How to protect your eyesight, kidneys and heart in one fell swoop.....

...... through the ingestion of a nutrient that most doctors have never heard of, much less know it's uses. This was definitely not taught at medical school! Now the average medical practitioner or nutritionist will tell you that the B group of vitamins are water soluble. But as with most things in medicine and life, there are exceptions - in this case the B vitamin benfotiamine, a fat soluble form of thiamine aka vitamin B1. Thiamine is an essential nutrirnt for the maintenace of kidney,heart and eye function, and the fat soluble form remains longer in the body tissues than the water soluble one, due to it's deposition in body fat, rather than it being lost via the urine.

Benfotiamine is also a crucial factor in carbohydrate metabolism, helping to prevent glucose induced oxidative cell damage. For example in vitro studies ie studies outside the body, usually cell and tissue culture based studies - sseem to reveal that benfotiamine protects the cells lining blood vessels from oxidative damage. We know where that could end up - blood vessel and heart disease. So this nutrient is definitely one to consider adding to your shopping list, especially as it is five times better absorbed than thiamine. It is not available in your usual run of the mill multivitamin combo - like I said before, many nutritionists will look at you blankly when asked about it, so what chance do the stack 'em high, bank profits higher (without much or no customer benefit) brigade have? But I say: do your own research on this fat soluble B1 vitamin and come to your own conclusions - your body may be the better for it when taken!


To your abundant excellent health,

Dr Ike
Holistic Health Coach and Functional Health Expert

Sources:
^ Yamazaki M (1968), Studies on the absorption of S-benzoylthiamine O-monophosphate : (I) Metabolism in tissue homogenates. Vitamins 38 (1) 12–20.
^ M.L. Volvert, S. Seyen, M. Piette, B. Evrard, M. Gangolf, J.C. Plumier and L. Bettendorff (2008) Benfotiamine, a synthetic S-acyl thiamine derivative, has different mechanisms of action and a different pharmacological profile than lipid-soluble thiamine disulfide derivatives. BMC Pharmacology 8: 10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2210-8-10
^ Reducing Glycation Reactions for Better Health and Longer Life
^ J Lin, A Alt, J Liersch, RG Bretzel, M Brownlee (2000 May). "Benfotiamine Inhibits Intracellular Formation of Advanced Glycation End Products in vivo". Diabetes 49 (Suppl1) (A143): 583.
^ Since AGEs are the actual agents productive of diabetic complications, in theory, if diabetic patients could block the action of AGEs completely by benfotiamine, strict blood sugar control, with its disruption of lifestyle and risks to health and life by severe hypoglycemic episodes, could be avoided, with revolutionary implications for the treatment of diabetes. Hammes HP, Du X, Edelstein D, Taguchi T, Matsumura T, Ju Q, Lin J, Bierhaus A, Nawroth P, Hannak D, Neumaier M, Bergfeld R, Giardino I, Brownlee M (2003) Benfotiamine blocks three major pathways of hyperglycemic damage and prevents experimental diabetic retinopathy. Nat Med 9(3):294-299
^ Stirban A, Negrean M, Stratmann B, et al. (2007). "Adiponectin decreases postprandially following a heat-processed meal in individuals with type 2 diabetes: an effect prevented by benfotiamine and cooking method". Diabetes Care 30 (10): 2514–6. doi:10.2337/dc07-0302. PMID 17630265.
^ Stracke H, Hammes HP, Werkmann D, et al. (2001). "Efficacy of benfotiamine versus thiamine on function and glycation products of peripheral nerves in diabetic rats". Exp. Clin. Endocrinol. Diabetes 109 (6): 330–6. doi:10.1055/s-2001-17399. PMID 11571671.
^ Stirban A, Negrean M, Stratmann B, et al. (2006). "Benfotiamine prevents macro- and microvascular endothelial dysfunction and oxidative stress following a meal rich in advanced glycation end products in individuals with type 2 diabetes". Diabetes Care 29 (9): 2064–71. doi:10.2337/dc06-0531. PMID 16936154.
^ Babaei-Jadidi R, Karachalias N, Ahmed N, Battah S, Thornalley PJ (2003). "Prevention of incipient diabetic nephropathy by high-dose thiamine and benfotiamine". Diabetes 52 (8): 2110–20. doi:10.2337/diabetes.52.8.2110. PMID 12882930.