I received a short paper from a colleague in Portugal a couple of days ago that demonstrates in just a few pages how science should really work.
The paper from the journal Diabetologia reports on a study done in Pakistan showing that high-dose thiamin (vitamin B1) may be a valuable therapeutic agent in the treatment of diabetic nephropathy. This small study certainly isnt the final word, but it does show how medical science should work.
First, the paper starts off in the introductory paragraphs discussing how the idea for high-dose thiamine therapy came about. Before we get into that, however, let me digress briefly to discuss diabetic nephropathy for those who are unfamiliar with it.
The main job of the kidney is to remove waste products from the blood while keeping the non-waste products, i.e., proteins, sugar, etc. in the blood. You can think of the kidney as a sieve with tiny holes. All the waste that needs to be filtered is small enough to fit through the holes while the substances meant to remain unfiltered are large enough to not fit through the holes. If you were to pour liquid containing both waste and non-waste matter into a long tube with your sieve somewhere in the middle in a place non-visible to you, you could check to see if your sieve were damaged by looking at what comes out at the bottom of the tube. If you find only waste, then you can be pretty certain that your sieve is functioning. If, on the other hand, you find material coming out the bottom that should have been caught by the sieve, you can be pretty sure there are holes torn in your sieve.
This in very simplistic terms is what happens in the kidney. Proteins are large molecules and should never make it through the kidney into the urine. Protein in the urine in any significant amount tells you the kidney has a problem. With simple lab tests we can identify microscopic levels of protein in the urine, and anyone having a certain amount is said to have microalbuminuria, which means microscopic levels of albumin (the main protein in blood) in the urine.
In people with diabetes, microalbuminuria means the kidneys are starting to develop nephropathy, or pathology (or disease) of the nephron (the basic unit of the kidney). To go back to the sieve analogy, theyve developed bigger holes in their sieve. This condition afflicts about 40 percent of those with diabetes and can (not that it always does, but it can) progress to complete kidney failure, requiring dialysis or kidney transplant.
Diabetic nephropathy is most likely caused by the toxic effects of too much sugar in the blood and is helped, and even reversed, by careful control of blood sugars. Despite this common knowledge, many unenlightened people continue to treat the condition by limiting dietary protein instead of focusing on the continuing damage caused by elevated blood sugar. In order to keep caloric intake up, what do people substitute for protein? You got it. Carbohydrates. And since dietary carbohydrates become blood sugar fairly quickly, they end up damaging the kidney more than the protein they are replacing.
Now that youve got at least a working notion of what diabetic nephropathy is, lets look at our paper.
The authors start off with a description of the research on thiamin to date that gives us a nice picture of how the various types of studies all tie together to make real science.
First off, someone noticed that people with diabetes and protein in their urine had low blood levels of thiamine. This observation prompted researchers to do observational studies of this phenomenon.
In evaluating large numbers of subjects with and without diabetes and protein in their urine, scientists determined that the diabetics typically had lower blood thiamin levels than the non-diabetics.
But, at this step, these studies are simply observational studies and cant possible prove causation.
The next step in the scientific evolution is to hypothesize that low thiamin levels are somehow involved in the development and/or progression of diabetic nephropathy. If this hypothesis is valid, then giving thiamin should improve the condition.
Researchers gave thiamin to rodents with diabetes and discovered that increasing blood levels of thiamin reduced or eliminated proteinuria in the animal model.
Here is where the tricky point arrives in the study of drugs trying them in humans. As Ive written many times in these pages, rodents are not just furry little humans. What often causes no problems for them causes huge problems, including the ultimate problem death in humans. So it is a difficult business to start giving experimental drugs to humans.
In this case, however, it isnt so bad because thiamin even in high doses is non-toxic to humans. The next step is the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical study, which the authors of our paper under discussion performed.
Researchers randomized a group of 40 subjects who had diabetes and microalbunuria into two groups. Subjects in one group got three 100 mg thiamin capsules per day; subjects in the other group got placebo. (I couldnt tell from the paper whether the three capsules were spread out over the day I would assume they were or were taken all at once.) The two groups remained on their supplement regimen for three months followed by a two month washout (a period in which no one either thiamin or placebo).
The results were pretty spectacular.
There was a significant drop in the amount of protein in the urine of subjects taking thiamin as compared to those taking placebo. Even more exciting was the following:
After [thiamin] therapy for 3 months, regression of microalbuniuria to normal urine albumin had occurred in 35% of the patients.
Over a third of the patients on thiamin had no more evidence of diabetic nephropathy, at least as demonstrated by protein in the urine. This is a spectacular result, especially for a natural substance with virtually no toxicity.
I appreciate the way the authors of this paper presented their data. It is much more informative than simply providing the average differences between the study group and the control group.
Take a look at the graphs below. The upper figure is the overall change in microalbunuria between the groups. The middle graph is the change in the subjects on placebo; the bottom graph shows the changes in subjects on thiamin.
As you can see, the results of each subject are presented a single line. You can tell a lot from these kinds of graphs. For example, you can see that in the thiamin group there was a generalized downward slope to all the lines, which means that all the subjects improved on the regimen, a fact that is most important. The middle graph, the one showing the results from the placebo is interesting as well. You can see that the vast majority of subjects had no change while a couple had significant changes. Why would there be improvement on the placebo? Who knows? If I had to guess, I would guess that those subjects taking the placebo who showed the major improvement may have changed their diets on their own. These were patients at a diabetic clinic who were being treated for their condition, so maybe these subjects were more aggressively treated. But, it really doesnt matter because we can see from the flat lines of most of them that there was no change due to the placebo. This type of graph at least allows us to speculate and to realize why there was a slight drop in the average level of protein in the urine of even those subjects on placebo.
The authors note in their discussion that
this is an encouraging pilot-scale outcome that high-dose thiamin reverses early-stage nephropathy in type 2 diabetes.
They go on as they should to recommend larger scale studies to see if their findings hold up.
Based on this study, would I, myself, take thiamin in 300 mg per day doses if I had diabetic nephropathy? Absolutely.
Although it is only a pilot study, the results are pretty stunning. But the drug is harmless. So what is the risk? A few pennies per day for the thiamin?
If this were a study in which, say, statins were used as the agent, I wouldnt be quite as eager. I would probably wait until other larger studies had replicated these findings. Why? Because statins arent harmless. One can die from them. Or can have miserable generalized muscle aches and weakness. In other words, there is a lot bigger downside to taking statins than there is to taking thiamin, so I need a much greater level of comfort to make the risk/reward calculation in favor of taking a statin.
The only weakness I can find in this paper is that the authors spent no time discussing the possible mechanism for the benefits of thiamin on diabetic nephropathy. Perhaps they ran out of time and are saving it for another paper. Alas that is what has happened to me as well. MDs group is performing with the symphony today, and Im being badgered to get ready to leave. So, I, too shall leave a discussion of the potential mechanism to a future post.
Hat tip to Pedro Bastos for sending me this paper.
Weekly reader here. Appreciate this and other information you bring to light. This one hit home for me.
Even though my A1Cs keep hovering around 4.8 after I took control of carb intake starting 4 years ago, early this year my non-fasting microalbumin was tested for the first time. Result was 586 ug/mL (reference is 0 to 17 ug/mL.)
There’s no telling what the result might’ve been when I ate like the old food pyramid poster child.
Fortunately, the nephrologist indicated kidney clearance is excellent based on blood and 24 hr urine testing.
I may try 3 x 100mg thiamine caps/d to see what my next results look like.
Thanks for posting this Doc! Backs up Brownlee’s 2003 paper on the pathobiology of diabetes and the benefits of benfotiamine, a thiamine derivative. I understood — perhaps incorrectly — that as glucose control is lost, thiamine is just pee’d away thus benfotiamine is needed to circumvent that pathway…now the question becomes, is that accurate? And then, based on the response, whether to take thiamine or benfotiamine to protect the cell from the damages of excess sugar inside the cell.
I prefer benfotiamine, myself. The study was done with thiamin, so I didn’t really comment on the idea of the benfotiamine. Thanks for bringing it up.
It is good to see studies like that. Wonder how it is funded?
I learned about a synthetic derivitave of thiamine called benfotiamine from some people on Dr. Bernstein’s forum. There have been some testimonials there of people improving kidney function as well as for neuropathy. I’ve been taking 300mg daily for the last year. There is more information and studies listed at benfotiamine.org.
Any comments on benfotiamine?
I would use benfotiamine instead. Most of the Diabetes/Endocrinology journal pieces Ive read indicate that this form may hold even more advantages than thiamin as benfotiamine is lipophilic and stores up rather than urinary excretion of whatever isnt used. Benfotiamine also appears to lower the cardiovascular impact of high dietary AGEs from cooking meats/fats and the negative impact these AGEs have on various pararmeters specific to diabetics in partcular but the public at large. For example a German study indicated that a few benfotiamine capsules a day attenuated (virtually abolished) the endothelial dysfunction normally experienced from a high AGE meal in Type 2 patients and preserved insulin sensitivity, etc. These benefits extend beyond just diabetes, multiple health conditions, cardiovascular, neurological, awesome supplement, awesome science.
Benfotiamine is the Porsche.
Thiamine is the Honda Civic.
Buy what your budget/garage/spouse will allow.
Another great post, Dr. Eades. I ran across another natural treatment for diabetes today. It’s a substance called gymnema sylvestre. Wikipedia says its an herb native to the tropical forests of southern and central India where it has been used as a naturopathic treatment for diabetes for nearly two millennia. It supposedly can rehabilitate pancreatic cell damage. Ever heard of it?
Gymnema sylvestre has been around for years. I’m familiar with it, but I don’t think it comes close to the efficacy of thiamin as reported in this paper.
I’m curious as to whether less than 300mg of thiamine would be effective as well. How did the researchers determine what would be an effective dose? I’ve read that taking significantly more of one of the B vitamins can create a deficiency of the others; should a person therefore increase the others as well to avoid creating an imbalance?
I don’t know the answers to these questions as they weren’t addressed in the paper. I’m not the world’s greatest vitamin expert, but I don’t think one needs to increase other B vitamins to prevent an imbalance. Especially not with water soluble vitamins that aren’t stored.
This study is truly intriguing. I am an obese woman (5’3″,~240 lbs) without medical insurance coverage and I strongly suspect I may be insulin resistant/pre-diabetic, or possibly actually diabetic but undiagnosed. For the past 3 months I have been eating a low carb diet (~30 net carbs daily) and have experienced many positive health improvements as a result: lessened arthritis in my knees, easier to get out of chairs, fewer bouts of shortness of breath, no more edema and lessened tingling in hands and feet, no more heartburn, no more gingivitis, better sleep, no afternoon mental fog, no cravings or hunger, clearer sinuses, better skin tone, skin not so dry, stronger nails, improved varicose veins.
My worst fear is that my blood glucose wasn’t adequately controlled for years and that I may have already suffered damage to the capillaries in my hands and feet (I used to experience very uncomfortable tingling in both hands and feet, radiating up the arms and legs, that has improved with lowering my carbs). I am terrified of having parts of me rot away like I’ve seen happen to others.
Since kidneys are mostly made of fine capillaries, does this study imply that perhaps the capillaries in my hands and feet might be strengthened / repaired if I started a thiamin regimen? I know the study is unconfirmed and doesn’t go into non-kidney functioning, but does that seem like a reasonable possibility? I can’t afford doctors, but maybe I can find a way to somehow manage thiamin pills.
Thiamine does indeed improve damaged capillaries, which I’m sure is the mechanism behind its positive effect on the kidney. I would use benfotiamine, however, instead of the thiamin. It’s more expensive, but more potent as well.
I pride myself in not having a kidney problem, and being diabetic. My blood sugars have been or had been cronically high due to cronic pain. I did not take painkillers for the pain. Well guess what, my understanding is that painkillers cause kidney problems too. There are other causes of kidney problems. I don’t buy into the diabetic there for will ahve kidney problems bit. I dont’ do the other things that a mjority of people do that cause kidney problem, and I have always taken B1.
thanks for giving us this. I am thrilled. I will also up my B1. You think clearer with it too, but don’t forget to partner it withthe vits I needs to be partnered with!
well here it is almost a year later. Here is what I found out in regards to B1. I used to think that I was walking on marbles from the neraphaty thing (Don’t have a clue on the spelling. ). So up until feb of this year I was taking one or two B1 vits a day. Got pretty use to having no foot pain or weird feeling s in my legs or feet. Then I stopped. The pains came back tenfold.
So B1 works very well.
Do you think that taking 300mg of thiamine might also help with preeclampsia in pregnancy (for which protein in the urine is a symptom), or does that have a different mechanism? Would such a high dose possibly be harmful during pregnancy, when it obviously isn’t to a non-pregnant adult?
Thanks,
Karin
I don’t know, and I would be hesitant to try without running it by your ob-gyn doc.
Where are all the comments? This is BIG NEWS!
At least it is to me. I’ve never had kidney problems, but I know a lot of people that do… I’m passing this on to the. Yeah, they’re diabetics… One may be actually ‘finding the Way’, and I am so glad, as I want him to be around for the rest of my life… I’ve never bought the party line that all systemic damage to organs is permanent.
I’m looking for some free advice, and possibly a recommendation? Austin, TX area. My pal’s endocrinologist is not of our way of thinking. This guy wants him on that pancreas whip, Glipizide – oh yeah, and all the requisite gluco-phages – rather than telling him to STOP EATING SWEETS!!!!! Oh yeah, don’t forget statins!
Here’s what I think, based on The Good Book (GCBC) and what I’ve read here.
The MOST important thing, everything else comes NEXT is:
Control blood sugar. Stop eating refined and simple carbohydrates.
He’s doing well. But I am having trouble convincing him that it takes time for the body to repair damage that has been done over many years. His blood sugar numbers remain in the 110’s to 120’s, with spikes into the 140’s. I’m a mathematician and have done some rough graphing of his numbers of the past 3 weeks, and the trend is DEFINITELY down. But he wants it to be in the 80’s NOW. Instant gratification. You know the type.
So am I right about this? He should continue on course, and he will see improvements in the blood sugar levels, with stabilization? What I’m wondering is, how long? I’ve told him at least 6 months, is that optimistic?
Any help would be great. Oh yeah, and any doc recommendation for the Austin, TX area would be great too, if you know of someone off-hand. (I bet not as you guys – thinkers, I mean – are rare birds in the Medical Industry.)
An aside: Many, and I mean MANY dogs, as they age, develop kidney problems. Many dogs die of kidney failure.. spilling protein like crazy. Most dog foods are chuck full of all the things we are told WE shouldn’t eat. Soy, corn, rice, and other crud.
The answer to this that most Vets expound is ‘feed less protein’. Oh yeah, that makes sense, doesn’t it? Sheesh… I am so gratified to have this article, which I will bring to my vets the next trip. They are good folks and will certainly have the right take-away from it.
Thanks again, Doc, and I’ve been reading you for a long time now. Just never commented before.
Back into lurk…
Fair Winds,
Cap’n Jan
Unfortunately, I don’t know a doc I could recommend in the Austin area. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, only that there is not one I know and would feel comfortable recommending. If anyone in the Austin area knows such a doc, feel free to chime in.
Blood sugar levels usually respond fairly quickly, but not always. If the trend is down, that is good. Have your friend keep after it.
I get grief from some ill-informed friends/family that my intake of “so much protein” will wreck my kidneys! OMG! and they try to coerce me to eat more “heart healthy grains” and such utter nonsense. I suppose this shows that a kidney damaged BY carbs is apt to leak protein into the urine, not that “so much protein” is causing the damage and the resultant protein in the urine.
I suppose that can be drawn from this post, although it is more applicable to a diabetic’s damaged kidney function. I eat accordingly to Protein Power, but then it has been 8-9 months since I read it, so I should go back and brush up on my nutrition a bit to see where I may have drifted off plan (certainly drifting to lower and lower carb intake, though!) in any ways. I sincerely doubt I can be eating too much protein! I seem to be about 70% fat/ 25% protein/ 5% carbs these days.
The idea that protein damages the kidney is a myth. It’s the elevated glucose that causes the damage, the protein leak is the effect.
Should people with diabetes do this for prevention as well?
I would if I were diabetic.
This is interesting. I am reading and responding via my kids’ wii (first time- not holed up in dungeon office).
So nice with coffee on my cozy chair! Must get keyboard for this!
Meanwhile, what are some good dietary sources of thiamin (not T2 here), and why do I have a funny feeling the answer will be related to meat…? Or eggs, poultry, fish, game, etc…
And I wonder also, if adequate levels are protective?
Oh this Wii is awful.
Pork is one of the best sources. But even a bunch of pork may give you only a couple of milligrams. The study dose was 300 mg. You couldn’t possibly get this much thiamin via diet alone.
Very nice. I try to only stick to double-blind, placebo controlled studies.
Just want to point out to those who think they get a lot of thiamine – 100mg is like 90x of US RDA. So it’s a pretty significant amount.
My question is… is this “treating the effect and not the cause”? Shouldn’t these diabetics do the right thing and drop carbs to more natural levels instead? Will thiamine be needed at that point?
Of course they should do the right thing. But the thiamin does help, too.
Cap’n Jan, Jimmy Moore has a webpage which lists low carb docs, there are two in Texas listed..Irving and Sugarland.. the page is here: http://lowcarbdoctors.blogspot.com/
Hi Dr Eades,
Great post! I canÂt tell you how many personal training clients have expressed concerns about going on a low-carb diet because theyÂve heard somewhere that too much protein damages the kidneys.
IÂve always known that protein does not cause kidney damage. But I didnÂt realize that elevated glucose levels were the culprit and that the protein leak was the effect. Thanks for the clarification. ThatÂs very useful information.
Mikki
Glad to be of help.
Gisela, CapnJan, et al,
for more info on benfo and general support on BG control for diabetics, stop by the Bernstein diabetes forum. Great recipes and an excellent complement to this blog with several posters detailing their results from this supplement/diet combo.
The forum is down today, but expected back shortly. http://www.diabetes-book.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl
If you don’t want your kidneys to leak protein, don’t eat so much protein. Control your blood sugar by eating sugar. If you’re getting fat, don’t eat so much fat. If your cholesterol is high, don’t eat so much cholesterol.
I totally get it! I’m gonna be a nutritionist. And maybe a media darling.
To Gisela, try to beg borrow or steal a glucometer and do this
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2009/04/test-test-test.html
the meters are cheap and even given away but the strips are expensive.
Keep the BG down and many symptoms may reverse over time. There’s a protocol for peripheral neuropathy involving Alpha Lipoic Acid and Evening Primrose Oil which seems to work for many (the website is temporarily down), AFAICR 300 – 600mg ALA and 500 – 1000mg EPO.
Benfotiamine was also mentioned, I was considering trialling it with my next supplements order and this paper has made my mind up.
I try to get most of my nutrients from a varied and low carb diet, but with the ALA, EPO, D3 and panthethine (NOT pantothenic acid) which I’m trialling as a statin replacement, I’ve started rattling, dammit!
Very interesting. I am no medical expert, but this seems related to something I noticed while I was pregnant. What do you think?
I got very swollen during the last few weeks of pregnancy (this was also the time I had intense chocolate cravings) . Every doctors visit ended with them checking for protein in my urine. No one told me to eat more meat (of course) but I always felt better after a big protein-fest, so that’s what I did, much to the dismay of my ob/gyn. My swelling would go down the days after eating a lot of good meat, and I never had protein in my urine when I wasn’t too swollen. The days after giving in to crazy chocolate and pop tart cravings, you could bet on it that there would be protein in my urine, I’d be swollen, and I’d get the pre-eclampsia speech from the doc.
It all makes sense now! I was getting all those good B vitamins when eating right and my cells were keeping their protein molecules….at least on the days I was eating right.
Gisela,
Even with the lower carb intake, consider avoiding wheat & gluten-derived ingredients. Some of those symptoms you describe (peripheral tingling esp) are also common with gluten sensitivity/celiac. Some low carb foods (LC breads variations) are very high in added gluten (used to boost protein and reduce starch), so one can be eating LC, but actually ingesting a LOT of gluten. Soy is also often increased in these LC foods, too. Better to stick to foods naturally low in carbs instead of LC franken foods that might be increasing your exposure to problematic ingredients like gluten and processed soy.
This is a great post, thank you Dr. Eades. It is also a good reminder for those who have issues with blood sugar control to keep tabs on Jenny Ruhl’s website and blog also, as she has an excellent page on diabetes and supplements, including a reference to this study.
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/20144672.php
Does anyone reading this blog take the fat-soluble version
of thiamin called sulbutiamine?
I take benfotiamine and vitamin B1 but have yet to try sulbutiamine.
Sulbutiamine study:
“Effects of Sulbutiamine on diabetic polyneuropathy: An open randomised
controlled study in type 2 diabetics”
http://www.bioline.org.br/request?mj02005
Nick, I did go to that link about the supplements.
Well, you know I take a chromium supplement, and it has magnesium in it and B1 in it and a whole lot of other things and it is a vit supplement system worked out for diabetics. When I don’t take it for a week or two, my BS goes up, insulen requirement goes up. when I do take it, the BS goes down, and insulen requirments go down. So this pretty much flies in the face of what that link is telling us.
The best research I have is what my body tells me is the results. As Dr. Mike has taught us studies are not always what they seem and can be slanted to what the researcher wanted to have turn out.
I know what works for my body. PP diet, low to no carbs does, and the vits work for me, although I have had plenty who tell me wrong diet, include grains etc, and give me noise because of the vits, they work for me, that is all that I need.
Hi Doc, an update re my response to adding benfotiamine and R-lipoic acid. Started benf on 4/9, 150 mg/day, with intial drop in that night’s bedtime BG & following morning BG, then 150 mg twice/day, with a BG rise back to about 5 pts less — but mood & stress resiliance much improved. Started R-ALA on 4/15, 50 mg for 2 days, then 100 mg twice/day. Morning BGs 10 pts lower (now mid 120s) and still dropping. BGs drop throughout day (still on 750 mg metformin twice day) to 100-115 by late afternoon. Bedtime BG been 105 or less for several days now.
On mom’s b-day yesterday, I ate food I’ve not eaten since diabetes diagnosis last August..so shoot me, I fell off the super low carb eating plan *G* (got right back on the ‘wagon’ again). 2 hr PP BG=199 (I really thought it’d be higher), 104 mins later after 40 mins on bike BG=91…WOW!!! Gotta assume I can still produce lots of insulin, just not as quickly as I used to when I had hypoglycemia. This give me hope that when I finally lose the excess wt (seems like hundreds yet to lose) I’ll have normal BG WITHOUT drugs as long as I eat LC & continue to exercise…and the nasal CPAP can be retired. Though my wt hasn’t budged in wks (coinciding with max tree pollens & layoff actually, so no surprise there), my water intake has also been down. I know the exercise & increased water & supplements along with LC food will see the wt start dropping.
Thanks to all of you who suggested I try R-lipoic acid for the liver cell insulin resistance, it’s working!
Special thanks to you Doc for posting the link to Brownlee’s paper — without I’d never have learned about benfotiamine, the secret that no one tells diabetics about, the ones who need it most.
I have chronic neuropathy from a neck injury. I’ve taken benfotiamine for several years now. I also take a narcotic, but at a dose that doesn’t really treat the burning and tingling completely. The benfotiamine just about takes care of it all. I went off of it for a few months and realized that the stuff really works. I take 600mg a day in divided doses.
Dr. Eades,
I maintain a paleo-health community online (but do NOT subscribe to the low-fat PC’d book version of the diet) and regularly share entries from this blog with its members- THIS one was especially significant to us. One of the arguments I get quite a bit from newbies is about all of the “protein” in legumes, and whole grains, blah blah. I don’t eat a raw diet, but I don’t eat anything that can’t safely be eaten raw. I always counter with arguments about the toxicity of raw legumes, the anti-nutrients in whole grains and the calorie cost vs benefit to primitive people in making grains edible. The one thing I don’t have a good grasp on is just how much the protease inhibitors in these foods limit the assimilation of amino acids. If an individual eats soy for protein, just how much of the soy’s protein content is nullified by trypsin inhibitors, etc? I realize it’s difficult to know precisely, given the cooking method and the form the food takes (TSP, soy milk, tofu) but is there any type of formula or table? Can you point me to any studies with actual numbers to help bolster my argument?
Thanks so much!
Paleo Huntress
I wish I could, but I don’t have any such studies at hand. I suspect, though, that the effect is significant.
Shoot! I clicked the next page button and didn’t realize I’d moved to another article. My comment was meant for the villagers vs hunters article. My bad!
Paleo Huntress
In free access Archives of site referenced I detail my personal experience using naturally occurring citric acid to reverse calcification of the arteries. It also occurred to me that the same modality is of renal benefit as a person could have kidney stones without realizing it, and the citric acid would have the same curative, restorative effect of dissolving them, holding them in solution, and passing them as liquid waste. “Living To Enjoy My Silver.” Tonight I ordered 720 Benfotiamine capsules of 250mg potency and may take with bioperine. And it’s back to one corny dog meal per week with lots of mustard so I can realize benefits of isothiocyanates. Next, TA-65, deer antler polypeptides, carnosine and colostrum.
Has anyone tried the thiamin regimen with Type 1 diabetes? I have had Type 1 for nearly 43 years. Over the past 5 years, my diabetes has become much harder to control and the amount of protein spilling has increased significantly (I had read but not sure I believe that if you don’t experience kidney issues within the first 20 years of having diabetes, you won’t have any). Any comments regarding the effects of Thiamin on Type 1 is appreciated. Good luck to all.
i recently started taking benfotiamine to prevent diabetic problems, although i have an A1c of around 5.8 for several years…anyway, the cholesteral thing: statins are very scary for your brain, too. they can do horrible things to memory (they did to mine, but i can’t prove it). anyway, i take red krill oil and milk thistle for my cholesteral, as well as only having healthy oils (cold expeller pressed) in my diet. the milk thistle seems to help my fatty liver detoxify. sooo, the result? total cholesteral of 175, hdl’s came up 11% to 64, and triglycerides under 100, and ldls (i forgot, but significantly low and ok). hope this helps 🙂 thank you dr. eades for your help with these things.