thiamine deficiency Archives - Page 11 of 15

Recovering From Suspected Thiamine Deficiency

Published on June 10, 2020

28.2K views

On and off over the last several years, I have had peripheral neuropathy along with a number of other strange symptoms like air hunger, light and sound sensitivity, and balance and gait issues that I believe are related to an undiagnosed thiamine deficiency.

Peripheral Neuropathy, Air Hunger, Dizziness, Altered Vision and Other Symptoms

I have always taken pretty good care of myself as well as taking supplements. I should note, that for the year prior to my health decline, I was drinking a lot of coffee, approximately 40-60 ounces per day. I have since learned that coffee diminishes thiamine. When I began to develop the neuropathy, I didn’t really know what it was. The strange sensations would come and go, but it became more and more intense in my legs and feet. Last summer, I also started to feel similar vibrations in my rib cage. It was extremely uncomfortable.

In addition to the neuropathy, I would wake up sometimes during the night gasping for air. Toward the end of last summer, I could really feel my energy slowly waning and in November of 2019, I had the flu. After I recovered from the flu, I still felt exhausted and weak. I went back to the doctor in December, 2019 and was found hypothyroid and put on Levothyroxine. I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Anyway, I did not feel much better and I went back in January, 2020. I had a chest x-ray which showed lung inflammation and was told it could be COPD or asthma. I was asked if I had been smoking and I said it had been 35 years since I’ve smoked. (I am now 61.) At this point, I had some serious nervous system disorder signs, which I now think were the signs of both dry and wet Beriberi.

My symptoms had progressed to the point that I was extremely sensitive to light and sound and had extreme lightheadedness/dizziness. My vision plane was tilted to maybe like a 30 degree angle. My gait was weird at times and my balance was terrible. I received a general blood test and was also tested for Lyme disease, Lupus, RA and other autoimmune diseases, with normal results. They also tested my adrenal and parathyroid hormones and that came back normal. My body overall had this continuous buzzing type of sensation. I am normally social but felt so bad that I wanted to withdraw from people.

Was It Thiamine?

I found Drs. Lonsdale and Marrs information about thiamine and started on Allithiamine in mid-March 2020 and continued to see the chiropractor. I started with one, 50mg capsule per day and now am up to three 50 mg capsules a day. I plan on increasing to four capsules per day soon. The dizziness, balance problems, visual disturbances, light and sound sensitivity issues, and gait issues are pretty much gone.

What has worsened is that I have a hiatal hernia that never really bothered me that has begun to bother me a lot over the last 4-6 weeks. When I am having a flare-up, I am short of breath and my abdomen feels extremely tight between my ribs. This happens every few days. I feel that I have been healing but the abdominal discomfort and the effect it is having on my breathing is extremely uncomfortable at times. I am wondering if it is normal for one set of symptoms to resolve and a new set to arise. It is clear that the thiamine is helping with a number of my symptoms, the dizziness, balance and gait and the light and sound sensitivity have all improved, but the hernia and the pressure it causes on my breathing, has worsened. Will Allithiamine possibly help heal my lungs of the damage caused by smoking all those years ago? Will it help with the breathing and hiatal hernia or am I missing something?

I would love to hear your comments about all of this. I am deeply grateful for all of the work and research your site has done shedding light on the importance of thiamine.

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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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A 55-Year-Old Quadriplegic Man’s Quest for GI Health

by Michael Mathieu

Published on March 5, 2020

8.1K views

Lifelong GI Issues

Ever since I was a child, I suffered from a variety of gastrointestinal issues (GI), many, I now know were diet related. These symptoms included: gas, bloating, indigestion, food sensitivities, chronic fatigue symptoms, undigested food particles in the stool, pinworms, candida overgrowth and other pathogens. This is in addition to being chronically underweight and suffering from poor sleep because of GI symptoms. I also had thin skin and slow healing, weak bones, joints, and tendons. My GI issues were a glaring problem through my 20s and 30s but became worse at the age of 38 after I got my mercury fillings removed.

When I was 42 years old, all these issues came to a head and were magnified exponentially when I crashed my mountain bike and broke my neck in multiple places. The injury, the surgeries, the feeding tube, and the endless list of medications pushed my body to its limits. While I survived, I am paralyzed from the chest down with minimal use of my arms. Over the years, I have tried multiple protocols, but have only recently begun to unwind these symptoms with the help of dietary changes (carnivore diet and oxalate clearing) and the use thiamine. This is my story.

Raised on Processed Foods

I was born on May 7, 1964, the third of three children. As was common at the time, my mother smoked during pregnancy, had multiple mercury fillings put in just before she started having babies and ate and fed us a diet that consisted mostly of highly sweetened and processed foods. Things like Captain Crunch, powdered milk, margarine and Wonder Bread were staples at our house. Even with all of these processed foods in my diet, I was underweight my entire life. I had a difficult time gaining weight and putting on muscle or developing strength. I was given antibiotics here and there throughout childhood, and remarkably, when I was three years old there was one month where I had bronchitis three times, each with its own course of antibiotics. I also used to get pinworms for a certain phase of my childhood.

Problems with My Bones, Joints, and Tendons

Despite all of this, I was active in sports from junior high onward. I played basketball from junior high on and ran cross country the last two years of high school. Early on though, I had problems with my joints, bones, and tendons. My junior year, I developed shin splints running cross country and in my senior year of high school, I began having knee problems, which a gym teacher diagnosed as chondromalacia. My knobby tibial tuberosities suggested a probable Osgood-Schlatter’s syndrome, although I did not experience the knee pain that most have with this condition. My back went out on me for the first time at the age of 23, and for a long time, it went out every winter. After college, I tried getting back into running and experienced Morton’s neuroma and I had to give it up.

Changing My Diet, But Maybe Not For the Better

In my early 20s, I started experimenting with diet in hopes of feeling better. For some reason I got it in my head that pursuing a vegetarian diet was a noble thing to do. I joined a food co-op and started making a lot of whole grains and beans and whole-grain bread and nut butters and lots of vegetables that I had never eaten before. I was not fully vegetarian and I ate meat occasionally. It seems like it was during this time things continued to get worse. I was weak, easily fatigued, had joint problems and brain fog and lost a significant amount of weight. I should note, that since high school, I had very stinky flatulence. Within a year or two of this diet, I figured out that eating dairy was giving me back acne and so I eliminated dairy from my diet as well. This new dairy free diet improved that aspect of my health, even if the rest of my health continued to decline. I was becoming so unhealthy, there were a few times that ejaculation caused my back to go out. By the time, I was 26, I had almost no desire to masturbate. Given my GI distress, I underwent a stool test via the Great Smokies Lab (now called Genova Diagnostics). It showed that my microbiome was a mess. I had two amoebas, two pathogenic bacteria, high levels of candida, and very low levels of good bacteria.

At 29, I lived for five months at Kripalu, a wellness center in Western Massachusetts. They served a vegetarian diet and I really got into the live food thing. I consumed lots of sprouts and fermented drinks. I’m 5’10 inches tall and I probably got down to about 120 pounds. I convinced myself it was my body going through a cleansing process 🙂 For the next two years, I remained fully vegetarian, mostly vegan.

At 31, a health practitioner convinced me to start eating meat again and I put on 10 pounds in one month. From that point on, I was eating meat and keeping my simple sugars really low but still eating rice and other grains like quinoa and buckwheat.

At 35, I picked up a bug in Mexico and had diarrhea, which I managed for about eight months. After three rounds of antibiotics, I finally had more normal stools, but always with a certain amount of undigested food and usually loose.

In the autumn of 2001, I had my five mercury fillings removed by a dentist who I thought was doing it safely. However, I cannot honestly remember if I had an alternate air source over my nose. In the early winter of 2002, my back went out on me, the worst it ever had. Normally, it would take a week or two to be back to normal but this time it went on for months and months. In the autumn of 2002, I developed chronic diarrhea again. Things started really falling apart the following winter of 2003 and I seriously thought I might be checking out of this life. At some point during that winter I found out about the specific carbohydrate diet and give that a try. I met a woman who was also following the specific carbohydrate diet and told me about Andy Cutler‘s work with mercury chelation. I immediately started working directly with Andy in May 2003. It was really tough going at first because I could only tolerate 100 mg of powdered magnesium without having more bowel dysfunction.

Sometime during the summer of 2003, I decided to see what would happen if I only ate meat and winter squash. Within a day or two, I had an almost normal stool. I realized that I didn’t have some kind of untreatable pathogen but that my already bad food sensitivities had gotten profoundly worse. Andy got me to do a plasma cysteine test with great Smokies laboratories. He explained to me that with many of his clients he was seeing that the Mercury messed up the enzyme that breaks down cysteine. He told me that my plasma cysteine level was the highest he had ever seen. Another confirmation that I probably was dealing with chronic mercury poisoning. Meat and winter squash, avocado, olive oil, coconut butter, zucchini and salt were my diet for many years after that. Even though, somethings improved, others did not and I was always limping along but not thriving. I spent three years following Andy Cutler‘s protocol for mercury chelation. It seemed to help stabilize things but it wasn’t a big turnaround I was praying for.

Over the course of decades, I saw dozens of practitioners and spent a lot of money on supplements and various protocols and healing modalities in an attempt to heal my gut and correct, what seems like lifelong GI dysfunction, much to no avail.

A Broken Neck

In August 2012, I crashed on my mountain bike and broke my neck. I fractured C3 through C7, vertebral bodies of C4 and C5 were crushed and the spinal cord was severed at C5. I had five level cervical fusion with plates in the front end rods in the back. It was a huge medical intervention with lots of medications and I almost died several times. For the first two months, I had a feeding tube and was fed some kind of horrible, powdered, grain-based crap. After two months, I passed the swallowing test and was allowed to start eating my previous diet. After four months in the hospital, I came home with lots of medications, a completely stressed out body and mind and not very sure if I wanted to continue living. Since then I’ve had many sleepless nights and so much discomfort.

After the injury, I developed severely low blood pressure and I continue to take meds for vasoconstriction. My blood pressure tanks periodically, but especially when eating. At one of the hospitals, I had practitioners tell me that they had never seen anybody drop their blood pressure so much when eating. So now I pre-medicate before eating. I wouldn’t go anywhere without my blood pressure cuff for at least a year.

In addition to the GI issues and problems with blood pressure since the injury, over the last six years my muscles have gradually become increasingly fibrous. It feels like they are becoming a mix of fiber and plastic. It’s so horrible that at times I don’t know how I can even manage to stay sane inside my body.

Trying to Recover

About a year after I got out of the hospital, I did a three-day round of chelation with alpha lipoic acid and DMSA. The following two weeks, I had four or five times that an incredibly foul smelling bio-film came out of my bottom. All of a sudden, I started getting high blood pressure and I had to reduce my medications by 30%. I didn’t make the connection until a year later when I learned that chelation compounds can dismantle biofilms. I chelated again two months later and I had the same experience; lots of horrible smelling biofilm came out and then another need to decrease my low blood pressure medications.

Bladder infections are quite common in people with indwelling catheter‘s. After so many times of being diagnosed with bladder infections and taking antibiotics, I was desperate and tried doing three days of a lot of unsweetened cranberry juice. That threw my poor gut into absolute chaos, the likes of which I never experienced before. I tried managing it with grapefruit seed extract and some other things to no avail.

Still desperate to relieve the never-ending gastrointestinal distress, I found and tried a parasite protocol put together for autistic children. The protocol begins by building up a dosage of chlorine dioxide. I had an incredibly hard time building on my dosage, as the detox symptoms were horrific. About two months into taking chlorine dioxide, I woke up one morning about 4 AM thinking I was close to death. I had extreme anxiety, ADD and severe discomfort. When I did my bowel program that morning, I had chunk of biofilm come out, and within less than an hour, I felt really good in my body with a clear mind. Over the next four or five months, I continued the protocol and struggled greatly with the detox symptoms, which limited me from hitting things as hard as many people are able to. Eventually, I got depleted from doing enemas and had to stop that protocol. For the next 2 1/2 years or so, I continued to take chlorine dioxide on a daily basis. If I stopped I got massive brain fog, exhaustion and felt extremely cold all the time.

More Broken Bones

Two years ago, I developed three fractures in my right knee just from riding my functional electronic stimulation bicycle. That is how bad my osteoporosis had become. Luckily, I found a fantastic magnesium product called Remag, a liquid pico-ionic magnesium solution, which is so incredibly absorbable that even at 1200 mg per day I showed no signs of laxative effect, but I did show signs of powerful detoxification. I started sweating, profusely at times, for about six weeks before it stopped. Previously, any powdered magnesium above 100 mg would give me a loose stools. It took about 4 to 6 months of not riding my bike before I was able to start riding again.

One and a half years ago, I had a cone beam scan of my mouth and discovered I had five abscesses. Four were at the sites of my wisdom teeth extractions and the fifth was under my front six lower teeth. Six months later, I was in Utah seeing a biological dentist for a remediation of those infection sites. I was really hoping this work would really help improve my intestinal health. It seems like my mood has improved since then, but overall, I can’t really say I saw any improvements in my digestion and my pathogen load.

I picked up some kind of oral pathogen from my partner, which creates a black staining of my teeth. The chlorine dioxide kept this at bay, and now since I have stopped the chlorine dioxide this past year the black staining has progressed and is quite disgusting to see. The dentist in Utah took a blood sample from one of the extraction sites and performed live microscopy. It definitely was not a pretty sight. Large strands of pancaked and aggregated red blood cell, and in one of the samples, there were many black sea urchin looking creatures that the dentist said he had never seen before. He was suspecting is some kind of mold. Perhaps that is the black staining on my teeth?

Ongoing Dysbiosis

Last winter, I started working with somebody from the company Systemic Formulas which makes a large selection of uniquely formulated supplements. I implemented one of their parasite protocols and over time was able to get off the chlorine dioxide. I also implemented some of their detoxification protocols and only had marginal results. Since that time last spring, I’ve had to continue with at least one of their products and colloidal silver to keep the dysbiosis in my intestines in check.

Just over a year ago, I purchased an ozone generator for rectal insufflations. It seems to help reduce symptoms but even with very consistent use, it does not seem to have created long-term improvements. About a year ago, I also purchased a pulsed electromagnetic field, PEMF, device that similarly seems to help with symptoms but has not created long-term improvements.

I was really convinced Ozone could help so I found a doctor who has the equipment for major autohemotherapy in which blood is extracted, ozone is added and the IV is reinserted. I definitely had some die-off symptoms, but did not seem to have any long-term benefit.

Beginning to Heal With the Carnivore Diet

In mid-August 2019, I began eating a carnivore diet. After about two months, I started putting on some weight, the first time in many years. I haven’t had the big changes many people do after almost 6 months, but I have a lot of healing to do.

I have an obvious oxalate problem. This is demonstrated by oxalate crystals coming out of my eyelids, my skin and in my urine, which I can easily see because of clear tubing that goes to my urine drainage bag.

Finding Thiamine: Another Missing Piece

November 2019, I listened to some videos by Elliot Overton from the UK. He did an interview with Dr. Chandler Marrs and recommended her book that she co-wrote with Dr. Lonsdale. That interview and the book have inspired me to work with Elliot and begin raising my dosage of thiamine. Initially, I noticed some improvements in muscle function and reduction of this feeling of tiny pieces of sharp plastic embedded in my muscles. When I got myself up to about 300 mg of Allithiamine, I started having some paradox symptoms possibly. For several weeks my muscles became a lot tighter and spastic, I had quite a few nearly sleepless nights and I started sweating profusely similar to when I started taking the magnesium. I had some diarrhea but that could have been from eating grain flour on a steak at a restaurant without realizing it. It could also be from being on the carnivore diet and stopping milk thistle herb and vitamin C in an effort to reduce oxalates.

At the date of this writing on March 4, 2020 I am taking 800 mg per day Allithiamine. I am wondering if I am one of the people who are so thiamine deficient that I might need to increase my dose over 1 g before I see a difference. I have been taking 8 grams of vitamin C for about one year and when I found Sally K Norton‘s video on oxalates I dropped vitamin C, milk thistle, and collagen. It was sometime around then that I started getting looser stools and almost diarrhea at times. It wasn’t until I started talking with Elliot that we started thinking I’m might be one of the people who has trouble with diarrhea with Carnivore but the vitamin C and the milk thistle was keeping it in check. I have added 4 g of vitamin C back and the milk thistle for several weeks until my stools firmed up again. I also lowered the amount of magnesium I was taking.

Although the GI symptoms are the major driving force for experimenting with allithiamine, and reading the book Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia and High Calorie Malnutrition, I am very curious about neurological symptoms. I would say I am very strongly stuck in sympathetic mode with a tendency towards anxiety. Perhaps, it was thiamine deficiency all along. My dietary choices over the years would certainly support that possibility.

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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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Dementia and Thiamine Deficiency

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on April 29, 2019

14.8K views

In this post I will try to indicate how you might detect cognitive changes in a loved one and how you might help defer the onset of severe neurological disease. Every person developing dementia goes through mild cognitive impairment first. A given symptom might be short-term memory loss, difficulty in finding a particular word or forgetting well-known procedures. We expect such changes in people in their nineties, but if they develop in the fifties, you can suspect that this is the beginning of dementia that is a disease, not normal aging.

What Do We Know About Dementia?

A study published in 2017 reviewed the observational studies examining associations between non-genetic factors and dementia. A total of 76 unique associations were examined, of which seven presented convincing evidence. They found an association with use of benzodiazepines (common drugs for mental disease), depression at any age, late-life depression and infrequency of social contacts for all types of dementia. Late-life depression and type 2 diabetes were associated with onset of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Emotional stress causes brain function that consumes energy.

A review assessed the effect of the drug metformin (used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes) on the risk, progression and severity of AD and other forms of dementia, as well as any measures of cognitive performance or impairment. A case of encephalopathy (brain disease) occurred in a patient receiving metformin who was in end-stage diabetic renal failure. The drug was withheld and signs and symptoms quickly resolved. The authors hypothesized that metformin induced thiamine deficiency (TD), based only on their use of brain imaging that has a characteristic pattern caused by TD. Although metformin has become a drug of choice for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, some patients may not receive it “owing to the risk of lactic acidosis (increased concentration of lactic acid in blood or urine)”, a significant finding in critically ill patients who often respond to thiamine administration . Diabetic patients taking metformin may be predisposed to thiamine deficiency that is common in diabetes anyway . There is epidemiological evidence linking type 2 diabetes and its related conditions (obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome) to AD and it has recently been proposed that AD can be considered as “type 3 diabetes” because of disturbed glucose metabolism in that disease .

Mental Versus Physical Disease

It is probably absurd to separate the body from the brain. As has been said on this website many times, the body is composed of between 70 and 100 trillion cells, all of which have individual responsibility. I have used the analogy of a symphony orchestra where the brain is the conductor and the body organs are like banks of instruments that have to work together. The cells in each organ can be compared to the instrumentalists. They all know what to do but must work together “to play the symphony of health” under “the baton” of the “brain conductor”. Hence, for example, the immune system is an extremely complex union of mental and physical, requiring the brain, the nervous system and a variety of cells that carry out function. Assuming that the genetically determined genome”blueprint” is perfect (without mistakes in the DNA) all the cellular machinery requires is energy and that comes from an enormously complex list of nutrients.

Resulting from a great deal of personal experience and the genius of Hans Selye, I have concluded, like him, that energy metabolism is the focal point of health and disease. Selye developed the idea of what he called the “diseases of adaptation”. He coined the phrase the “General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) in which he described the processes by which an animal adapts to physical and mental impositions of stressors. A stressor is any form of threat encountered by us on a day-to-day basis. It may be mental (a divorce) or physical (infection, trauma). He concluded that energy was required to drive the GAS (the ability of the brain/body orchestra to face the stress and adapt to it). One of Selye’s students was able to support this idea by producing the GAS in an experimentally induced thiamine deficient animal. The remarkable thing about this work was that in Selye’s time, little was known about energy metabolism. Today, the biochemistry is well outlined, if not complete, and thiamine stands out as a vitally important component. In continuing the analogy of the orchestra, I have nominated it as “the leader” (the chief violinist in an orchestra).

The Demands of an Active Brain

By far and away the best example of an energy defect in human disease is that of thiamine deficiency beriberi. Because energy deficiency is the underlying cause, it can imitate virtually any collection of symptoms that are regarded as those of a specific disease in the present medical model. Also, because it has many “psychological” symptoms, a long morbidity (continuation of symptoms) and a low mortality, it is dismissed as trivial. Since the brain and heart are the most energy consuming organs, it would be an obvious conclusion that a well endowed functional brain (genius) might be more at nutritional risk than someone less well endowed. I turned to the medical histories of three historical characters, all of whom were acknowledged geniuses. Their health problems have been debated without any conclusions. It was their similarity that appeared to me to be so striking.

Charles Darwin

His medical history is discussed online. Apparently he suffered repeatedly throughout life, suggesting “genetic risk”. His symptoms included chest pain, heart palpitations, stomach upsets, headaches, malaise, vertigo, dizziness, muscle spasms, tremors, vomiting, cramps, bloating and fatigue, all described in beriberi. He was treated by a Dr. James Gully, whose therapy included “a strict diet” that was reported to give Darwin “improvement in his symptoms”. In September 1849 his symptoms increased, apparently “during the excitement of a British Association for the Advancement of Science”. Excitement is a brain perception whose function elevates the brain from a resting state and requires increased energy to adapt. Between the ages of 56 and 57 symptoms were reportedly continuous and the text described “copious and very pallid urine”. Cellular energy is dependent on an efficient consumption of oxygen (oxidation) and the yellow pigment that gives urine its characteristic color is known as urochrome, an oxidation product of hemoglobin. It suggests that the pallid urine may well have been an indicator of decreased oxidative function. Perhaps we can hypothesize that the exacerbation of symptoms related to virtually any form of stress may well have been from a combination of dietary deficiency and genetic risk.

Mozart

The medical history of this genius is less clear online than that of Darwin. He suffered poor health throughout life, again suggesting genetic risk. Between 1789 and 1790, the symptoms described were weakness, headaches, fainting and hyperactivity and he reportedly had many falls. A left temporal fracture was described in his skull, examined after his death, suggesting a fall injury. Also, it was reported that “drinking was a well-known weakness of Mozart”. The association of alcohol with thiamine deficiency is well documented. It produces functional changes in the automatic brain controls of the autonomic nervous system that might not necessarily result in loss of intellectual function, at least in the early stages.

Beethoven

His medical history is also less clear but apart from his well known deafness, the text reported repeated diarrhea, abdominal pain, migraine, rheumatism, nosebleeds and he died in delirium at the age of 56.

Of course, I am well aware of the multiple theories to explain the medical problems of these three geniuses. My point is that the workload exercises the brain and its function requires energy. It seems reasonable to suggest that the brain of a genius requires more energy than one less well endowed. Furthermore the passion that goes into the work often makes diet a secondary issue that is frequently neglected by such individuals. In the case of Mozart, the depletion of thiamine by alcohol would also have a deleterious effect on energy metabolism.

Neurodegenerative Disease and Thiamine

We know that thiamine metabolism is involved in the pathology of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. This has been shown in many papers published in the medical literature. An Italian doctor by the name of Costantini has published a number of manuscripts using high-dose thiamine in no less than seven different disease conditions, most of which are described as neurodegenerative diseases. Obviously, this is extremely offensive to the present medical model that believes each disease has a separate cause demanding specific treatment for each. If we look at the biochemistry of the human body, think of its complexity, its extraordinary dependence on a combination of genetic integrity, nutrition and lifestyle, it becomes easier to understand how a single molecule (thiamine) can be so vital. It stands at the gateway of the biochemical machinery that synthesizes energy in the form of ATP.

What is Energy?

Let us take a very simple analogy, that of rolling a stone up a hill. The point is that energy is consumed by overcoming the force of gravity trying to keep the stone at the bottom of the hill. We are imbuing it with what Newton called “potential energy”. When it gets to the top of the hill a simple push can cause it to roll down the hill and this would be referred to as “kinetic” energy. Although the principles in the human body are exactly the same, the mechanism is widely different. An electric force rolls electrons up an electronic gradient that converts ADP to ATP (the top of the electronic hill). ATP is a chemical that stores energy and is sometimes called “the energy currency”. Natural food contains all the ingredients that provide us with fuel. But it also contains vitamins and essential minerals that enable our cells to turn the calorie bearing part of the food into chemical energy. The chemical energy has to be transduced to electrical energy, so the body can be defined as an electrochemical “machine”.

Dr. Marrs and I have long been concerned that concentration on many artificial foods, particularly those concerned with sugar in all its different forms, results in manifestations of disease that are being constantly overlooked and misdiagnosed. We have hypothesized that the symptoms experienced in the early stages of this kind of malnutrition are multitudinous and do not fit into our categories of so-called organic disease. Often attributed to psychosomatic causes, and the prevailing inability to recognize its true underlying mechanisms, has led to frequent doctor shopping by people that have genuine disability. They go from specialist to specialist, all of whom have resolutely decided that vitamin deficiency in America is a thing of the past.

What can you do?

First of all, recognize that dietary mayhem, particularly in children, is common. This results in loss of cellular energy that has its main relevance in the energy consuming brain. Chronic fatigue is perhaps the commonest symptom, but heart palpitations, headache, cold and heat intolerance and other functional symptoms may occur. The peculiarity of behavior observed in someone is because of distorted brain function that can vary enormously in the way it is expressed. I would suggest that if a loved one in his fifties begins to show the signs of aging discussed above, the first thing to do is remove sugar from the diet. Books have been written directing us toward a healthy diet but our pleasure loving brains have become addicted to sweet taste since the earliest beginnings of life. Therefore, because nobody objects to taking pills for their health, appropriate supplements can restore the balance between calories and vitamins. The most under appreciated vitamin (thiamine) may actually be the most important of all of them. However, if we look at the history of the treatment of beriberi, it took huge doses of vitamin B1 (thiamine) for months to restore health. A dose of 100 mg of thiamine hydrochloride, together with a similar dose of magnesium and a multivitamin might be better than all the pharmaceuticals in creation. There is abundant evidence to suggest that neglect of these functional symptoms may gradually lead to biochemical changes that are irreversible and we then call it a neurodegenerative disease.

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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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Reconsidering Sepsis

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on October 15, 2018

7K views

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. Common signs and symptoms include fever, increased heart rate, increased breathing rate, and confusion (note confusion). What few people realize is that brain function is really in control of the situation. Notice that fever, increased heart rate and breathing, as well as confusion, all reflect brain activity. Some readers familiar with this website will recognize the analogy that I have repeated many times concerning our survival as individuals and as a species. I have likened the human body to an orchestra in which the brain acts as the conductor. The organs can be likened to banks of different instruments within an orchestra. The instrumentalists all know what to do but have to be kept together by the conductor. The cells within each organ are like instrumentalists. They all know what to do in their various special functions but have to be coordinated. When this coordination fails, chaos reigns.

Important parts of the brain, each known as the limbic system and brainstem, together act very much like a computer. They receive messages from the body organs and from the environment and have to make a decision as to how the whole individual must adapt to a given situation. Such a situation might be defined as “stress”. Messages go from this part of the brain to the organs through a nervous system known as autonomic (automatic) and by messengers released from glands that are known as hormones. Unlike the analogy of an orchestra, the organs send messages back to the brain through the automatic system. The limbic system and brainstem also communicate with the upper part of the brain known as the cortex. This part of the brain controls the so-called voluntary nervous system that provides us with willpower. It also provides what might be called “advice and consent” to the automatic brain and can modify the ensuing action.

The Autonomic Nervous System

As many people know, the autonomic nervous system has two different special actions and is divided into a “sympathetic” and a “parasympathetic” branch. Let us be clear about how these branches cooperate by taking a simple fictitious example. As a caveman, you are confronted by a wild animal that you know to be dangerous. After the perception of danger, there will be an instantaneous reflex action delivered via the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. You will experience fear or anxiety; you will start to sweat; your heart will race; your breathing rate will increase. You are being prepared for “fight-or-flight” and it is a pure reflex that can govern your subsequent action. It is not a thought process. However, it can be modified by the thinking brain and whether you fight or flee from the scene is influenced by personality. When the action that might be stated as “the adaptation to stress” is completed, the sympathetic branch is withdrawn and the parasympathetic takes over. It preserves an atmosphere of calm throughout the body, enabling housekeeping actions to occur. Eating, sleeping, healthy sexual activity and bowel function are examples. I refer to it as the “rest and be thankful” system. The parasympathetic branch is automatically stimulated as the danger is overcome and the sympathetic is withdrawn.

Understanding Oxidation

In my capacity as a writer on this website, I constantly find that very few people seem to know what is meant by oxidation and indeed they have a very vague view concerning energy. Perhaps it is because we tend to think of energy consumption in terms of purely physical activity. Few people seem to have any idea that the brain consumes energy faster than the body or even that the brain uses energy at all. Energy is simply defined as a force that is capable of producing work. It is invisible and can only be depicted from its results.

When we write a letter, the thinking process and the muscles that move the arm and fingers all consume energy. The human body is kept warm because it produces heat energy. We are all familiar with the fact that any machine that consumes fuel, such as an automobile, burns the fuel to produce energy. Energy has to be captured to perform desired work in the body, just the same as in a car, for example. Oxidation is another word for burning fuel because the very act of burning is the combination of the fuel with oxygen. Now perhaps we can consider the possibility of “defective oxidation”. Even mild oxidation deficiency will stimulate the fight-or-flight sympathetic reflex, because it signals danger, giving rise to a common symptom called “panic disorder” (repeated fight-or- flight reflexes).

Defective Oxidation and Sepsis: A Story of Three Outcomes

You may think that this is a strange way of addressing the subject of sepsis. The first thing that we have to recognize is that sepsis represents a complex reaction to an attack. The attack can be a serious injury, the invasion of bacteria, viruses or other hostile organisms. A battle follows between the attacking event and the defensive mechanisms of the body organized by the brain. A successful defense would mean that complete recovery occurs. The battle may be short and acute or very prolonged and sometimes leading to death. It is the prolonged war that we refer to as sepsis. The outcome depends upon the wellness of the organism as a whole but the organization by the brain is critical.

The defense wins: every human body is equipped with enormously complicated machinery known as the immune system, whose functions are dependent on fitness. Fitness is dependent on efficient oxidation from the resultant supply of energy. Bed rest ensures that all the excess energy is focused on healing. The automatic brain is in command and its efficiency depends on a healthy genetic profile and nutrition. Modern medicine pays an almost exclusive attention to the nature of the attack by “killing the enemy” the bacteria, virus, or cancer cell. This paradigm gave rise to the antibiotic era.
The attack wins: This may depend on the severity of the injury, the virulence of the attacking organism or the weakness of the defensive system. The result is death.
Stalemate: the attacking agent and the defensive system are locked in a struggle, giving rise to chronic disease.

A New Way to Think About Sepsis

Although we must keep paying attention to “killing the enemy”, it must be done safely and without doing harm, as advised by Hippocrates. The new paradigm focuses on assisting the defensive system. There is only one way of doing this and that is by the skillful use of nutrients. Drugs, with the exception of antibiotics, only address symptoms and do nothing for the underlying cause of disease. Sepsis results from inefficient oxidation, particularly in the brain. Without going into the abstruse details we can say that too little oxidation is as bad as too much and it is too much that is associated with sepsis.

To use a simple analogy, sepsis is rather like a fire that has got out of control. For example, if we try to set a fire in an open grate and it expires spontaneously, there is no heat energy to warm the house. On the other hand, if it takes off and becomes too vigorous, it can throw sparks onto a carpet and set the house on fire. To prevent this, we can place a fire guard in front of the fire. This is a simple exposure of the philosophical concept “everything in moderation”. It matters little whether the attack on the body is a severe injury, an infection or some form of prolonged mental stress, the energy for the defensive mechanism must be kept under control. Presently the only defensive assistance is provided by the use of antibiotics, because bacterial infection is the commonest cause of an attack and the reason that we refer to it as sepsis. All of us are now aware that antibiotics are giving rise to their own complications. The only treatment for an injury is rest or appropriate surgery. Healing from an injury requires energy because it is an active process.

Can We Prevent Sepsis?

Frankly, the only way to think of this is strengthening the defense. Obviously, the virulence of infection or the seriousness of injury might be great enough to overwhelm a perfect defense system. However, my experience in practice is that few people are truly “fit” in the sense that I have expressed here. It enabled me to perceive that recurrent episodes of febrile lymphadenopathy (sore throat with fever and swollen glands) in two six-year-old children were caused by thiamine deficiency induced by sweet indulgence. In each child, the brain was experiencing inefficient oxidation. This makes the brain irritable, causing it to initiate a complex defensive reaction under the false impression that its owner was being attacked by a microorganism.

I have already stated that the brain must be in command of the defense. Notice that sepsis is associated with confusion. This indicates that the brain is ineffectively energized to meet the demand and is the center of an ineffective defense. The fuel for the brain is glucose and its combination with oxygen (oxidation) is brought about with the assistance of important chemicals known as oxidants. Gasoline is ignited by a spark plug. Glucose is “ignited” by thiamine. The ensuing oxidation must be kept under control and fireguards known as antioxidants have to be provided. Oxidants and antioxidants (vitamins) come from naturally occurring food. Without providing the scientific details, thiamine is both an oxidant and an antioxidant. Vitamin C is an antioxidant and hydrocortisone is well known by most people as a defense against virtually any form of stress.

The Newest Treatment for Sepsis

It is now possible to understand why thiamine deficiency is such an important consideration in critically ill patients. Thiamine deficiency can develop in patients secondary to inadequate nutrition, alcohol use, or any form of acute metabolic stress. Patients with sepsis are frequently thiamine deficient. Patients undergoing surgical procedures can also develop thiamine deficiency, giving rise to complications such as heart failure, delirium, neuropathy, gastrointestinal dysfunction and unexplained lactic acidosis. The global burden of sepsis is estimated as 15 to 19 million cases annually, with a mortality rate approaching 60% in low-income countries.

The outcome and clinical course of 47 consecutive sepsis patients treated with intravenous vitamin C, hydrocortisone, and thiamine during a seven-month period, were compared with 47 patients who received the present standard therapy. The hospital mortality in the treatment group was 8.5% (4 of 47) compared with 40.4% (19 of 47) in the standard treatment control group. Because this is published material, you would think that this treatment would be immediately taken up in every hospital emergency room. However, until the use of nutrients in the treatment of disease enters the collective psyche of the medical profession, it is unlikely that it will be generally accepted.

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Allergies, Autonomic Response, and Thiamine

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on September 25, 2018

25.7K views

allergies, hypersensitivity, intolerance

Allergic diseases are a number of conditions caused by hypersensitivity of the immune system to typically harmless substances in the environment. They include hay fever, food allergy, asthma and anaphylaxis. Symptoms may include red eyes, an itchy rash, sneezing, runny nose, shortness of breath, or swelling. In many cases, allergy is little more than a nuisance but can be severe and even life-threatening.

Hypersensitivity, Intolerance, and the Vagus Nerve

Also called hypersensitivity reaction or intolerance, this represents a set of undesirable effects produced by a normal immune system. They include allergy and autoimmunity, effects that may be just uncomfortable or damaging, but occasionally fatal. An entirely new perspective has been introduced by the discovery that the vagus nerve, an important part of the autonomic (automatic) nervous system, modulates the immune response. The importance of this cannot be overemphasized, because it is forcing us to think differently about the whole subject of disease in general and how antiquated the present medical model is. I turned to the medical literature to see what has been published concerning the activity of the vagus nerve.

A publication, noting that the innate immune system is a defense mechanism of vital importance for our survival, goes on to note that excessive or unwanted activation of the system is as bad as too little. It illustrates the important philosophical concept “everything in moderation”. This important nerve has its beginnings in the brain and exhibits its anti-inflammatory effects through what is called the “cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway”. This means that this nervous mechanism suppresses inflammation and absence of its activity allows it to continue. The word cholinergic refers to the chemical substance known as acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that the vagus nerve uses. I mention this because it becomes important later in this article.

The vagus nerve has its origins in the brain and extends to the spleen, the organ that has a major effect on immune responses. It also extends to the alimentary tract, carrying messages from and to the brain and obviously having a major effect on the mechanical and biochemical control of the digestive tract. The objective of a review on the subject was to explore the supporting evidence for the importance of the vagus nerve in its anti-inflammatory characteristics and surprisingly, the evidence for its importance in epilepsy and depression, both “mental” conditions. The authors suggested that stimulation of the vagus nerve could be harnessed therapeutically in human inflammatory disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, post-operative ileus (bowel paralysis) and even rheumatoid arthritis. Since the discovery of the role of the vagus nerve in this reflex mechanism, numerous animal studies have shown beneficial effects of stimulation of this pathway in models of inflammatory diseases either through electrical or pharmacological stimulation of the nerve.

Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) and Asthma

EoE, described only relatively recently, is a chronic allergic, immune-mediated disease associated with increased risk of comorbid atopic conditions (a form of allergy in which a hypersensitivity reaction such as dermatitis or asthma may occur in part of the body not in contact with the offending substance). A study reported 950 patients with EoE. Comorbid atopy including pollen, food and drug allergy, anaphylaxis and psychiatric conditions were more common in the EoE group than recorded in the general population. Attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, allergic rhinitis, autistic disorder, autoimmune disease and diabetes mellitus, were also associated with EoE . Eosinophils are a group of white blood cells that act as mediators of allergic inflammation and are implicated in the pathogenesis of numerous conditions, including some cases of asthma.

Comorbidity in EoE

Comorbidity refers to a disease condition that exists at the same time as the primary condition being considered. Therefore, I would like to emphasize the many symptoms that occurred in a 14-year-old boy with EoE. Apart from the painful act of swallowing and chest pain that were due to the inflammation in the esophagus, he experienced other symptoms related to brain function. These symptoms included hyperalgesia (an exaggerated response to painful stimulus), emotional instability, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, panic attacks, ADD/ADHD/OCD, and coughing during sleep without being awakened. All of these symptoms are the result of chronic lack of efficient brain cell oxidation. The physicians that had been taking care of him for the first eight years of life considered his symptoms to be due to psychosomatic disease, in spite of the fact that he had experienced many episodes of ear infection. Even ear infections are now known to be due to inefficient oxidation in the ear mechanisms. The diagnosis of esophagitis was made at the age of eight years and for the next six years there was no response to any of the orthodox treatments that were attempted. He came to my attention at the age of 14 years. My contention was that he suffered only one basic condition and that was lack of cellular energy with its major effect in the brain. When blood tests proved that he had thiamine deficiency disease, my contention proved to be an appropriate conclusion that needs some explanation.

Inefficient Brain Oxidation, Dysautonomia, and Thiamine

One of the earliest signs of thiamine deficiency is abnormal activity of the autonomic nervous system, referred to as dysautonomia. Panic attacks are emphasized above because they are merely fragmented examples of the well known fight-or-flight reflex, mediated by stimulus of the autonomic system related to inefficient oxidation in brain cells. He was addicted to sugar, long known to be able to precipitate thiamine deficiency in the brain, like alcohol. It became apparent that the vagus nerve, as noted above as part of the autonomic system, was defective. Thus the inflammation caused by food allergy, perhaps with a particular emphasis on sugar, was continuing without the benefit of suppression by the vagus nerve. If this is understood by the reader, it should be noted that the esophagitis was secondary to the biochemical change produced by thiamine deficiency. This had resulted in failure to produce acetyl choline, the chemical used as a neurotransmitter by the vagus nerve. This neurotransmitter is used by many parts of the brain, perhaps explaining the symptoms that were referred to as “psychosomatic”. True, this was but one case and does not prove that it is the only cause of this disease. However, since thiamine is a key member of the complex chemistry, but not the only chemical that gives rise to energy synthesis, it emphasizes a principle that the true cause of this inflammatory disease was related back to energy metabolism. When this boy was treated with thiamine, his symptoms improved and his stature accelerated over a year of treatment. However, perhaps because he persisted in taking sugar, some of the symptoms related to esophagitis had continued.

There is a genetically determined disease called Familial Dysautonomia and one of the important effects of this disease is growth failure. My contention was that dysautonomia was the major underlying defect in this boy, possibly from birth. Since the dysautonomia was the result of thiamine deficiency, we can conclude that his growth failure was energy-related and correction of the deficiency accelerated his growth, aside from its benefit to the autonomic system. It also suggests that Familial Dysautonomia, a genetically determined disease, might have a relationship with energy metabolism responsible for the associated growth failure. Although thiamine deficiency was proved, it did not tell us why it had developed, but it had caused a persistent defect in autonomic function, giving rise to many symptoms interpreted as psychosomatic. There was a strong paternal family history of alcoholism, suggesting an underlying genetic relationship since alcohol and sugar both precipitate thiamine deficiency.

The Dysautonomia of Asthma

Many years ago I was faced with an eight-year-old girl who had suffered recurrent life-long asthma. She was so intensely allergic that virtually any mattress she had attempted to lie on had induced asthma. She had to use a plastic lawn chair as a bed because of this. Without going into the scientific details, I had concluded that she was suffering from dysautonomia affecting the bronchial tubes and treated her with megadoses of thiamine hydrohydrohchloride. She had immediate relief and when I saw her three months later the mother reported that she had only had two mild attacks of asthma. She is now grown up and has remained free of a scourge that had been virtually crippling. Again, I must point out that this is but one case. However, asthma is so common in children, a clinical trial would seem to be worth attempting. It was noted above that eosinophilia is often associated with asthma and it may be that a similar mechanism applies to this as it does in esophagitis.

Thiamine Derivatives

Many years ago, I was working at a multiple specialty clinic as a pediatrician. I had published what proved to be the first case of a six-year-old child who had vitamin B-1 dependency. Dependency is the term used when megadoses of the vitamin are necessary in order to produce prevention of the clinical effects of the specific vitamin deficiency. This child had an intermittent brain disease that was completely prevented with enormous doses of the vitamin. It was so intriguing and so exciting that I embarked on clinical studies on the therapeutic use of vitamin B1 (thiamine). As a result of these studies, involving much library work and clinical experimentation, I received a gift copy of a book from a Japanese scientist. This book, entitled “Review of Japanese Literature on Beriberi and Thiamine” was written by a group of university-based medical researchers known as the “Vitamin B Research Committee of Japan”. Written in 1965 and published in Tokyo, this was an English translation. It had been translated deliberately to try to inform Western physicians about the thiamine deficiency disease known as beriberi. Because this disease was so common in Eastern cultures, these scientists considered correctly that Western physicians were completely ignorant of the far-reaching effects of this disease. They had in fact given me the responsibility of trying to spread information about its devastating manifestations.

A whole chapter was devoted to a discussion of a group of compounds known as thiamine derivatives. They had discovered that there was a form of thiamine in garlic (allium sativum) that had powerful therapeutic properties and they had called it “allithiamine”. The prefix “alli” refers to the group of plants known as the allium species, of which garlic is perhaps the most important. This derivative is sometimes referred to as “fat soluble thiamine”, an unfortunate choice of words because the “fat soluble” refers to its remarkable capacity to deliver thiamine into body cells. In cell membranes there is a layer of fat known as the “lipid barrier”, so fat solubility refers to the fact that it can pass thiamine through this fat layer in the cell membrane. The Japanese scientists had synthesized a whole set of derivatives of thiamine and I began to study the one which is known today by its trade name, Lipothiamine. Its chemical name is thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD). Contrary to its term as “fat-soluble”, it is water-soluble and can be given intravenously. Allithiamine, with a capital A, is a trade name for TTFD.

TTFD and Epilepsy

Children with epilepsy are often extremely resistant to the various drugs that have been invented. A common method of trying to find the right drug is to admit the child to hospital and remove one drug while substituting another, on clinical trial. When a given drug for epilepsy is abruptly stopped, a dangerous state known as “status epilepticus” can occur. The epileptic seizure continues indefinitely and is difficult to interrupt. It may even be lethal. While I was working at the multidiscipline clinic, a 12-year-old child was being investigated by a neurologist and for reasons that had extenuating circumstances, the current drug that he was receiving had been stopped. He went into the dreaded clinical expression of status epilepticus. The responsible neurologist was unavailable and I was called to treat the emergency. For some basic reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, I gave him an intravenous injection of TTFD that promptly stopped the protracted seizuring. On the following day he remained seizure free and was walking around the pediatric ward talking to other patients. What truly amazed me was that when the neurologist became available, he remained completely disinterested in the benefit that had accrued from the intravenous use of TTFD and resumed the drug trial. Nor did he question me as to my reasoning for its use. This was back in the 70s and vitamin therapy was considered to be virtually a form of charlatanism, so this successful treatment only appeared to blacken my reputation.

A New Approach to Medicine

The idea of helping the body to heal itself is far from being new. It was voiced in 400 BCE by Hippocrates, who is somewhat casually known as the “father of modern medicine”. This article introduces factual evidence that multiple diseases, each known by its name, have a common underlying cause, namely the failed requirement of cellular energy. Even diabetes, noted above in the text, is now known to have thiamine deficiency as an important part of its underlying mechanisms. It has been shown here that three different conditions had been successfully treated with a single agent. This is not simple vitamin replacement. It is the skillful use of body chemistry and emphasizes that nutrients are really the only essential components necessary for the body to heal itself. For example, acetylcholine is an essential component of energy production and its deficiency would affect the inflammatory suppressive action of the vagus nerve as described above.

Of course thiamine is not the only non-caloric nutrient required, but it holds a vitally important place in energy synthesis and I have likened it to a leader in an orchestra, where the brain is the conductor. Many mysterious and complex illnesses are prevalent today. Beriberi is the great imitator because its many different facets are produced by the individual distribution of defective energy metabolism from person-to-person. Thus, the symptoms and physical expression vary and are often interpreted erroneously as a specific disease of unknown cause. Because energy deficit has not yet entered the collective psyche of doctors of medicine as a common cause of disease, many patients are suffering prolonged illnesses. Their polysymptomatic presentation and lack of current laboratory studies is confusing, often considered to be somehow caused by the sick psychology of the patient (psychosomatic). This is ironic since the symptoms are indeed from distorted electrochemical mechanisms “all in the head”.

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Migraine, Diet, and Thiamine

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on August 15, 2018

17K views

In US population studies, the prevalence of migraine is approximately 18% in women and 6% in men. About 90% of sufferers have moderate or severe pain and 75% have a reduced ability to function during the headache attacks. One third require bed rest during an attack. A study at the Mayo Clinic showed the incidence in women increased 56% during the 1980s and 34% during the same period in men. Although the term “migraine” is often used to describe any severe headache, a migraine headache is the result of specific physiologic changes that occur within the brain leading to the characteristic pain and associated symptoms. They are usually accompanied by sensitivity to sound, light and odors and there may be nausea or vomiting. Typically, the headache involves only one side of the head but in some cases it may be bilateral. The pain is often described as throbbing, pounding and maybe made worse with physical exertion. Silent migraine is a variant where the patient may experience aura, nausea, vomiting and other nervous symptoms without headache.

Migraine headache is estimated to affect up to 28% of adolescents, most of whom are female. It has been associated with reduced quality of life and academic disruption due to missed school days. In 2014 the US Food and Drug Administration approved an existing medication called topiramate for prophylaxis in adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 years. There are several possible adverse effects from this drug, some potentially serious. Prophylactic drugs are unpromising and unpredictable. A mild degree of prevention could be obtained from the use of acupuncture.

Migraine Precipitants

Of 171 patients who fully completed a survey, 49.7% reported alcohol as a precipitating factor of headache other than migraine. Only 8.2% reported aspartame and 2.3% reported carbohydrate. Patients with migraine were significantly more likely to report alcohol as a trigger. They also reported aspartame as a precipitant three times more often than those having other types of headache. Non-nutritive sweeteners, including aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, neotame, acesulfame-K and stevia have all been questioned as to their safety. Pregnant and lactating women, children, diabetics, migraine and epilepsy patients, represent the susceptible population. Although sucralose is not considered to be a migraine trigger, a patient was reported with attacks of migraine consistently triggered by this sweetener.

Hypoxia, Pseudo-hypoxia, and Migraine

Migraine with aura is prevalent in high-altitude populations, suggesting that hypoxia has a part to play in etiology. Of 15 patients with migraine headaches, artificially induced hypoxia triggered migraine attacks in eight patients.

Thiamine deficiency produces abnormal gene expression in brain exactly like that induced by true hypoxia. Migraine is a risk factor for thiamine deficiency and Wernicke encephalopathy (WE), the classic thiamine deficiency disease that affects the brain. Two female patients have been reported with chronic migraine. They also had clinical signs and laboratory support for WE. Both patients received intravenous thiamine supplementation, leading to improvement of both WE and the associated headache. The authors suggested that nausea and vomiting, occurring with migraine, may lead to the thiamine deficiency. However, headache, nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite are symptoms that occur in the early stages of WE, thus simulating migrainous features and the association is by no means clear. The authors suggest that thiamine supplementation might be a promising therapy in a subset of patients with chronic migraine.

Also, the range of pathologies associated with magnesium deficiency is staggering, including migraine, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and many other disorders. It is important to emphasize once more that magnesium and thiamine work together in the cellular machinery that produces energy and deficiency of either is critical. Chronic recurrent nausea in childhood is a poorly described symptom and in a study of 45 affected children, 62% had migraine headaches. They also suffered from dizziness, anxiety, fatigue and sleep problems. The exact incidence of dizziness and vertigo during adolescence is not known. For those few adolescents who seek outpatient evaluation, the majority are diagnosed with migraine headaches and many suffer from postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition that has been reportedly due to thiamine deficiency in some cases.

Autonomic Asymmetry

Normally there is a balance between the autonomic tone of the right and left half of the body. However, under stress or with hypothalamic instability this balance may be disrupted and result in the marked autonomic asymmetry seen in migraine. Abnormal regulation of the large cranial arteries appears to play a significant role in the mechanisms of migraine pain, also reflecting abnormal autonomic function.

Migraine and Diet

Attack frequency of migraine in children was associated with higher intake of high fat or sugar. The processing of both is dependent on thiamine. With these strong associations in the medical literature, it is impossible not to contemplate that the sweet sensory input from the tongue to the brain is an important trigger for migraine. There has been a steady increase in sugar consumption in America over the past few decades, suggesting the possibility that it represents the published increased incidence of migraine in the 1980s as mentioned above. It also suggests the possible implication of artificial sweeteners as migraine triggers.

The association of migraine with alcohol ingestion might be an important observation, since alcohol has long been known to be a cause of thiamine deficiency in the part of the brain that controls the autonomic nervous system. It has also long been known that beriberi, the classical thiamine deficiency disease, causes autonomic dysfunction in its early stages. One of the most important observations that I observed in practice was that a mild degree of this deficiency makes the brain extremely sensitive to many different input stimuli. It results in a high degree of sympathetic nervous system activity, hence so-called panic attacks that are really distorted fight-or-flight reflexes. Patients complain of constant anxiety, heart palpitations, unusual sweating, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and brief fainting attacks known as syncope. This collection of symptoms, thought by many physicians to be psychological in nature, is also referred to as postural orthostatic (positional) tachycardia (rapid heart) syndrome (POTS).

In a person who is in a marginal state of malnutrition, any mild stress such as a vaccination, a mild infection or some form of trauma may initiate POTS. A reader might conclude that this diversity of symptoms, that include the incidence of migraine, cannot be caused by a deficiency of a single nutritional element. In order to understand, it is necessary to be aware that a deficiency of energy in the brain resulting from a common form of malnutrition creates a multiplicity of cellular dysfunction according to the distribution of the deficiency. If this is the truth, it makes a mockery of the present medical model in which each described disease is thought to have a specific underlying cause. Hence, money is collected to find the cause of Alzheimer’s disease and is probably a pipe dream. It is well known a published association with thiamine metabolism strongly suggests that we should be looking for prevention rather than spending millions in trying to find a curative drug.

Conclusion

The clues that alcohol, sugar and artificial sweeteners are major triggers for producing migraine headaches are so strong, their avoidance would appear to be mandatory. However, it is almost certainly true that many sufferers know this, but make no attempt at avoidance, marking the taste of sweeteners as addictive. I became aware that there were millions of people in America suffering from symptoms that are constantly being unrecognized in medical clinics. Even if they are recognized as nutritional in nature, the doctor and patient are likely to ignore the appropriate prevention by adopting the consumption of an appropriate diet. Since most of the population is ingesting pills of one sort or another, perhaps advising the use of vitamin supplements as part of the dietary discretion might at least partially serve in the reversal of these common symptoms.

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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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Thiamine Deficiency Amid a Constellation of Mitochondrial and Metabolic Disorders

by Susan N

Published on August 8, 2018

13.6K views

This is a bit of a long story because I can’t tell if I have a genetic problem that only shows up under stress or just plain deficits due to extreme stress. I am a 58 year old woman having some pretty severe health problems that I have recently begun to think might be due to thiamine deficiency, malnutrition and/or possibly some sort of genetic problem.

Medical History

I was hospitalized with pneumonia three times before I was 5 years old, once again in isolation ward at age 7. I also had several childhood illnesses including Rubella, chicken pox, and mumps. At age 5, I was diagnosed with exercise induced asthma and prescribed Quibron. Once I hit puberty, my respiratory problems seemed to resolve themselves as long as I avoided aerobic exercise.

At age 9, I was diagnosed with progressive sensorineural hearing loss (an indicator of mitochondrial disease that I only recently learned about). I had a curved loss with 60% gone in the higher frequencies down to about 40% loss in the low ones. My mother was also diagnosed with hearing loss that had gone unrecognized. My daughter also has a mild hearing loss that was diagnosed as an adult.

Major Life Stressors and Emerging Problems with Nutrient Absorption

From 2000 to 2012, had several major life stressors including the death of my second husband to colon cancer, a dog snapped at me and severed my lower lip, my third husband lost his job and attempted suicide, early retirement, bankruptcy, foreclosure on my home and then moving to a new state. I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and received weekly trauma therapy for a year.

During the aftermath of the PTSD trigger event, I began having problems with nutrition. I would eat a meal and get no energy from it. After taking an early retirement from my job and losing my house to foreclosure, we packed up and moved out of state.

I never recovered from the exhaustion and stress of the move. We were nearly homeless one night after our car broke down and I had no more money because we had just paid the deposit to rent a house. I managed to leave all our keys in the car at the repair shop. My first husband wired us money for a hotel for the night.

The problems with digestion continued and my health seemed to go downhill. I was tired all the time and my brain was not functioning well. I tried going for walks but would come home exhausted. To make matters worse, we were scraping by on one third of the income I had before I retired and I had no health insurance. I didn’t know how to go about finding help in those conditions. I’ve always been in the system.

Catatonia-like Episodes upon Eating

Starting in 2013, I started having episodes that I call zonking. I would eat something and almost immediately get very sleepy and usually would just fall into a sort of zombie-sleep-like state for 10-30 minutes. Sometimes it seemed sort of catatonic and others is was more like a strong urge to sleep. It wasn’t normal sleep in that there was no dreaming. Sometimes I was in a kind of frozen pose instead of laying my head sideways or getting comfortable. At first it seemed like they were correlated with high-availability carbs, but over time they became an almost daily occurrence with any type of food I ate. These episodes would sometimes disappear for a few weeks and then reoccur. There was no pattern I could discern nor tie to hormonal cycles.

I have been keeping daily logs from 2013-2016. I reported the zonking episodes to my NP and she prescribed Lactulose which just made the diarrhea worse. She ordered an ultrasound on my gallbladder and liver and no major problems were found.

The zonking episodes were really disabling. I would be feeling fine until I ate something and within a 1/2 hour I would zonk out and feel very groggy afterwards. It didn’t feel safe to drive so my husband had to take me shopping or do the shopping himself when I was too tired. I didn’t drive from 2013 to 2016. At times, I didn’t want to eat at all so I could keep myself functional long enough to do something. I found out the limits of fasting pretty quickly.

Left Temple Headaches, Migraines with Visual Aura, and Cognitive Deficits

I also had left temple headaches starting in 2013 and a few migraines also involving left temple pain but mostly just visual aura. I never had migraines previously. After I fell going up the concrete steps to our front door, I became very cautious about moving when I was in one of these states. I noticed that I became very clumsy with tasks that you normally don’t think about like opening a can or a pill bottle.

I also noticed a significant decline in my ability to comprehend speech when I was in one of these states. This was first mentioned in my logs in 2013. I have always had a problem due to my hearing loss but there seemed to be a magic something taking place in my brain that took care of turning sounds into words. Somehow that process was failing when I was in the dizzy and ditzy state.

My condition was deteriorating in 2016 and I was experiencing more severe brain problems that are what I now call dizzy and ditzy. Dizzy and ditzy feels like being very drunk. I was spending more and more time in bed which was making my diabetes worse. When my brain was functional I was researching and trying to figure out what might be causing my condition.

In August 2016, I came across a description of gluten ataxia. The symptoms seemed similar to what I was experiencing so I tried eating a gluten free diet for a few weeks and started feeling better. After two weeks, I decided I was imagining the improvement and tried eating something with gluten in it. After about two hours I began to experience the dizzy state and the left temple headache. From that time I have remained gluten free.

It was my intent to get tested for Celiac at my next appointment, but my husband was hospitalized in October 2016 for sepsis due to undiagnosed type-1 diabetes. This was the worst kind of trauma for me because my second husband died of colon cancer. Knowing that, I applied the techniques I learned during trauma therapy to keep my stress level down. As a result I was able to return to the hospital for his follow-up visits with no increase in blood pressure or other signs of HPA activation. I think it helped me overcome my doctor phobia and I have been increasingly more able to deal with medical situations. My health and energy levels were also improving due to the gluten free diet. I tried various diets and found that I had the best energy levels on a gluten free vegan diet.

Since I did not get in to see my primary until six months had passed gluten free my celiac tests were inconclusive. I found a really good allergist and in January 2017 was diagnosed with 44 food allergies including wheat, barley, oats, eggs, milk, and assorted nuts, fruits, and vegetables and yeast which is everywhere. Six months later, I was diagnosed with multiple environmental allergies. My condition began improving dramatically as I stopped eating the foods that I was allergic to. However I found that I was still unable to eat solid food and get energy from it. Meanwhile my NP added 10 mg glipizide which caused hypoglycemia when I was feeling well and active.

I didn’t experience any more dizzy and ditzy episodes from October 2016 through March 2018.

Diet and Malnutrition

I did have, and still have, episodes where I become very sleepy and nauseous after eating something. This leads to a feeling of being ill and not enough energy for normal activity. My condition improves if I semi-fast for the remainder of the day and then reduce my intake of protein and fat for a few days. As a result, I became more depleted nutritionally as time went by.

I don’t think I’ve managed to convey to anyone just how my diet has shifted from normal and especially what they seem to expect of diabetics. Many days I was unable to even manage 50 mg of protein and if I didn’t eat enough carbohydrates I had difficulty sleeping. I was on homemade liquid meals from 2017-2018 and only recently was able to transition onto whole foods after stopping Metformin.

I still struggle to explain why I suspect nutritional deficits in the face of a body that is down 10lbs but still 220. I think my body compensates by doing things like lowering my body temperature. It was 96-97 on a regular basis over the past 6 years, yet my thyroid panels are normal except for high TSH which may be due to my Biotin supplementation. In May 2018, I had more thyroid testing done.

TSH: 7.5
fT3: 3.1
fT4: 1.34
rT3: 22.2
TPO: 12
Antibody <1.

Sometimes my body heats up immediately after eating. I’ve also had iron deficiency anemia where my hands and feet got painfully cold. Sometimes I get chilled and find my body temperature is 95.8 – even in July.

Other Weird Symptoms

Visual Disturbances

I haven’t been able to match up these phenomenon with technical names so I am just describing them as best I can. There is some overlap as I am not sure what is part of which phenomenon.

Problem: After-images occurring too easily
Duration: 3-4 years
Frequency: Intermittently – seems to be worse when I am having diarrhea episodes
Details: Can’t find exactly what these are called. In normal vision if you stare at something for a long time then look at a blank surface you can see a phantom image of inverted colors. What has been happening intermittently with me is that I will see these images instantly and they take longer to fade than normal. This is especially bad in the mornings. I made up a test for myself to track how bad my vision was on any day by looking at the GOOGLE logo. On bad days it bounces around in afterglow very strongly; other days not at all or not as strong. Sometimes if we are out on a sunny day a glance at a bright reflection off metal will create a strong after image that persist for 20-30 seconds or more. I have to be very careful not to let my eyes linger on anything shiny.

Along with the above problem I also experience a kind of sparkle sometimes where if I look out the window, even on a gray day and then back inside there is a brief field of sparkle in my vision.

Problem: Seeing my pulse in my eyes
Duration: 6 years
Frequency: Not as much these days, but was especially bad when my blood pressure was uncontrolled.
Details: I would see a grayed pattern around the lower outer edge of my vision that would flash in intensity seemingly in conjunction with my heart rate.

Finally, my left eye seems to flutter and roll.

Problem: Left eye flutter and involuntary eye roll and moving illusions in vertical images.
Duration: 9 months in 2015, confirmed by eye doctor.
Frequency: Started very infrequently but has progressed to almost daily.
Details: Irritating flutterly feeling in my left eye. When I looked in the mirror I noticed the left eye was rolling left or attempting to roll left involuntarily. This may be related to another problem I have been having for several years where my vision wobbles. It comes and goes in severity, but if I look at any image that has strong vertical contrast it appears so move. For example a picture of a coliseum or tiger will appear to be moving like the way optical illusions move. The moving illusion also occurs more frequently when I am having bouts of diarrhea.

Migraines With Aura

Problem: Migraines with Aura
Duration: 2 years
Frequency: 3-4 times a year – sometimes in clusters
Details: I get migraines where I see an aura. It starts with a blind spot in the center of my vision, in less severe ones it is more of a sparkle overlay and not as blind. The circle then becomes a semi-circle of the outer edge of each eye that becomes bigger until it moves out of the eye. Then pain comes or not. I can sometimes reduce severity by immediately going into a dark room and lying down. Sometimes I get the headache and sometimes just the visual aura. I mention these here because I have wondered if some of my visual problems are migraine auras that haven’t fully developed.

Allergy Shots and More Symptoms: Ophthalmoplegia, Dizziness, Speech Impairment

In January 2018, I started desensitization shot therapy with my allergist. In February 2018, I had another episode of dizzy and ditzy that was complicated by additional symptoms of hypoglycemia. After consulting with my allergist, he set my shots back a few weeks and set up a standing lab order to see if he could tease out the problem. In March, I had the worst episode of dizzy and ditzy I have experienced to date. It included ophthalmoplegia, dizzy, very sleepy, altered consciousness, and personality changes. I was walking with a sort of limp as if my left leg were injured. I laid down on a bench outside the allergist office until the sleepiness passed. When the people at the allergy clinic got back from lunch they checked my blood pressure which was normal and did a blood draw for labs.

I also had the worst episode of speech impairment ever. I remember thinking it was funny because it sounded like they were speaking so much gobbledy gook. I used mindfulness to notice and try to quantify what it was like. I noticed that my intellect was intact, which distinguishes the condition from brain fog where it’s hard to think at all. But things like trying to speak or find words was hard and I got confused easily. Oddly, I had no problems reading and comprehending research papers and I could write, except I made more typing errors. I had a quarter sized mark on one of my arms from the previous day’s shots, but my allergist did not consider my brain symptoms to be due to the allergies. My movements and general condition was very much like being very, very drunk.

Up until that point I had associated dizzy and ditzy with gluten exposure. Once I was sure there was no gluten in the shots, I was a lot more worried about my condition. I regretted not going to the ER since that might have helped me get a diagnosis. As it was, the allergy doctor only checked my tryptase levels and blood sugar which was 119. That level of blood sugar is hypoglycemia for me. I start getting symptoms under 130. This second episode was much harder to recover from than the first and I had lingering symptoms for months afterwards.

Medication Reactions

The glipizide combined with 1000 mg Metformin ER for the type 2 diabetes was causing me severe problems, even as my energy levels and inflammation was improving. The repeated episodes where I had to lower my protein and fat intake was really difficult with the medications I was on.

One day I had a different sort of drunk feeling with sweating and distorted vision while out shopping. It got better when I ate something. I got home in one piece and spent the entire afternoon eating every hour until things improved. That was the last time I took glipizide. I started looking for a new primary who understood nutrition.

I found a new primary two hours away who seemed like a good fit but this story is already too long to describe what went wrong. Sometimes a bad thing has to happen before good ones. I found myself without a primary and experiencing more dizzy and ditzy symptoms. The problems started at the request of my new primary PA, I changed my metformin dose from 2 500 mg tablets in the evening to 500 mg morning and 500 mg evening. After a few days I woke up with a 206 fasting glucose. So I doubled down and started taking 1000 mg 2 times a day. That made modest improvement of fasting glucose but also caused steatorrhea and diarrhea to return.

Thiamine Pyrophosphate Order Delayed

I began taking 13 mgs of thiamine pyrophostate (TPP) in 2014. Recently, I ran out of the TPP sublingual I normally take due to a shipping delay, so I switched to oral 500 mg Thiamine HCL capsule. Over the next two days, I had cramps in my calves, congestion and coughing after my normal light exercise and a body temp of 95.8 in the evening. Then another episode of dizzy and ditzy with mild ophthalmoplegia and dehydration. I was drinking salt water and still couldn’t retain water. I always drink my water with electrolytes and I went through a whole gallon in a day. My blood glucose was 289 in the evening.

I’ve been having problems with burning feet and neuropathy since March 2018, it comes and goes and makes it hard to get to sleep. I first reported mild symptoms of neuropathy in my logs in 2013. TPP and B2 and sometimes calcium supplements help.

Once TPP arrived I started taking it 3 at a time (3x13mg) as well as extra magnesium glycinate and other B vitamins, but my symptoms weren’t improving as much as I expected so I started looking for other causes.

While researching various genes, I came across a paper on thiamine transporters and metformin. I have at least one mutation in one of those transporters but it doesn’t have any established meaning that I can find. I had not considered thiamine deficiency as a possible cause for dizzy and ditzy even though the symptoms seemed similar because I was taking 13 mg of TPP sublingual daily.

I started easing off metformin and my energy and burning feet symptoms improved. A side effect was the metabolism issues that had kept me on a liquid diet improved and I can eat and metabolize solid food again.

Going off metformin caused a slight rise in my fasting glucose so I had a lab test run myself that shows I still have normal insulin production. My glucose response varies quite a bit but I sometimes get good response when I do daily treadmill with glucose in the 110 range two hours after a meal

One night I had a lot of congestion and couldn’t sleep so I took a dose of 3x TPP and the congestion went away and I was able to sleep. I have had ongoing issues with lung congestion since 2010. I think this may be a return of the lung problems I had as a child. I believe my body compensated with hormones and is now decompensating due to menopause. The fact that the congestion got better after thiamine intake is worrying. But I have a strong placebo response so I have to be careful about creating correlations. The lungs issue has been observed by both my primary and my allergist. I frequently get very thick mucus that may be due to inadequate fat digestion.

Ran out of Thiamine AGAIN!

I had a dizzy and ditzy episode with temple headache 7/11/2018. I went through three bottles of 60 Sublingual TPP in a few weeks and was unable to order more due to factory back order. I researched other versions of thiamine. Benfotiamine was having no effect that I could detect. Sulbutiamine helped with some of the brain problems like short term memory. I had concerns that I wouldn’t be able to absorb some of the other forms due to my fat malabsorption. Fortunately, I came across the blog where Dr. Lonsdale explained what “fat soluble” really means regarding lipothiamine and allithiamine, so I ordered both of those as well as liquid TPP from the UK.

Neither of those had arrived by July 14, when I took my last TPP. I had a return of symptoms over the next few days. I started using a B-complex that had TPP in it, but even with that I had another dizzy and ditzy episode that lasted several days. During that time, I got sleepy every time I ate a meal. My meals are small to start with because of the GERD: one cup lentils with tofu or a tofu taco with avocado. Both of those meals that were normally well tolerated gave me symptoms of sleepiness and fatigue.

I found a comment somewhere about the need for manganese, so I got manganese glycinate supplements and that helped ease the neuropathy until the Lipothiamine and TPP liquid arrived. The first Lipothiamine was like magic, my eyes cleared up in about 15 minutes. They do that sometimes after I eat. The neuropathy symptoms were down by the time I went to bed in the evening. In the morning, my feet were hypersensitive and I had leg cramps due to low magnesium. I still have to take extra magnesium during the day and at night as well as other B-vitamins. I have some mild brain symptoms too but they may be due to the stress of starting with a new primary.

The big difference is in my energy levels, which are sufficient to make it through the day and no burning feet at bedtime. I still have limited ability to metabolize food, I tried to add 1/2 cup brown rice to my daily lunch and it sent me into borderline dizzy and ditzy. A typical day’s intake for me is 1 slice tofu, 1/2 cup lentils, and tofu taco with avocado, some vegetables, and a big leafy green salad with avocado, beans and nuts. Sometimes I can have a snack of fruit but more than that I start having problems. I suspect I have other deficits that may be slowing my recovery. I am waking up at 1 am and having to eat something to get back to sleep.

I had another episode this past week. I was preparing my allergy records for a trip to ER and was very dizzy and clumsy and a band of pressure in my forehead. I had been taking 2 50 mg enteric tablets 3 times a day of Lipothiamine but was experiencing symptoms of illness after eating and tiredness. I was only rescued from ER by modifying Lipothiamine dose so that it would be absorbed in my stomach instead of my intestines. I’ve had symptoms of intestinal malabsorption which haven’t yet been evaluated by a GI. I have checked several nearby GI practices without finding one who takes a self pay patient.

Genetic Testing

Genetic testing has helped me discover other problems I have involving metabolism. I haven’t cataloged all my mutations but I have a diabetes related set of 3 homozygous SNPs called TCF7L2. The way I understand it is that people with this phenotype have increased signaling mechanisms such that when they have excess fat, the pancreas responds by lowering insulin response to food and the liver increases morning glucose. Losing the weight, reduces the expression and returns things to normal. I have other genetic mutations which may be impacting me such as MTHFR(++), MTRR(++), and a rare BCHE mutation that impacts my choline levels. It also makes me vulnerable to pesticide exposure. I have to take Trimethylglycine (TMG) and various B vitamins to keep homocysteine in check. If I don’t take enough TMG and CDP choline, I get depressed.

I am seeing a new primary who is a doctor of Internal medicine. The new doctor’s choices for medications are spot on for my genetic type, they both work on the GLP-1 pathway, but they also increase insulin response. I don’t see how that doesn’t cause hypoglycemia, since I have normal insulin production. I have more research to do before making a decision on new medications.

While I can see that the deficiency symptoms I have been experiencing may be a result of poor diet and digestion, the fact that Thiamine HCL did not work and my condition improved so much after stopping metformin leads me to believe I may have a genetic condition. I really need to find a university that is researching metabolic and genetic conditions so I can get a diagnosis.

Medications and Supplements

Most of these supplements were added in 2017 after I started homemade liquid meals. Prior to this I was taking a sublingual B-complex & Magnesium glycinate.

Current Medications

Singular 10 mg x 1
CoReg 12.5 x 1
Lisinopril 10 mg x 1
Cetirizine HCL 10 mg x 1
Omeprazole DR 40 mg x 1

Most of these were added when I started liquid diet

B-6 Pyridoxal-5-phosphate sublingual 15mg x 1 (more if homocysteine symptoms)
B-1 Thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) sublingual 13 mg x 1 (the one that is backordered)
*TPP liquid 3 x a day or as needed with malabsorption due to intestinal swelling
*Lipothiamine tetrahydrofuryl disulfate 100 mg 3 times a day with extra Mg.
*Liquid CoQ10 100 mg x 3 times a day
B-2 Flavin mononucleotide sublingual 18 mg x 1
B-3 27 mg as Inositol Hexanicotinate, 25 mg as NAD sublingual 25 mg x 1
Liquid B5 + Carnetine
MethylCobalmin, sublingual 1 mg x 1
MethlyFolate (S6)-5-MethylTetraHydroFolate glucosamine salt sublingual 800 mcg x1
Biotin 5000 mcg sublingual 1 x
Chelated Zinc, zinc glycinate 22 mg x 1
Selenium as L-Selenomethionine, capsule 200 mcg x 1
Kelp 325 mcg Iodine, 325 mcg x 1
TriChromium Chromium Picolinate, Chelavate, & polynicotinate, 500 mcg x 1
Magnesium Glycinate (capsule at home) ~ 800 mg per capsule 50% Mg x 2
Liquid chelated Iron biglycinate 10 mg, Yellow dock 10 mg x 1 (not long term)
D-3 5000 iu with K2 1 sublingual 125 mcg D3+ 90 mcd K2
Ultra K with K2 softgel, K1-1000 mcg + K2 1400 mcg x 1
Algae DHA 200 mg x 1
Phosphatidylcholine softgel 1300 mg x 1
Source Naturals Vitamin A as palmitate 1 x 10,000 iu
Buffered C-1000 complex Calcium Ascorbate 1 g x 2
Southwest Botanicals Mucuna Powder (self capsule) ~ 810 mg x 1
Citicholine (self capsule) ~820 mg, 1-2 as needed
Nootropics Sulbutiamine 200 mg (thiamine derivative) 1 capsule, 200 mg x 4
TrimethylGlycine (Betaine) 1 g x 2 with each meal containing methionine
*Taurine 1000 mg
Liquid Calcium, Magnesium, D3, Phosphorus as needed for sleep

*Recent additions

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Thiamine Deficiency, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on June 14, 2018

15K views

This book by Lonsdale D, and Marrs C, is available on Amazon books. It is published by Elsevier. Written particularly for physicians who are practicing in the field of Integrative Medicine, it would be of interest to the educated public, particularly those affected by chronic disease.

Beriberi, the classical thiamine deficiency disease, long known to have been caused by consumption of white rice, is thought to have been abolished in developed cultures. It is actually widespread in America due to the colossal ingestion of sugar and is usually diagnosed as psychosomatic disease. Because the standard laboratory studies are negative or nonspecific, it is assumed that no organic disease is responsible.

Beginning with a review of the many symptoms of beriberi, it is described as the “great imitator” of a large number of disease conditions, each of which is thought to have its own etiology. It is relevant in all mitochondrial disease, because thiamine sits astride the vital initiation of energy synthesis. Thiamine deficiency interferes with carbohydrate, fat and protein metabolism, but is particularly important in the etiology of diabetes, types I and II and metabolic syndrome. It also has a place in the etiology of Alzheimer disease and may have an important part to play in cancer.

Evidence is provided to show that the relatively new science of epigenetics is crucial to the understanding of the part played by nutrition and lifestyle in genetic function. If the early symptoms of nutritional deficiency are treated symptomatically and high calorie malnutrition continues, the result is an array of chronic brain diseases. When thiamine deficiency was discovered as the cause of beriberi, the early investigators recognized that therapeutic doses of the vitamin involved the administration of 100-300 mg a day for months. The book reviewed here should be in the library of any Integrative Medicine physician.

Publisher Discount

The publisher is offering a 30% discount off of the list price and free shipping if the book is ordered from their site. Just click the link below enter the promotional code ATR30 at checkout.

Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition

The discount does not apply to Amazon orders.

For a preview of the book, click the preview button under the right side bar image.

thiamine deficiency - Page 11

Peripheral Neuropathy, Air Hunger, Dizziness, Altered Vision and Other Symptoms

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Left Temple Headaches, Migraines with Visual Aura, and Cognitive Deficits

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Allergy Shots and More Symptoms: Ophthalmoplegia, Dizziness, Speech Impairment

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