Cocktail and 350 mg of NAD back-to-back infusions lifted brain fog profoundly.  Able to do tasks I couldn’t perform prior. I cried with joy, my cells were not permanently damaged from past use of Effexor and antibiotics. Unable to replicate treatment. Oral Inositol reduced elevated triglycerides dramatically, then stopped working. IBS came back off and on.

6/2020 – Tested borderline low on calcium, choline, magnesium, B5, B12, Vit C, K2, zinc on a three month average. GI lab shows mal-digestion, metabolic imbalance, and dysbiosis. Stomach pain from psyllium and flax, phytobezoar build up, rash on neck since 2019 getting worse, insomnia resolved.

7/2020 – Severe anemia showing and severe muscle weakness. I couldn’t lift a 5 lb. weight. Acute memory loss, almost walked out of lab before taking the lab.  Waking up early in am in summer at 8:00.  Hemoglobin normal and then drops frequently, IV doctor sees bleeding. Ophthalmologist finds arcus build up from high cholesterol, strong arteries, and recommends latanoprost for glaucoma after field test.

8/2020 – Decreased parenteral 500 mg B1 to 300 mg to test if high dose thiamine is depleting B12. Began coughing after 7 days. Post NAD IV lab tested  B12 deficiency, causing hemoglobin and T3 deficiency.  Acupuncture treatment creates switch sensations throughout body allowing oxygen flow, heart channel under arm point pulsated – oxygen and lung channels communicate. Leg bruising – Vitamin C deficiency.  Insomnia came back when B1 parental dose decreased, never resolved fully after increasing B1.

9/2020 – ANS dysfunction – uncontrollable body flipping in bed two nights in a row, movements like a fish out of water.  Resumed 500 mg of prenatal B1 after two weeks at 300 mg. Ophthalmologist said “you look more alert”, compared to two months ago. Started IM Mic-B and hydroxocobalamin, 5 days a week. IBS-C decreased with B12 IM. Coughing on Lipothiamine, switched permanently to Allithiamine, cough resolved. Normal zonulin levels return, reduced gut inflammation. GI didn’t order endoscopy after I told him something hit my stomach when walking and had rectal bleeding. He wrote IBS on notes. Stopped EDTA IVs for cadmium after a few treatments, when urine began foaming.

10/2020 – Latent deficiencies appear: B12, CoQ10 malabsorption. B1 not absorbing. Vitamin C deficiency appears, lifelong subclinical scurvy, bleeding gums, gingivitis, pilaris keratosis, bruising, poor iron absorption, rectal bleeding, low tyrosine.  Sick people are low in B vitamins and Vitamin C.  Repeated thiamine depletions cause heavy Vitamin C deficiency in lung, kidney, thymus, and liver.

Tested positive for Intrinsic Factor AB, Pernicious Anemia (PA).  Hematologist defensive when I asked him if TD can cause anemia, cancelled next appt., told me to see a GI. Doctors booked from Covid-19 delays.

Oral surgeon cleared teeth shifting. Orthodontist ordered aligners, short teeth roots in scan.

Trialed compounded thiamine cream from Lee Silsby pharmacy and replaced TTFD.

11/2020 – Stomach pain increasing after meal. Twelve days in, I thought I was going blind. The thiamine cream wasn’t absorbing. Indoor and night vision blurry. Back to TTFD and Myers Cocktail together. My vision came back, but not as clear before getting blurry. Mild paradox reaction, a bowel movement in the middle of the night.

12/2020 – Endoscopy shows chronic gastritis, h. pylori and peptic ulcers. A combination of a lack of nutrients cause ulcers, including B1.  Refused triple therapy (antibiotics and PPI). Treated with cabbage, herbals, mastic gum.  ION Panel indicated GSH and potassium deficiency, lactic acidosis (TD), ketosis, oxidative stress, transmitter deficiencies and metabolic syndrome.

Elliot Overton of EO Nutrition interprets mitochondria in battleship mode, suspects mold toxicity. Unseen mold or water damage. Incontinence and frequent urination. Second ophthalmologist told me don’t take latanoprost. MCV high still high with regular IM B12, since 10/20. With small veins and bursting arteries, it’s difficult to maintain IV’s.

In 2020, my health was like my dad’s. My hearing and vision deteriorated, I was unable to hear people speak with masks on and had difficulties focusing on conversation in noisy rooms. Gingivitis developed into periodontal disease; teeth aligners require lifetime use. My dad is deaf in one ear, and now going blind in the second eye and had the periodontal disease the same year and wears dentures.

Observations at 43,500 mg IV Thiamine After 13 Months

Intravenous therapy can target issues in ways oral thiamine cannot reach.

Improved thyroid production, A1C, insomnia, IBS and CFS, overall energy level partially improved.  Foot neuropathy and trigger finger resolved.  Cocktails with phosphatidylcholine, iron, and NAD, had increased effects, latent deficiencies appear, no nutrient depletions from high-dose thiamine.

Infection, gastritis, ulcers during treatment caused malabsorption. Reducing thiamine caused insomnia to reoccur and acute vision reduction, increased ANS dysfunction caused temporary uncontrollable body movements.  Increased dose of 300 mg to 500 mg of B1 resolved uncontrollable body movements and regained vision.

I saw one patient vomit, and a patient have nausea during 300 mg B1 Meyers Cocktail.

ROS from unknown cause extends treatment into 2021.

High Dose Thiamine IV Therapy, Toxins, Diet, Labs, and Gigong

In 2021, I tapered to two IVs a week and increased the 500 mg to 600 mg mid-year. Hot flashes returned after 5 years of remission causing a three-month setback. Insomnia made me delirious and had to take naps. PEMF bio-mat calms the nervous system to assist in sleep, without it I’ll wake up a few times during the night. For over 10 years, I wake up and urinate once a night. My eyes became blurry and I walked slowly like an old lady for a short period. Daily clear phlegm wants to come out since 2020 when I eat.

In spring my bloodwork showed Stachybotrys and Aspergillus mold. I found growth on papers in a storage box against a wall with the laundry room on another side. Condensation went through the wall.

With my gut healing and IV therapy, my TBO antibodies levels reduced significantly. The increased T3 raised my steroid hormones. Reducing thyroid medication again was a real possibility. IBS-C was resolved by mega-dosing powder magnesium with fiber, B1 and B12. I once had an offer to see the world authority on IBS-C, though all I needed was a good form of high-dose magnesium. I was feeling better until I experienced unexpected setbacks.

Everything Changed With Two Major Endocrine Disruptors

Microscopic brick debris during construction flew under my windows. Debris flew inside over 50 ft. and landed everywhere, never thought my eyes and lungs could clear it. Due to an HLA-DQB1 gene defect, I’m unable to break down mycotoxins (mold).  Mold is an anti-thiamine factor and it oxidizes B1 and B12.

When inflammation started to calm down, my hallway went under remodeling, and material debris and paint fumes went under my door. The chemicals shut down my thyroid. Antibodies rose from 180 to 535. Inflammatory markers that were improving became elevated and deficient. My killer cell function, HNK1 (CD57) level was 50 and now 18.  The doctor thinks I have Lyme. I’m testing for MARCoNS, a staph infection that resides deep in the nasal passage, due to sinus inflammation from the biotoxins.

After trialing Cholestyramine for mold binding, it made me constipated. My acupuncturist gave me a two-hour treatment to undo the damage. To detox, I use an FIR infrared sauna on the mat. I’m getting an ERMI test kit to test other rooms, an air test hardly detected mold.

HDT Isn’t a Standalone Treatment

With the amount of IVs I took, I tested questionable foods. A few small gluten-free snacks put me into a comatose within 20 minutes. Less than two ounces of coffee initiated leg/foot cramping. I never had this problem a few years ago.  Removal of processed carbs is the only way I can maintain my thiamine storage.

Staying in mild ketosis, on a paleo diet is optimal for me. When I tried high-fat and vegan diets, they caused deficiencies. I have a nonfunctional gene cluster FADS1/FADS2, that requires the consumption of EPA and DHA found in seafood. Drinking concoctions of vegetables and minerals activate B vitamins throughout the day.  TD causes nitric oxide deficiency and I replete myself with nitric oxide greens.  My one kryptonite food is liver, it elevates my copper.  Using food as medicine supports my overall immune function as I recover from Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome.

My hydrochloric acid is deficient from TD, and I have low gastrin. I’ve taken 13,000 mg of Pepsin Betaine and feel no sensation. Apple cider vinegar doesn’t seem to work. My amino supplements aren’t absorbing.  I also have oxalates, Elliot recommends more B6 and I’ve increased molybdenum to meet my sulfur intake.

I take a blend of B1 that includes: 900 mg Allithiamine, 300 mg benfotiamine and 500 mg thiamine HCL. Over 900 mg Allithiamine and sulfur come up. Before a Meyers Cocktail, I’ll soak in magnesium salts. I’ve increased all the B’s and take them with other essential nutrients throughout the day in moderate to high doses. I require biotin intramuscularly every few weeks, otherwise my nails chip, this started last year. My transporter may be dissolving.

Utilizing Biomarkers and Managing Nutrients

Every six weeks I rotate biochem panels and adjust diet and supplements. My weaknesses this year have been lipids, omegas, aminos, and inflammatory markers. My B12 continues to pool due to suboptimal thiamine levels unable to utilize B12, so I stopped testing. I inject 35 mg of hydroxocobalamin a week, plus sublingual, and hemoglobin is always on the lowest end of normal after I had pernicious anemia. Mold is the suspect cause. I may also have scar tissue from ulcers and scurvy of the colon. The GI doctor recommends an endoscopy once every three years when there’s been a problem.

I’ve found nutrient panels reliable when B1 is extremely deficient. On two occasions my lactate tested normal. Then I had beriberi symptoms after I took the labs on the same day. This was from eating beans and walking in sun, which forced me to sleep. My citric acid markers were normal on an ION panel and I was in ketosis, but the clinician didn’t know I had POTS on the morning of the lab. This was from a three-day fast suggested by a doctor. Thiamine deficiency can worsen on a dime.

Diagnosed with TD on a SpectraCell micronutrient panel, I had long-term B1 deficiency. Normal B1 levels are misleading on my labs once there’s been intake. The Vibrant America panel showed B1 malabsorption at 35,000 mg of parenteral B1.  I’ll continue with this panel and monitor nutrients connected to B1.

My doctor’s friend offered me the two-part transketolase lab for research, but my doctor forgot to arrange the sampling. I was upset at the time, but it doesn’t matter now. I manage myself by how I feel. With Excel journaling, the more elements I add, the more clarity I receive. Observing physical changes are equally valuable to the labs.

A Revisit to Energy Medicine That Compliments Nutritional Balancing

I recently discovered group Primordial Qigong. I haven’t found any other modality that has the same restorative benefits that give energy instead of using energy. Movements connect the body, mind, and soul with the focus on living in the present. Gentle stimulation of systems and body parts creates rejuvenation from within. Who doesn’t want that?

Dysautonomia, the fainting prevention point, is taught in practice. The bank of hands faced together inverted pushed downwards from the forehead over the philtrum encourages balance. Made for masses with no resources, it only requires continuity. This is a welcoming alternative compared to the nutrient-depleting therapies, recommended by for-profit western doctors that made my health worse when they didn’t know what they were dealing with.

At 100,000 mg Of IV Thiamine – It Feels Like I’m on a Train I Can’t Get Off

Overall, the quality of my life has improved. I no longer need to lie down and sleep during the day, even if I feel tired. I’m more active in mind and body. I can sit up and read, wake up earlier, and exercise. My processing speed and speech are faster. The left side of my brain is strengthened. I did audits on my condo association to trace missing dues and one over BlueCross when many claims were unpaid. My brain fog had been too severe to do this previously.

Neuropsychiatric issues appear in less frequency. I still experience forgetfulness and minor learning impairments. Irritation is manageable. I believe some brain function is permanently damaged along with hearing loss. Considering my long-standing history, I’m pleased with the results even though it is only a partial recovery.

Since my body called out for a high dose, there’s a chance I can regress. At 11 days off the IVs, I was deficient in Co2. I don’t know if the thiamine coenzymes can function without high-dose therapy because of my genetic liability. I’m patiently waiting to see how my body changes after the toxins are eliminated and figure out how to taper down from the IVs.

Final Thoughts

Thanks to Dr. Marrs and writers on HM for elucidating thiamine awareness, I learned how to use thiamine as a drug at a time when I needed it most.

Through luck, I found nutritional clinicians that made a significant difference in my health. Educated in Dr. Lonsdale’s thiamine research, they applied his nutrient-based knowledge into their practices. Understanding that beriberi still exists today and is not an ancient scourge from yesterday, is critical.

By assimilating the genetic impact of beriberi and orthomolecular dosing, I’m regaining health in my late fifties. However, no patient should have to spend a lifetime finding a treatment based on luck. There’s no reason to it’s all here: Thiamine Deficiency, Dysautonomia and High Calorie Malnutrition, Derrick Lonsdale and Chandler Marrs; www.orthomolecularmedicine.org

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This article was published originally on February 14, 2022. 

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