thiamine deficiency Archives - Page 5 of 14

High Dose Thiamine Healed My Fatigue. How Do I Navigate Pregnancy?

Published on November 7, 2023

6876 views

Downward Spiral, Upward Hope, Asking Advice

The year 2020 marked a big change for a lot of people. For me, it meant a downward spiral into intense fatigue, brain fog, and heart palpitations. Healing came in increments over the next three years until I found thiamine, which expedited my healing in six months. Now, I am considering pregnancy, but I need your advice. How do I navigate taking megadoses of supplements while growing a baby? How do I know when my healing journey is “complete,” and does that mean my supplement regimen ought to change? Any and all comments are welcome!

How It Started

It was early 2020 when I returned from a vacation from Thailand and got a stomach bug somewhere along the way home. I rested in bed a couple of days and mostly recovered, but had a lingering burning sensation in my stomach for the next month or so. I then noticed my stool started to smell strange and I experienced bloating after some meals. I went to the gastroenterologist, and within a month they had done an endoscopy and discovered erosive gastritis. I was put on a proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) and sucralfate to coat my stomach.

Two weeks on these medications and I felt immense brain fog and extreme fatigue, so much so that I felt like I would fall over in my chair at work. The fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks– I slept throughout the night and forced myself to take naps, and nothing helped shake the overwhelming fatigue. I took a few weeks off of work and tried to rehab myself at home, eating as much healthy food as possible (I was tracking 3,000 calories a day, which I felt I must need to get healthy again). I tracked all of my nutrients in an app and made sure I hit (and exceeded) the RDA for every nutrient (with the help of supplements). Still, things were not improving much, and I couldn’t even walk one stretch of the block without being utterly exhausted. It was during this time off of work where I felt so helpless and drained in every sense that I remember thinking, “this is what the beginning of dying feels like.” It scared me. But I honestly did not know what to do or where to turn.

A picture from July 2021 after a short hike. I felt horrible and my husband felt great :).

I knew the medications were not making me healthier (even if they made my stomach feel better), so I went off of them cold-turkey. The burning in my stomach became quite severe due to the rebound effect of getting off a PPI, but I pushed through, knowing that I needed my body to heal on its own.

The next three years brought incremental improvements, but still much suffering. Intense brain fog, insatiable fatigue that heightened post-exertion, and dysautonomic symptoms plagued me daily. I was waiting for a big break that seemed like it might never come. Little did I know, my time was coming in the spring of 2023.

How It Really Started

It would be easy to blame a stomach bug for all of my problems, but I now know that my nutrient stores have been taxed and depleted over many instances in my life. Here is a snippet of what led me to the crash:

– Childhood: Ear infections (antibiotics), chronic stomach aches, sugar consumption

– Adolescence: Traumatic brain injury (brain sheer, 3 days coma), mononucleosis, asthma

– Young adulthood: chronic UTIs (i.e., chronic antibiotics (including 3 separate Bactrim prescriptions and anti-fungals (fluconazole) afterward), several deaths in the close family (emotionally taxing), monthly naproxen for menstrual cramps, developed gluten sensitivity, shortness of breath (air hungry).

The stomach bug was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. All of the stressors in my life (physical, emotional, etc.) depleted my body until it couldn’t retain a guise of “healthy” anymore.

My First (Unknowing) Megadose

Throughout the entirety of 2020, I experienced bloating and IBS symptoms. I managed the symptoms well enough with a low FODMAP diet, but one tiny piece of garlic, onion, etc. and I was ruined. I knew I wasn’t healed with this diet, but I didn’t really know how to heal, especially hearing that IBS is something you have to live with for the rest of your life. This scared me, but I wanted to see what answers may be out there.

I came across a study that claimed that the vast majority of participants taking a multivitamin, B-100 complex, and vitamin D3 were cured of their IBS within three months. It seemed like a miraculous and promising study, so I decided to try it myself. Lo and behold, around the three month mark, I was able to incorporate high FODMAP foods without experiencing bloating (it took a stretch of a few weeks to fully incorporate these foods as my body was adjusting).

Back then, I thought it was the vitamin B5 that was responsible for ridding me of bloating symptoms. Vitamin B5 is closely linked to gut health. Looking back now, I have a strong notion that I was helped due to the thiamine content in the B-100 + multivitamin. I megadosed without knowing it. And unfortunately, after about 4 months, I stopped taking the B-100.

My Second (Reluctant) Megadose

I visited a naturopath in the spring of 2021 to try to get more answers. I still had brain fog and fatigue, and had also developed a regular heart palpitation every ~15 minutes, which coincidentally happened after my second round of a certain vaccine. The naturopath prescribed many supplements, one of which was 150 mg of iron per day. I was shocked by this and thought that was wayyyy too much and was scared I would get iron overload, but he assured me that with my ferritin levels at a 9, it was desperately needed.

Within a week of supplementing with iron, I felt a big boost in energy and felt I had found the answer that I had been waiting for. While it did help, I reached a threshold of improvement that did not change despite continued supplementation with iron for over 1.5 years. The iron supplements did help with my heart palpitations, but I still had brain fog and fatigue. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being my lowest point in the summer of 2020, iron brought me to about a 4.

My Third (Homecoming) Megadose

So time went on and I tried every supplement under the sun. I focused on vitamins and mitochondrial nutrients such as L-carnitine, alpha lipoic acid, CoQ10, and others, and I was able to live a life that looked kind of normal. But it didn’t feel normal. I was obsessed with finding the answer(s) to this dark cloud that had been engulfing me the past few years.

Until one day, just six months ago, in late April of 2023, a recommended video popped up on my YouTube homepage that changed my life. The video was from a smart lad named Elliot Overton talking about thiamine deficiency.

You probably know how the story goes.

I started with benfotiamine, because I could get it at the store, while I waited for my TTFD to arrive in the mail. I kept trying to press how much I could tolerate without too much headache/fatigue/brain fog, and I honestly can’t remember if I noticed an improvement in those first few days. Once my TTFD arrived though, within two days of supplementing I felt a rushing wave of beautiful relief come over me.

Finally. Finally! My answer had come. I wasn’t immediately better, but I knew improvement was on its way. It wasn’t long before I came across Hormones Matter, which brought me so much useful information! I began sleeping better. My dreams were more vivid. I was able to sweat more easily, something I didn’t know I had lost until it returned. The volume was turned down on my anxiety and breathing deeply was easier.

It took some adjusting and playing around with dosing to find out what would help me. At first, I could only consistently tolerate one 50 mg TTFD pill every-other day, or I would get a racing heart and worsened fatigue. I also noticed that after about a week of taking TTFD, I would start to feel drained, as if it wasn’t giving me that feeling of relief anymore. So what worked for me was to cycle TTFD, thiamine HCL, and sulbutiamine for one week each. That kept my feelings of “relief” heightened. I pretty much abandoned benfotiamine because, well, I had other stuff that was working and I didn’t want to change my routine.

Within about a month, I was able to take one TTFD per day. As time went on, I kept bumping up all of my doses for each type of thiamine. I would basically take a day to test how much I could handle, then try to sustain that higher new dose. By the end of July, I was taking 5-6 TTFD and 10-ish thiamine HCL (100mg each). I am not exactly sure with the doses. I believe I only made it up to 400 mg of sulbutiamine. At a certain point mid-summer, I dropped the sulbutiamine because it seemed to be making me feel depressed, even though it helped when I first began taking it. I also dropped the thiamine HCL. I felt that TTFD was more powerful and so I stuck with it. I no longer experienced a drop in “relief” symptoms and was able to take TTFD only without any adverse effects.

Somewhere between then and now I have worked myself up to 12-14 TTFD per day (600-700 mg). I have very little brain fog or fatigue and can work out without being drained the next several days. I feel pretty darn good most of the time. Of course, there are ebbs and flows, but overall, I am doing well.

In addition to the thiamine, I have been taking lots of support nutrients too, such as magnesium, multivitamin/B complex, selenium, molybdenum. Another major helper for energy has been 10-15 grams of creatine monohydrate per day. I eat a whole-foods diet with no added sugars.

My Fourth (Aha!) Megadose

Recently, I came across information by Linus Pauling, a Nobel Prize and Peace-Prize winner who championed high-dose vitamin C therapy for minor and major illnesses. I caught a cold around this same time, started high-dose vitamin C therapy, and was absolutely sold with the idea, as none of my symptoms really developed into much at all. While I’m not convinced of taking megadoses of vitamin C every single day, I am certain it is helpful during times of sickness.

Then I read about Orthomolecular Medicine, which uses high-dose vitamins for treating diseases (chronic, communicable, genetic), and it all made sense! I felt as though I had uncovered a secret to the world! I wouldn’t have believed it had I not experienced the “miracles” of megadosing first-hand, but now I realize that most, if not all, diseases can be treated with the right dose of specific nutrients for the right amount of time. I also realize that those doses are higher doses than what we think! And higher still! Yeah– even higher. And longer– yes, keep taking them. I don’t mean to oversimplify people’s illnesses, but rather to illustrate the power of high-dose vitamin therapy.

Then Versus Now

My healing journey is not quite over. I have tested positive for antinuclear antibodies since 2020, and my latest test (October 24, 2023) still tested positive (qualitative only). Finding out these results was a little disheartening, as I really thought my results would be negative. I have had less energy and some mild dysautonomic symptoms since receiving those results, which either means a) the power of suggestion has really gotten to me or b) I switched to thiamine HCL around the same time and it is not as effective as TTFD. I am leaning towards the latter, but I wanted to give HCL more of a shot because the amount of TTFD I’m taking per day is getting expensive! And as a more recent update, the last two days I’ve tried Benfotiamine, which I have been very pleased with— my energy seems to be much better than with thiamine HCL.

I also just started alpha-GPC as a new supplement.

Here is some physical evidence that I am healing:

In one of my textbooks, I found that a B-vitamin deficiency (doesn’t say which B vitamin) causes a smooth tongue.

tongue vitamin B deficiency — Figure 1. Textbook images of vitamin B deficiency affecting the tongue.

I took a picture of my tongue in October 2020, and the second picture in October 2023. Notice the more prominent fuzzy (white/gray) projections in the second picture. These projections are quite blunted in the first picture.

Vitamin deficiencies and the tongue — Figure 2. Photographs of my tongue. Left: October 2020. Right: October 2023. The most prominent changes are on the sides and at the back of the tongue (more “fuzzy”). I believe these changes are in large part due to thiamine.

Hope for The Future

My husband and I are excited about the possibility of getting pregnant, especially now that I am feeling so much better. Having a child has been a long-time dream of mine, and while I was struggling with my health, I wasn’t sure if that dream could come to fruition. So now being in the place I’m in, I’m thrilled that we can think about having a child. I’ve had to tap the brakes on my excitement, because I don’t want to potentially cause any harm to a growing baby due to my megadosing of thiamine. So, I have a couple of questions.

Asking Advice:

Does anyone have any research, personal, or hearsay information regarding the safety of megadose thiamine during pregnancy? If so, did the type matter (TTFD, thiamine HCL, Benfotiamine)?
What is the maximum dose you reached for TTFD/thiamine HCL/Benfotiamine?
Have any of you had any experience with weaning off of thiamine or stopping cold-turkey? I have gone a few days here and there without supplementing with no issue, but not longer than that. If so, was your health maintained, or was there a maintenance dose that sustained you?
How did you know it was time to stop/decrease thiamine (if at all)?

Closing Thoughts

I just want to extend my heartfelt empathy for all of you who may be experiencing health struggles. Before these past few years, I sometimes had the arrogant thought that people could just be healthy if they avoided sugar and exercised. I thought their health struggles were their “fault”, to an extent, but I now recognize the complexity of health and the desperation in trying to find it once it is lost. I understand what suffering is and the feeling that there is no escape. I understand the feeling that no one truly knows what you are going through, even though they extend love and patience with you. I get it, and it sucks so much that this has to be a part of the human experience—but I have also experienced hope. A real hope. A hope that delivers what it promised. I could not have known even a day before taking thiamine that my time of deliverance had come. So please do not give up hope. Your day is coming.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Childhood Trauma, Diet, and Behavior

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on November 6, 2023

7963 views

Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Diet Variable

Nearly one in eight children (12%) are reported to have had three or more negative life experiences associated with levels of stress that can harm their health and development. In 2011, nearly 60% of children age 17 and younger were exposed to violence within the year, either directly as victims or indirectly as witnesses. Twenty-one per cent of children in the United States suffer from mild behavioral health problems and an additional 11% struggle to overcome significant behavioral health, according to the Adverse Childhood Experiences study. This estimate translates into a total of 4 million youth who suffer from major mental illness (US Department of Health and Human Services 1999, 123-124). An estimated 26% of Americans aged 18 and older (about one in four or over 57 million adults) suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.

As if this were not enough, the Children’s Crisis Treatment Center in Philadelphia indicated that “in 2011, 29% of students in grades 9 through 12 reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for two or more weeks in a row in a year. Up to 70% of children and teenagers in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosable mental health disorder and up to 44% of high school students suffering from behavioral health issues drop out of school”. If these statistics are accurate, they are deplorable.

Malnutrition as a Major Cause of Brain Disease

With these huge numbers involved, of many potentially causative issues, there is considerable evidence that bad nutrition may dominate them. It is interesting that, many years ago, a Probation Officer in Cuyahoga Falls in Ohio persuaded a judge to hand over to her care all the juvenile criminals that stood trial in his court. She regulated their diet and supervised it. The recidivism (habitual lapsing back into crime) dropped to almost zero. Unfortunately, good nutrition is commonly overcome by hedonism (love of pleasure) and is usually governed by the sweet taste. There are two aspects to this. Sugar in all its different forms precipitates thiamine deficiency and the signal from the tongue to the brain is responsible for its addictive qualities. There is little doubt that thiamine deficiency is heavily responsible for much of the mental disease that is so commonly represented in our culture. It is especially damaging to the lower part of the brain that governs our emotional responses and our ability to adapt to a hostile environment. Because thiamine deficiency produces an effect similar to that of oxygen deficiency (hypoxia) it has been seen as a cause of pseudo-hypoxia (false hypoxia). Either true or false hypoxia is interpreted by the brain as a potentially dangerous threat to the organism.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Crisis Treatment Center that then existed under another name. I learned of a neurosurgeon who had been deeply involved with its original inception. He had suggested that seizures (epilepsy) were caused by a deficiency of oxygen (hypoxia) in the brain, perhaps explaining the usual resistance of juvenile seizures to drug treatment. Although the statistics above did not specify the nature of “major mental illness” in 4 million youths, I pondered over the years whether hypoxia or any part of its equivalent mechanisms (pseudo-hypoxia) could be the underlying cause common to brain disease in a variety of different expressions, including even epilepsy in some cases.

After my visit to Philadelphia, I had an opportunity to test the neurosurgeon’s suggestion by treating a 12-year-old boy in “status epilepticus” after his current medication had been suddenly withdrawn. I gave him an intravenous injection of thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD), a synthetic derivative of thiamine) and this quickly stopped the continuous seizuring. I then started TTFD by oral administration but it was discontinued by a neurologist who saw the incident as “spontaneous remission and nothing to do with vitamin therapy”. Unfortunately, I did not have any data to be able to publish the case. Status epilepticus is the name given to a situation where the seizuring is continuous and often very difficult to stop. It usually occurs when a medication is suddenly withdrawn. Many years later, I discovered that thiamine deficiency could produce the same symptoms as brain hypoxia, thus giving rise to describing this deficiency as pseudo-hypoxia (false hypoxia). I had evidently treated the SE by relieving the pseudo-hypoxia in the brain cells responsible for this patient’s potentially fatal illness.

Maternal Diet and Neurological Development

There is growing concern about the long-term neurologic effects of prenatal exposure to maternal overweight and obesity, a result of malnutrition. The causes of epilepsy are poorly understood and in more than 60% of the patients no definite cause can be determined. Authors from the well-known Karolinska Institute showed that there was indeed a relationship between obesity in pregnancy and the risk of epilepsy in the offspring. Although the mechanism is not articulated, micronutrient deficiency may be culpable. Increasingly, it has become clear that a person’s weight does not correspond to their nutritional status. Indeed, in many cases, obesity is associated with a state malnutrition; a malnutrition we call high calorie malnutrition.

Clinical thiamine deficiency is defined by both consistent clinical symptoms and either a low whole-blood thiamine concentration, significant improvement, or resolution of consistent clinical symptoms after receiving thiamine supplementation. Of 400 obese patients, 66 (16.5%) were shown to have clinical thiamine deficiency. Their symptoms included gastrointestinal, cardiac, peripheral neurologic and neuropsychiatric manifestations, the characteristic symptoms of beriberi. Hypoxia threatens brain function during the entire life span, starting from early fetal age up to senescence. A relatively common condition in newborns is lack of adequate oxygen supply to the brain and is known as hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. This has been shown to correlate with multiple organ dysfunction and must surely be a severe legacy in the affected child.

The outstanding question then is whether poor diet, perhaps coupled with genetic risk in some cases, could be a substantial causative factor in widespread brain illness. Dr. Marrs and I have published considerable evidence that high calorie malnutrition, by inducing thiamine deficiency, is widespread throughout America and is responsible for a variety of brain related symptoms. With an excess of simple carbohydrate calories, the action of thiamine in burning those calories is overwhelmed. Thiamine might well be in a sufficient concentration for a healthy diet but insufficient for an excess of empty calories. It is the proper calorie/thiamine ratio that results in oxidative efficiency. Unfortunately, the many symptoms produced by thiamine deficiency in the brain are not recognized by the vast majority of physicians for what they represent. If thiamine deficiency is even suspected, they find a “normal” blood level of thiamine that is the usual result in moderate deficiency. The symptoms are falsely attributed to “a more acceptable diagnosis”. No appropriate laboratory tests are usually performed and in many cases the patient is diagnosed with psychosomatic disease, without even considering a necessary underlying mechanism.

High Calorie Malnutrition and Emotional Lability

This kind of malnutrition can severely affect emotional reactions, resulting in a variety of manifestations that include persistent anxiety, depression and bizarre behavior. We have even suggested that poor emotional control can lead to expressions of violence that hitherto have had no explanation for their almost daily occurrence in America. Poverty, poor education, environmental pollution and hedonism are all components that are predictable causative agents. When energy production in the brain is compromised by inefficient use of oxygen (oxidation), the affected person is unable to muster an adequate biological response in the process of adapting to virtually any form of stress. The affected patient is also wide open to succumbing from infection by any microorganism. Brain function becomes abnormal from lack of energy drive.

This may explain the breakdown in health in the children exposed to the stress of active (physical) or passive (mental) violence referred to at the beginning of this post. The well-known saying that “we are what we eat” should be broadened to “we behave according to what we eat”. So many books have advocated the principles of healthy nutrition, without producing much overall health improvement. There is a fairly consistent refusal to “give up” sugar, mainly because its ubiquitous consumption makes it hard to understand its inherent danger to complete health and its addictive properties. Perhaps a more logical attitude might be required to the use of nutritional supplements. The pharmaceutical industry has most people attuned to consumption of pills, so that a transfer of principle would probably be easy. However, it also demands a realization that disease can be reduced to an understanding of energy deficiency as the root cause.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

This article was published originally on January 13, 2020.

Everyone Needs a Little Extra Thiamine: New Podcast

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on October 30, 2023

3947 views

Ann Louise Gittleman Interviews Dr. Chandler Marrs

Several months ago, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Ann Louise Gittleman, an icon in women’s health and nutrition. The topic, as you might have guessed, was modern thiamine deficiency. We dive right into why so many of us are deficient in thiamine and why so few of us, physicians included, consider thiamine as a culprit to illness.

Thiamine deficiency is quite possibly the most important vitamin deficiency of modernity. It causes a long list of ailments that can be easily remedied if you know what to look for. It is so important, that we wrote about it: Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition and have hundreds of research articles and case stories on the topic published here.

Why is thiamine so important? Well, thiamine is absolutely fundamental to mitochondrial function, and if you don’t know already, mitochondrial function is absolutely fundamental to everything else. The mitochondria take components of the foods we eat and convert that into biological energy or ATP. ATP then fuels cell function – all cell function. Diminished ATP capacity or output, as one might imagine, causes all sorts of problems, many of which underly modern illness.

If thiamine is that important, why isn’t it among the first nutrients tested when illness sets in? That is a good question. Aside from the lack of economic drivers (why prescribe an inexpensive vitamin when you can prescribe an expensive pill), the only answer that makes sense is that most people think this deficiency is impossible without starvation or alcoholism. That is what the textbooks have told us for generations.

Since we live in an era of food abundance, where obesity reigns and where most foods are either fortified or enriched with some vitamins, it is difficult to imagine vitamin malnutrition. In reality though, many of the products we call food have been so adulterated that they carry with them more toxins and more calories than even the added vitamins can overcome. I have written about this on a number of occasions as well. Here is just one of those articles, but there are many more, if you search the website.

Or, you can just have a listen to this latest podcast here.

thiamine podcast

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Energy Medicine

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on October 23, 2023

11928 views

I have written many posts on Hormones Matter and have tried to answer the questions arising from each post. These questions and my answers have been so repetitive that I decided to try to make it clear what “energy medicine” is all about and why it differs from conventional medicine. It is only natural that the posted questions are all built on our present ideas about health and disease. What I am about to say is that the present medical model has outgrown its use. Therefore it is obvious that I must discuss what this means. First of all, why do we need a “medical model”? In fact, what is the difference between complete health and its lack? The Oxford English dictionary gives the definition of disease as “a serious derangement of health, disordered state of an organism or organ”

The American Model of Medicine

As I have said before, the present American medical model was aimed at making a diagnosis of one of many thousand described diseases. It was devised from the Flexner report of 1910 that was initiated by Rockefeller. Rockefeller wanted to make medical education adhere to a common standard, thus creating the present “medical model”. The Flexner report used the methodology of diagnosis that was current in Germany. This stated that the patient’s report to a physician is called “history”, involving the patient’s description of symptoms and their onset. From this, the physician may or may not have an idea what is wrong. The next part is the physical exam where a hands-on search of the patient’s body is made for evidence of disease. This is extremely complex when put fully into clinical operation and also may or may not provide clues to a diagnosis. The third operation is laboratory testing and it is this constellation of abnormal tests that provide scientific evidence for the nature of the disease. Each test has been researched and aside from one that is either positive or negative, others have a normal range reported in numerical terms. Perhaps, as an example, the test for cholesterol level is the best known. Each test has to be interpreted as to how it contributes to arriving at a diagnosis. Finally, the physician has to try to decide whether medical or surgical treatment must be offered. Please note that the surgical removal of a sick organ may be the signature of medical failure, for example, removing part of the intestine in Crohn’s disease, for it represents a missed opportunity to treat earlier in the disease process.

Laboratory Tests and A Drug For Every Disease

It is the constellation of symptoms described by the patient and the abnormalities found by the physical examination that constitute a potential diagnosis to formulate what laboratory tests should be initiated. It is the constellation of laboratory tests that may or may not provide the proof. There are problems with this. For instance, there may be test items in the constellation that create confusion, such as “it might be disease A or disease B. We are not sure”. Tests that are “borderline” positive are particularly confusing. The diagnosis finally depends often on who was the first observer of these constellations. For example a person by the name of Parkinson and another person by the name of Alzheimer, each described clinically observed constellations that gave rise to Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Since they were first described, the pathological effects of each disease have been researched in painstaking detail, without coming to the conclusion of the ultimate cause. Finally, the pharmaceutical industry has indulged in complex research to find the drug that will reverse the pathological findings and produce a cure. Because this concept rides right through the objective, each disease is thought to have a separate underlying cause and a separate underlying cure in the shape of a new “miracle drug”. Witness the recent revival of a drug that was initially found to be useless in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. This revival depends on the finding of other pathological effects discovered in the disease, suggesting new clinical trials. When you take all these facts into consideration, it is a surprisingly hit and miss structure. For example, we now have good reason to state that a low cholesterol in the blood is more dangerous than a high one. Why? Because cholesterol is made in the body and is the foundation material for building the vitally important stress hormones. Cholesterol synthesis requires energy and is a reflection on energy metabolism when it is in short supply.

The Physicians Desk Reference, available in many public libraries, contains details concerning available drugs. Each drug is named and what it is used for, but often there is a note saying that its action is poorly understood. Just as often, there may be one or two pages describing side effects. In fact, the only drugs whose action is identified with cause are the antibiotics. The rest of them treat symptoms but do not address cause. Antibiotics affect pathogenic bacteria but we all know that the bacteria are able to become resistant and this is creating a problem for the near future. It is interesting that Louis Pasteur spent his career researching pathogenic microorganisms. However, on his deathbed it is purported that he stated “I was wrong, it is the defenses of the body that count”.

It must be stated that the first paradigm in medicine was the discovery of pathogenic microorganisms and their ability to cause infections. Many years were spent in trying to find ways and means of killing these organisms without killing the patient. It was the dramatic discovery of penicillin that led to the antibiotic era. I like to think that Louis Pasteur may have suggested the next paradigm, “assist the body defenses”.

Energy Medicine: A New Paradigm for Understanding Health and Disease

When a person is seen performing on a trampoline, an observer might say “hasn’t he got a lot of energy!” without thinking that this represents energy consumption. Energy has to be captured in the body and is consumed in the physical action on the trampoline. Many people will drink a cup of coffee on the way to work believing that it “creates” energy. The chemical function of caffeine stimulates action that consumes energy, giving rise to a false impression. Every physical movement, every passing thought, however fleeting in time, requires energy consumption. The person who has to drink coffee to “get to work”, is already energy insufficient. He/she can ill afford this artificial consumption of the available energy.

I am going to suggest that the evidence shows “energy medicine” may indeed be the new paradigm, so we have to make sure that anyone reading this is conversant with the concept of energy. In physics, “energy is the quantitative property that must be transferred to an object in order to perform work on, or heat, the object. Energy is a conserved quantity, meaning that the available energy at the beginning of time is the same quantity today. The law of conservation of energy states that “energy can be converted in form but not created or destroyed”. Furthermore, Einstein showed us that matter and energy are interconvertible. That is why the word “energy” is such a mystery to many people. What kind of energy does the human body require?

We are all aware that the electroencephalogram and the electrocardiogram are tools used by physicians to detect disease in the brain and the heart. If that means that our organs function electrically, then where does that energy come from? We do not carry a battery. We are not plugged into a wall socket and the functional capacity of the human body is endlessly available throughout life. The only components that keep us alive are food and water. Everyone knows that foods need to contain a calorie-delivering and a non-caloric mixture of vitamins and essential minerals. The life sustaining actions of these non-caloric nutrients is because they govern the process of energy capture by enabling oxygen consumption (oxidation). They also govern the use of the energy to provide physical and mental function.

The calorie bearing food, consisting of protein, fat and carbohydrate is used to build body cell structure. This is called anabolic metabolism. If body structure is broken down and destroyed, weight is lost and the patient is sick. This is called catabolic metabolism. In healthy conditions, food is metabolized to form glucose, the primary fuel.

Thiamine (vitamin B1), together with the rest of the B complex, governs oxidation, the products of which go into a cellular “engine” called the citric acid cycle. This energy is used to form adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that might be referred to as a form of “energy currency”. Without thiamine and its vitamin colleagues in the diet, ATP cannot be formed. Research for the next stage of energy production has yielded insufficient information as yet concerning production of electrical energy as the final step. The evidence shows that thiamine may have an integral part in this electrification process, although much mystery remains. Suffice it to say that we are electrochemical “machines” and every physical and mental action requires energy consumption.

Maybe the Chinese Were Right

In the ancient Chinese culture, an energy form called Chi was regarded as the energy of life itself. Whether this really exists or not and whether it is in some way connected to the auras purported to surround each person’s body is still conjectural. It would not be too absurd to suggest that it might be as yet an undiscovered form of energy and that it is truly a reflection of good health. My personal conclusion is that some form of electromagnetic energy is the energy that drives our physical and mental functions and that it is transduced in the body from ATP, the storage form of chemical energy. There is no doubt that acupuncture does work and certainly encourages the conclusion that the meridians described by the ancient Chinese thinkers are an important evidence of electrical circulation. There is burgeoning evidence that energy is the core issue in driving the complex process of the body’s ability to heal itself. The idea that the physician or anyone else that purports to be a “healer” is a myth, because we have the magic of nutrients that are capable of stimulating energy production as already described. The “bedside manner” is valuable because a sense of confidence and trust results in energy conservation. Remember the proverb “worry killed the cat”.

Illness and the Lack of Energy

As essentially fragile organisms, we live in a situation of personal stress. We are surrounded by micro-organisms ready to attack us. We have built a culture that is enormously stressful in many different ways, I turn once again to the writings of Hans Selye, who advanced the idea that we are suffering from “the diseases of adaptation”. He recognized that some form of energy was absolutely essential to meet any form of physical or mental stress. One of his students was able to produce the general adaptation syndrome in an animal by making the animal thiamine deficient. Energy metabolism in Selye’s time was poorly understood. Today the role of thiamine is well known. As I have described in other posts and in our book, the lower part of the brain that controls adaptive mechanisms throughout the body is highly sensitive to thiamine deficiency. Alcohol, and sugar in all its forms, both overload the process of oxidation. Although energy metabolism depends on many nutrients, thiamine is vital to the function of mitochondria and its deficiency appears to be critical. Because the brain and heart are the dominant energy consumers it is no surprise to find that beriberi has its major effects in those two organs. Symptoms are just expressions of oxidative inefficiency of varying severity. This is the reason why 696 medical publications have reported varying degrees of success in the treatment of 240 diseases with thiamine. Its ubiquitous use as a drug depends on its overall ability to restore an adequate energy supply by stimulating mitochondrial function. It is also why I propose that energy deficiency is the true root of modern disease.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

This article was published originally on November 19, 2019.

Migraine Energy Metabolism: Connecting Some Dots

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on October 10, 2023

12457 views

I have been reading some of the fascinating posts by Angela Stanton PhD concerning her research in migraine headaches. I regard the substance of her discussions as somewhat like dots on a chart that need to be connected. I learned a great deal about the chemistry involved in migraine. One of her comments that involves ion homeostasis in brain metabolism is fascinating. She noted that “serotonin is created by a normally functioning brain. Why it decreases or increases in the brains of migraineurs has always puzzled me. Should we not try to find out why?” That simple three letter word is the heart and soul of research and I believe that I may be able to add some information that might provide an answer.

Ehlers Danlos and Migraine

In one of Angela’s posts she discusses a subject which has been of interest to me for many years, the overlap of symptoms in disease. She noted that 60% of migraineurs have one type of Ehlers Danlos syndrome (EDS) and 43% of EDS have minor changes in DNA (SNPs) found in migraineurs. She concludes that they must be related. Over 70% of migraineurs have Raynaud’s disease and there is an overlap with EDS and Raynaud’s. Therefore, she concludes that these three diseases are variants. In fact, there is an association between EDS, Postural Othostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and a group of conditions known as mast cell disorders. EDS-HT, (one of the manifestations of this disease), is considered to be a multisystemic disorder, involving cardiovascular, autonomic nervous system, gastrointestinal, hematologic, ocular, gynecologic, neurologic and psychiatric manifestations, including joint hypermobility. Many non-musculoskeletal complaints in EDS-HT appear to be related to dysautonomia, consisting of cardiovascular and sudomotor dysfunction. Many of the clinical features of patients with mitral valve prolapse can logically be attributed to abnormal autonomic function. Myxomatous degeneration of valve leaflets with varying degree of severity is reported in the common condition of mitral valve prolapse.

A woman, with what was described as a “new” type of EDS, died after rupture of a thoracic aortic aneurysm. Autopsy revealed myxomatous degeneration and elongation of the mitral and tricuspid valves. Patients with POTS, a relatively common autonomic disorder, may have EDS, mitral valve prolapse, or chronic fatigue syndrome and are sensitive to various forms of stress, as depicted in the clinical treatment of a dental patient affected by the syndrome. Dysautonomia has been described in the pathogenesis of migraine, featured by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, polyuria, eyelid edema, conjunctival injection, lacrimation, nasal congestion and ptosis. In general, there is an imbalance between sympathetic and parasympathetic tone.

Energy Metabolism and Migraine

Technological studies have confirmed the presence of deficient energy production together with an increment of energy consumption in migraine patients. An energy demand over a certain threshold creates metabolic and biochemical preconditions for the onset of the migraine attack. Common migraine triggers are capable of generating oxidative stress and its association with thiamine homeostasis suggests that thiamine may act as a site-directed antioxidant. It strongly suggests that migraine is a reflection of an inefficient use of brain oxygen. An intermediate consumption of oxygen between deficiency and excess appears to be a necessity at all times. In fact,” moderation in all things” is an important proverb

Backing up energy deficiency, two cases of chronic migraine responded clinically to intravenous administration of thiamine. However, the authors are in error when they state in the abstract that “nausea, vomiting and anorexia of migraine may lead to mild to moderate thiamine deficiency”. An otherwise healthy 30-year-old male acquired gastrointestinal beriberi after one session of heavy drinking. Nausea, vomiting and anorexia relentlessly progressed. He had undergone 11 emergency room visits, 3 hospital admissions and laparoscopy within 2 months but the gastrointestinal symptoms continued to progress, unrecognized for what these symptoms represented. When he eventually developed external ophthalmoplegia (eye divergence), he received an intravenous injection of thiamine which reversed both the neurologic and gastrointestinal symptoms within hours.

In other words it is important to be aware that nausea, vomiting and anorexia are primary symptoms of beriberi due to pseudohypoxia in the brainstem where the vomiting center is located. Chronic migraine has a well documented association with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. The hypothalamus may play a role. One of Angela’s comments concerns ion homeostasis in migraines. Thiamine triphosphate (TTP) can be found in most tissues at very low levels. However, organs and muscles that generate electrical impulses are particularly rich in this compound. Furthermore, TTP increases chloride (ion) uptake in membrane vesicles prepared from rat brain, suggesting that it could play an important role in the regulation of chloride permeability. Although this research was published in 1991, the exact role of TTP is still unknown. It has been hypothesized that thiamine and magnesium deficiency are keys to disease.

Angela wondered why serotonin might be increased or decreased in migraineurs. I strongly suspect that it is due to brain thiamine deficiency as the ultimate underlying cause of the migraine. In a review of thiamine metabolism, it was pointed out that metabolites could be high or low according to the degree of the deficiency. Victims of beriberi were found to have either a low or a high potassium according to the stage of the disease. If they were found to have a low acid content in the stomach, treatment with thiamine resulted in a high acid content before it became normal. If the stomach acid was high it would become low before it became normal. Since low and/or high potassium levels may be found in the blood of critically ill patients, thiamine deficiency should be a serious consideration in the emergency room or ICU Thiamine deficiency may be the answer for the fluctuations of serotonin observed in migraine.

Redefining Disease Models

According to the present medical model, each disease is described as a constellation of symptoms, physical signs and laboratory studies, each with a separate etiology. The overlap discussed by Angela suggests that the various conditions nominated have a common cause and that they are indeed nothing more than variations. If energy metabolism is the culprit, it would make sense of the infinite variations according to the degree and distribution of cellular energy deficiency. EDS-HT, described above is reported as a multi-system disease, exhibiting cardiovascular, autonomic gastrointestinal, hematologic, ocular, gynecological and psychiatric symptoms as well as the joint mobility. It seems to be impossible to explain this multiplicity without invoking energy deficiency as the cause. People with prolapsed mitral valve and a patient with a “new” form of EDS, reportedly have myxomatous degeneration as part of their pathology and it is tempting to suggest that such an important loss of structure might well be because of energy deficit.

The controls of the autonomic nervous system are located in the lower part of the brain that is particularly sensitive to thiamine deficiency and beriberi is a prototype for thiamine deficiency in its early stages. Dysautonomia is frequently reported as part of many different diseases, offering energy deficiency as the etiology in common. Yes, it is true that thiamine is not the only substance that enables the production of ATP. Nevertheless, it seems to dominate the overall picture of energy metabolism. It has long been considered the essential focus in the cause of beriberi, even though all the B complex vitamins are found in the rice polishings. Milling and the consumption of white rice was the prime etiology of the disease when it was common in rice consuming cultures.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by Chen from Pixabay.

This article was published originally on June 22, 2020.

Diet and Medication Induced Thiamine Deficiency – Dry Beriberi

by Lyn Williams

Published on October 5, 2023

4822 views

I am 41 years old and experiencing weird, scary, and upsetting symptoms that began a year and half ago. I have numbness in my feet that has moved up into my calf and super tight calves, ankles and feet. I have peripheral neuropathy, carpal tunnel symptoms, circulation issues without swelling and some sciatica like symptoms with achiness in my legs. I am exhausted all of the time, have no energy and symptoms of depression, but I am not depressed other than these health issues. I am overly irritable and always cold. My hair is falling out and I become dizzy when I standup from a sitting position.

In the past, I believe at some point I had insulin resistance but was never diagnosed. I did, however, have issues with my blood sugar. I was put on Metformin for 6 years, during which time I had a lot of stomach issues, nausea, and diarrhea. I was never a big drinker at all, nor did I use tobacco. I was under a ton of stress for many years though. Despite the stress, I was always healthy and worked out, ran on a treadmill, and was active. I worked as a nanny 55 hours a week.

My diet before metformin was not the greatest with lots of carbs and processed foods. I may have had a thiamine deficiency back then and but did not know about it. No one ever tested me for thiamine until recently. A lot of my symptoms started at a time where I was dealing with some heavy things, so I believe stress was definitely involved. For the past three years, I have not been on medication. Currently, I eat a low carb/keto diet and my A1c is 5.2 and insulin is 3.

Discovering Thiamine Deficiency

I started to experience these symptoms about a year and a half ago. I have tried many things to feel better and help with my symptoms and nothing has worked. Of the nutrient testing that I have had, my thiamine was low. It was 66nmol/L. The reference range was 78-185nmol/L. My vitamin D was barely above the deficiency range at 30ng/mL, my methylmalonic acid was on the low end of the range at 107nmol/L (range 87-318), and my vitamin B6 was high at 29.5ng/mL (range 2.1-21.7). Nothing was discussed regarding the other low vitamins and high B6. I was, however, told by my neurologist to take 100mg a day of vitamin B1/thiamine. She never indicated that this was the reason for my symptoms though.

I began doing my own research and found that I had all of the classic symptoms of dry beriberi – thiamine deficiency that affects the nerves. In other words, my symptoms were related to thiamine deficiency. I began supplementing with Benfotiamine 600mg a day am taking magnesium (Optimum health) at 150×2= 300 at night. My FM doctor said my magnesium was at 4.5 and they like to see it at 5.3. I also take vitamin D3/K2. My vitamin d was on the low side.

When I began supplementing with thiamine at 100mg per day and the Benfotiamine, I notice I was not as tired or fatigued. I was feeling pretty weak there, and I feel better, but the nerve issues have not changed.

Six weeks after finding out I had a thiamine deficiency, I got bloodwork from my FM doctor and my thiamine was now too high, almost as if I wasn’t absorbing it. I should mention that the second test was a plasma test while the first test was done from the serum. From what I have learned, plasma thiamine measures are less accurate. Even so, should I be worried?

My FM doctor wants to test again for Lyme disease. Beyond that, I just don’t know what else to do to resolve the nerve issues. Thank you!

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay.

Poor Diet, COVID, and Thiamine Deficiency: A Perfect Storm

by HR

Published on October 3, 2023

5162 views

A bit of information about me: I am 24 year old man. I have always been fit, always exercised at least 5 times a week, and have had physical jobs. I never really cared about what I ate and my diet consisted of a load of protein (mainly protein shakes and chicken) with massively high carb/sugar consumption. I went out drinking with friends on most weekends. About two years ago, I had COVID and since then my health seemed to decline massively. I did not see a doctor initially, because I was not aware of how bad my health would become.

About a year after having COVID, my anxiety levels were through the roof. It was so bad, I couldn’t even leave the house without worrying something was going to happen. The symptoms I developed included: a change in personality, hand a feet neuropathy, shocking circulation to hands and feet, severe bowl issues, really low body temperature, extreme fatigue to the point where I was unable to get off the sofa after work most days, memory problems and an inability to think.

A year into this, I realized that I had to do something about my health. I was literally at breaking point. I did not know what was going on with my body or mind. At first, I thought I was diabetic because I matched so many symptoms but blood test showed normal sugar levels. I went back to the doctors numerous times. They basically told me that I was mad. They told my family all my symptoms and that I was really struggling, but no one believed that I was ill. They said it was all in my head and led me to believe that I was actually going mad.

Heart Problems, Breathlessness, and Thiamine Deficiency

Then the heart problems started. I have always played football, since I was 10 years old, and I have always been extremely fit, but I began having trouble breathing when playing. It gradually got worse and I became unable to walk the stairs without becoming breathless. As the breathing problems worsened, I had to stop all exercise. The exertion seemed to make me worse.

At this point, I was positive my symptoms were not imagined and so I did endless research online and found a video by Dr. Berg about thiamine/vitamin B1. I ordered some Benfotiamine and it definitely seemed to help. The anxiety vanished almost instantly and most of my symptoms went away except neurological ones. So I took about 4 tablets, 250mg each, per day for about 9 months. After this time, I felt I was not progressing any further. I thought I would never get circulation back in my hands and feet. My brain was still confused all the time and my breathing became slightly better but it was still nowhere near where I wanted to be.

I returned to internet for research and found Elliot Overton’s YouTube channel and ordered some TTFD, b-complex, magnesium, potassium. Thiamega, the product from Objective Nutrients, has 100mg thiamine HCL, 200mg Benfotiamine, 50mg Sulbutiamine and 50mg TTFD. At first, the paradox reaction, getting worse before getting better, was absolutely shocking. I remember being on the sofa each weekend and just sleeping most of the day. The brain fog was the worst it had been for months but after maybe a month that seemed to clear up and my brain problems seemed to have massively improved.

I forgot to mention earlier that prior to beginning supplementation with Benfotiamine and then TTFD, I had a private MRI scan on my brain. It showed high T2W right signal – a sign of lesions and demyelination and confirmation that I had thiamine deficiency. So, I went for another MRI with contrast recently to see if I have improved any. I am still waiting for the results on that one.

Improved But Still Missing Something

I am at the point now, where I feel I am back to normal health with most of my symptoms improved. All that remains to be resolved are the circulation and breathing problems. The rest do seem nearly resolved.

I have recently tried the carnivore/keto diet, but I usually get to day 3 or 4 and have to stop because it seems to make my symptoms worse especially the breathing and circulation. My current diet is mostly whole foods, with high protein, high fat and lower carbs. I try and eat a lot of red meat and that seems to help.

I was wondering if there was anything I can do to repair this issue, or is it for life now? Sugar and alcohol definitely seem to make me worse, but then so does keto and so I am unsure what to do. Maybe if I manage to push past the first week on keto I would feel better and my nerves would start to repair? All I know is that I must have had a serious case of beriberi disease, which has caused all this damage to my body. Obviously, I know it is my fault for not taking care of my diet, but I also feel the doctors are partly to blame as they seem to know absolutely nothing about thiamine deficiency. All they want to hear about is anxiety and depression. Any help at all would be massively appreciated. Thanks.

Photo by Paul Zoetemeijer on Unsplash.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

How Can Something As Simple as Thiamine Cause So Many Problems?

by Derrick Lonsdale MD, FACN, CNS

Published on September 19, 2023

151579 views

I have read a criticism that thiamine deficiency is “too simple” to explain the devastating nature of the post Gardasil illnesses or the systemic adverse reactions to some medications. Sometimes, it is the simple and overlooked elements that are the most problematic.

Understanding Thiamine’s Role in Complex Adverse Reactions – The Limbic System

The lower part of the brain, called the brainstem, is a like computer, controlling the most basic aspects of survival, from breathing and heart rate, hunger and satiety, to fight or flight and reproduction. This computer-like function within the brainstem is called the autonomic system (ANS). The ANS together with the limbic system act in concert to regulate our most basic survival functions and behaviors. Both require thiamine to function.

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome or POTS , a type of dysautonomia (dysregulation of the autonomic system) seems to be the among the commonest manifestations of the Gardasil effect. Many cases have been diagnosed already, while others present all of the symptoms but have yet to receive a diagnosis. Dysautonomia and POTS have also been observed with adverse reactions to other medications, as well. Dysautonomia and POTS, at the most basic level, represent a chaotic state of the limbic-autonomic system. Let me explain.

Fragmented Fight or Flight

The brainstem autonomic system together with the limbic system enable us to adapt to our environment, presiding over a number of reflexes that allow us to survive. For example, fight-or-flight is a survival reflex, triggered by perception of a dangerous incident that helps us to kill the enemy or escape. This kind of “stress event” in our ancestors was different from that we experience today. Wild animal predators have been replaced by taxes/business deadlines/rush hour traffic etc. These are the sources of modern stress. The beneficial effect is that the entire brain/body is geared to physical and mental response. However, it is designed for short term action and consumes energy rapidly. Prolonged action is literally exhausting and results in the sensation of fatigue. In the world of today where dietary mayhem is widespread, this is commonly represented as Panic Attacks, usually treated as psychological. They are really fragmented fight-or-flight reflexes that are triggered too easily because of abnormal brain chemistry.

Thiamine and Oxidative Metabolism: The Missing Spark Plug

Our brain computers rely completely on oxidative metabolism represented simply thus:

Fuel + Oxygen + Catalyst = Energy

Each of our one hundred trillion body/brain cells is kept alive and functioning because of this reaction. It all takes place in micro “fireplaces” known as mitochondria. Oxygen combines with fuel (food) to cause burning or the combustion – think fuel combustion engine. We need fuel, or gasoline, to burn and spark plugs to ignite in order for the engines to run.

In our body/brain cells it is called oxidation. The catalysts are the naturally occurring chemicals we call vitamins (vital to life). Like a spark plug, they “ignite” the food (fuel). Absence of ANY of the three components spells death.

Antioxidants like vitamin C protect us from the predictable “sparks” (as a normal effect of combustion) known as “oxidative stress”. Vitamin B1, is the spark plug, the catalyst for these reactions. As vitamin B1, thiamine, or any other vitamin deficiency continues, more and more damage occurs in the limbic system because that is where oxygen consumption has the heaviest demand in the entire body. This part of the brain is extremely sensitive to thiamine deficiency.

Why Might Gardasil Lead to Thiamine Deficiency?

We do not know for sure how Gardasil or other vaccines or medications have elicited thiamine deficiency, but they have. We have two girls and one boy, tested and confirmed so far. More testing is underway. Thiamine deficiency in these cases may not be pure dietary deficiency. It is more likely to be damage to the utilization of thiamine from as yet an unknown mechanism, affecting the balance of the autonomic (automatic) nervous system. It is certainly able to explain POTS (one of the many conditions that produce abnormal ANS function) in two Gardasil affected girls. Beriberi, the classic B1 deficiency disease, is the prototype for ANS disease. Administration of thiamine will not necessarily bring about a cure, depending on time since onset of symptoms, but it may help.

Thiamine Deficiency Appetite and Eating Disorders

Using beriberi as a model, let us take appetite as an example of one of its many symptoms. When we put food into the stomach, it automatically sends a signal to a “satiety center” in the computer. As we fill the stomach, the signals crescendo and the satiety center ultimately tells us that we have eaten enough. Thiamine deficiency affects the satiety center, wrecking its normal action. Paradoxically it can cause anorexia (loss of appetite) or the very opposite, a voracious appetite that is never satisfied and may even go on to vomiting. It can also shift from anorexia to being voracious at different times within a given patient. That is why Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia represent one disease, not two.

Thiamine Deficiency, Heart Rate and Breathing

The autonomic nervous system, responsible for fight or flight, regulates heart activity, accelerating or decelerating according to need. So heart palpitations are common in thiamine deficiency. Its most vital action is in control of automatic breathing and thiamine deficiency has long been known to cause infancy sudden death from failure of this center in brainstem.

Thiamine Deficiency and Sympathetic – Parasympathetic Regulation

The hypothalamus is in the center of the brain computer and it presides over the ANS, as well as the endocrine (hormone) system. The ANS has two channels of communication known as sympathetic (governs action) and parasympathetic (governs the body mechanisms that can be performed when we are in a safe environment: e.g. bowel activity, sleep, etc.). When the ANS system is damaged, sometimes by genetic influence, but more commonly by poor diet (fuel), our adaptive ability is impaired. A marginal energy situation might become full blown by a stress factor. In this light, we can view vaccines and medications as stress factors. From false signal interpretation, we may feel cold in a warm environment, exhibiting “goose bumps on the skin”, or we may feel hot in a cold environment and experience profuse sweating. The overriding fatigue is an exhibition of cellular energy failure in brain perception.

Sometimes, it really is the simple, overlooked, elements that cause the most devastating consequences to human health. Thiamine deficiency is one of those elements.

To learn more about thiamine testing: Thiamine Deficiency Testing: Understanding the Labs.

We Need Your Help

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

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash.

This article was published originally in October 2013.

thiamine deficiency - Page 5

Downward Spiral, Upward Hope, Asking Advice

How It Started

How It Really Started

My First (Unknowing) Megadose

My Second (Reluctant) Megadose

My Third (Homecoming) Megadose

My Fourth (Aha!) Megadose

Then Versus Now

Hope for The Future

Closing Thoughts

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Adverse Childhood Experiences and the Diet Variable

Malnutrition as a Major Cause of Brain Disease

Maternal Diet and Neurological Development

High Calorie Malnutrition and Emotional Lability

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

The American Model of Medicine

Laboratory Tests and A Drug For Every Disease

Energy Medicine: A New Paradigm for Understanding Health and Disease

Maybe the Chinese Were Right

Illness and the Lack of Energy

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Ehlers Danlos and Migraine

Energy Metabolism and Migraine

Redefining Disease Models

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Discovering Thiamine Deficiency

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Heart Problems, Breathlessness, and Thiamine Deficiency

Improved But Still Missing Something

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Understanding Thiamine’s Role in Complex Adverse Reactions – The Limbic System

Fragmented Fight or Flight

Thiamine and Oxidative Metabolism: The Missing Spark Plug

Why Might Gardasil Lead to Thiamine Deficiency?

Thiamine Deficiency Appetite and Eating Disorders

Thiamine Deficiency, Heart Rate and Breathing

Thiamine Deficiency and Sympathetic – Parasympathetic Regulation

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in