Thiamine deficiency in diabetics

[Bombjack]

Go for it! I’ve been using Libre for 2 years now and it’s changed the way I control my diabetes. I’ve just had to spend 2 days without it - faulty sensor while away for weekend - and it feels like I’m working in the dark. I couldn’t wait to get home to fit a new one

I have a starter kit on order now, but the order has been put on hold, as Abbot have no stock

Looks like it's going to cost me £88 per month. Does that sound about right? £44 per sensor, 2 sensors a month?

Edit: Have just looked and seen it's £57 for a sensor on the Abbot website. Is that a recent change? Sure they were £44 a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Kbarbaracollins_]

I'm a newly diagnosed type 2 diabetic and started taking Benfotaimine as soon as I knew , it reduces by blood sugar to normal , if I stop taking it my blood sugar goes up , start again it goes down , see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9454
if you haven't already for my experience and lots of benfotiamine links by myself and others

What brand do you buy?

 

[Kbarbaracollins_]

@Fairygodmother. Hi, I'm just a layman, but have been doing a lot of reading around the diabetic pathways, and looking at what supplementation could possibly do to minimise the damage each one does. I started taking Benfotiamine around 10 years ago when I first heard about Thornalley's work with Thiamine, but switched to Thiamine when the clinical trial results came through.

As for Thiamine, Thornalley and others discovered that Diabetics are deficient. The mechanism seems to be increased renal clearance (30x normal). This could be because kidneys under higher-than-normal sugar loads are less able to reclaim thiamine before it's expelled in the urine. There's just something about the diabetic state that causes this I think, but I'm not sure anyone has answered it yet.

My thinking on this would be no Thiamine = no Pentose-Phosphate pathway = more sugar passing through the bottom 3 harmful pathways. How much of a difference would it actually make? We don't know. The clinical trials for Thiamine have been concentrated on the kidneys, where it seems to have a large positive benefit.

Side effects of Thiamine? None that I have noticed (and I take a massive dose). But if anyone knows of studies that show adverse effects of Thiamine, I'm happy to learn about it!

How much thiamine do you take daily?

 

[Bombjack]

How much thiamine do you take daily?

It's varied a bit depending on what supplements I've had in. 3 x 100mg is my usual dose, as it matches the dose used in the nephropathy clinical trials.

It was previously thought that no more than 10mg per day of Thiamine could be usefully taken, as the Thiamine transport mechanism in humans could only handle this much. (Hence the popularity of Benfotiamine, etc.). When this was actually tested in humans however, it appears there is another, passive, transport mechanism that allows much higher levels of Thiamine to enter the body.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293077/

Some useful info. about doses in the above study. It's worth remembering also that the Time After Dose plots in the study won't be relevant for diabetics, due to the increased renal clearance rate.

 

[Scott-C]

Have just looked and seen it's £57 for a sensor on the Abbot website. Is that a recent change? Sure they were £44 a couple of weeks ago.

The £57 includes vat. When you go to the checkout, there's a check-box to tick to confirm you're diabetic or purchasing for a diabetic. Tick that and it takes off the vat.

 

[Bombjack]

The £57 includes vat. When you go to the checkout, there's a check-box to tick to confirm you're diabetic or purchasing for a diabetic. Tick that and it takes off the vat.

D'oh, of course Thanks - I totally forgot about VAT.

 

[LittleGreyCat]

It's varied a bit depending on what supplements I've had in. 3 x 100mg is my usual dose, as it matches the dose used in the nephropathy clinical trials.

It was previously thought that no more than 10mg per day of Thiamine could be usefully taken, as the Thiamine transport mechanism in humans could only handle this much. (Hence the popularity of Benfotiamine, etc.). When this was actually tested in humans however, it appears there is another, passive, transport mechanism that allows much higher levels of Thiamine to enter the body.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293077/

Some useful info. about doses in the above study. It's worth remembering also that the Time After Dose plots in the study won't be relevant for diabetics, due to the increased renal clearance rate.

Wading through this - thanks.

I did note that the average weight was 87 kg (plus or minus 20 if I understand the table) which seems a bit high to me.