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Functional Dysautonomia Affecting Peripheral Circulation

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Functional Dysautonomia - Raynaud's

I first noticed symptoms of what I believe to be functional dysautonomia that affects my peripheral circulation in the winter when I was 12 years old. Though they have never completely derailed my life, like the symptoms of so many others, they are a constant presence. I am now 21 and the symptoms have more or less stayed the same since that winter.

Peripheral circulation issues from functional dysautonomia.
Circulation and color change in my hands when cold.

These symptoms mainly impact the peripheral circulation on my hands, feet, and face. They are triggered, or worsen, when exposed to heat, cold, stress, or alcohol. Most of the time my hands and feet will have a slightly cyanotic tinge, are cold, and (feet especially) will sweat. When it is very cold they will turn to a bluish color. While standing still or when my hands are by my side they will get blood pooling in a bluish / purplish mottling color. In addition, my capillary refill time is very slow, especially on my feet, sometimes in excess of 12 seconds.

Functional dysautonomia peripheral circulation
Blood pooling and color change in my feet when hot.

 

When it is warm my hands and feet will become red and hot, with blood pooling in them when placed below the heart, if I raise them they will return to a normal color. Also, when hot I will get prickly / itchy sensations on the back of my arms and on my back. My cheeks, in addition, are often quite red, even in a cool room, and get more so when I am hot or stressed. My brother also has these similar circulation issues.

Apart from these physical symptoms I noticed, I have dealt with fairly bad anxiety since I was young, especially around school and sports. It has gotten much better in the last year or so after I noticed it and worked through it. Through recognizing it, I realized how much of the time I was in a tense sympathetic state. Another random symptom I have had since I was young is eye floaters. I am not sure if the two are related. Other than those symptoms, I feel as though I am healthy. I am able to stay active and am studying in college.

It’s More Than Raynaud’s Syndrome

Every time I attempt to get these symptoms checked doctors say they can find nothing wrong with me and that it is either Raynaud’s or “just how it is”. Though, from my own research, it appears to me that is not the case. The only other examples of symptoms I can find like mine are pictures of POTS patients with dependent acrocyanosis / blood pooling in their arms and legs and a case study of Dr. Lonsdale’s of a girl with juvenile arthritis. I find my own symptoms confusing mainly due to the lack of other symptoms.

Perhaps Thiamine Will Help

After taking time reading through this site and looking through Dr. Lonsdale’s work, I started taking 50mg of Allithiamine and 125mg of magnesium daily, about a month ago. During this first week of taking it I noticed a twitching in my stomach, general stomach pain, and I would sneeze a ton. After a week, I bumped it up to 100mg of Allithiamine and 250mg of magnesium, during this period I noticed very intense dreaming, which was constant throughout the night, and an upset stomach. After a few days of this, I dropped magnesium down to 125mg and kept thiamine at 150mg. I am now at 200 mg of Allithiamine and 125mg of magnesium a day. It has been four weeks since starting Allithiamine and I have not experienced further strange symptoms, however, I have not noticed any of my main symptoms, the issues with peripheral circulation, reduce.

I am just curious if I am on the right path and if anyone would be willing to offer some guidance.

Thankful for This Community

I am so appreciative of this community. I cannot describe how grateful I am to have this paradigm for thinking about health at such an early age.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this, Dr. Lonsdale for all of his work, and Dr. Marrs for her work and encouraging me to post this.

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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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Recovering From Suspected Thiamine Deficiency

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recovering from thiamine deficiency

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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COVID Notes: Reconsidering Death, Oxygen, and ATP

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coivd notes -death, oxygen, ATP

I have had some difficulty finishing full research articles during this crisis. In lieu of full articles, and in order to more fully understand some connections, I have been tweeting thoughts and hypotheses – yes, tweeting. Eventually, these snippets will become articles, but in the meantime, I thought I would share them here. I have cleaned them up a bit and added a few links where relevant, but they remain largely as they were posted on Twitter.

Reconsidering Death, Oxygen, and ATP

I was contemplating death last night, not my own per se, but the notion of death. What is death or what constitutes death? And you know what? I still land squarely at the mitochondria.

Oxygen (O2) is fundamental for life and we like to think that its absence constitutes death. While its diminishment sure makes living difficult and its absence makes life impossible, there is something more fundamental required. There is one more step below the necessity of O2.

Without ATP – O2 cannot be used.

Sit with that for a moment.

We can mechanically ventilate and force-feed O2, but if there is insufficient ATP, it will not matter.

The relationship is reciprocal, of course, without O2, there can be no ATP.

But yet still, ATP is key.

Making fueling the mitochondria the single most important thing we can do to prevent death for any disease process, but especially something like COVID.

Unfortunately, virtually every treatment in the medical armament damages mitochondria (yes that includes all pharmaceuticals) – even or perhaps especially – forced ventilation (here, here, here). That is not to say that sometimes meds or mechanical ventilation are not necessary, but only that we could do better if we considered how O2 is used and what is required for O2 saturation beyond just the mechanics.

And that we could do better if we considered the damage drugs do to that process. [For that matter, we should also be considering the damage environmental chemicals do as well.]

For O2 to be used — we need ATP.

For ATP – we need functional mitochondria.

For functional mitochondria – we need micronutrients, thiamine especially. Thiamine drives the mitochondrial processing plant.

Mitochondrial nutrients
Nutrients required for mitochondrial production of ATP.

Thiamine deficiency — by itself, absent any other variables, causes hypoxia. They call it pseudohypoxia because it doesn’t match our current conceptualization of obstructive hypoxia, but it is hypoxia just the same. The only difference – it originates in the mitochondria.

From a lack of ATP, we get the inability of the mitochondria to utilize the readily available O2, which leads to more hypoxia and a crap ton of other negative sequelae. All of which we are seeing in full relief with COVID patients.

If only there was a simple solution…

Oh, that’s right, there is.

No heroics needed, just give folks IV thiamine, an IV banana bag when they come in, continue until they improve.

If they are still able to eat, throw in some protein, fat, a few carbs, and perhaps, some fat-soluble vitamins (A, D,K, for example).

To reframe – what do mitochondria need to create ATP? Nutrients plus O2.

What do mitochondria need to use O2? ATP.

So what do mitochondria need to ‘breathe’? Nutrients.

Nutrients are the missing piece in the puzzle.

Feed the mitochondria >>> prevent mitochondrial collapse >>> prevent death.

A few articles that influenced my thinking:

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What Can Selye Tell Us About COVID-19? Survival Requires Energy

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Covid 19, coronavirus, selye, thiamine

Host Defenses

Most people are aware that Louis Pasteur played a major part in the discovery of microorganisms, particularly those that affect our health. He is purported to have said on his deathbed “I was wrong: it is the terrain that matters”. He meant, of course, the natural defenses with which the human body is equipped. In fact, he was stating something that is simple to understand. All members of the animal kingdom, including humans, live in a hostile environment, the major contributor to which are the microorganisms that result in disease. I like to think of them as “the enemy” that represents a war-like attack that tests our naturally endowed defensive mechanisms. The paradigm in medicine that exists at present is quite simple, “kill the enemy”. What Louis Pasteur was saying applied to the idea that the attack by the enemy is automatically met by a complex of defenses. Each attack by the microorganism can be viewed as much like a war. The question is, what we can do to make sure that the defenses are as vigorous as Mother Nature intended them to be. In order to answer that question, I turn to the work of Hans Selye.

Selye and Stress

As I have mentioned in previous posts on this website, Selye was a medical student in Hungary. One thing that professors of medicine do for students is to present them with patients suffering from the various diseases with which they have been diagnosed. Well, Selye was not listening to the professor. He was observing the facial expression of each of the patients as they were presented. He came to the conclusion that they all looked very much the same, that it was a response to the stress imposed by the illness from which they were suffering.

After graduation, he immigrated to Canada and set up an Institute in Montréal with a specific intention to study the effects of stress. Selye defined “stress” as anything that attacked the status quo of an animal. It included infection and trauma. In the modern world, stress is considered as purely a mental phenomenon. That is incorrect. Stress is anything that requires physiological energy to resolve. It can come in the form of mental or life stress, but the energetic demands remain the same as if it were the stress of an illness.

Selye set out to try to discover its mechanisms. His studies were performed on thousands of rats which he injured in various ways. He concluded that if the animal was fit, it would adapt to or resist whatever stress was imposed. If it failed to adapt, or if the stress was overwhelming (for humans, as in a car accident), the animal would die. He explained this under the heading of what he called the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). He found that the various laboratory studies on the blood and tissues of the injured animals exactly replicated the information obtained from laboratory studies done on humans suffering from illness. He called human diseases “the diseases of adaptation”.

One of his remarkable conclusions was that this adaptation through the GAS required huge amounts of energy, although at that time, little was known about how this energy was generated. However, one of his students knew that vitamin B1 (thiamine) was an important part of energy generation and he was able to show that deficiency of this vitamin resulted in a replication of the GAS, without traumatizing the animal. We can conclude that a severe lack of thiamine might be the cause of what we call “shock” and a complete lack would be lethal. Today we have detailed knowledge concerning the role played by thiamine in the generation of cellular energy and this particularly applies to the part of the brain that organizes and controls our adaptive ability through the autonomic and endocrine systems. We know that the immune system is controlled by the automatic brain and a deficiency of the required energy surge would encourage a successful attack by the “enemy”.

COVID-19 and Other Viral Pandemics

In the case of the current viral pandemic, the coronavirus – COVID-19, infection and trauma are considered as the “enemy” requiring an energy dependent defensive reaction organized and controlled by the brain. Does Selye’s work apply to COVID-19 or any other viral pandemic? The answer to that question, based on convincing evidence, is that it does indeed apply. A recent discovery is that a combination of hydrocortisone, ascorbic acid and thiamine (HAT therapy) given intravenously, is a successful treatment for sepsis, a condition that is almost uniformly lethal. This is clearly an assistance in supporting the defensive mechanisms by damping down the associated inflammation and regulating oxidative metabolism in the production of energy. Recently, thiamine has been found to be useful in the treatment of people with chronic disease, strongly suggesting that defective energy metabolism is an important part of the pathology. It has been reported that in-patients, being treated for psychiatric symptoms, are at risk for developing the serious symptoms of a brain disease known as Wernicke Encephalopathy, well known to be due to thiamine deficiency.  Finally, a report from the Department of Infectious Diseases, Wenzhous Central Hospital, Zhejiang Province, China describes the symptoms of the patients with COVID-19 treated in that hospital. One of the major findings was hypokalemia (low concentration of potassium in the blood). Nausea and vomiting were described in some of the patients. There are pumps in the cell membrane that pump potassium into the cell and sodium out of it. These pumps are energy dependent and are inherently vital to the function and life of all cells in the body. It is failure in this pump mechanism that is responsible for a low potassium and that is why hypokalemia occurs in the vitamin B1 deficiency disease beriberi, perhaps the best known condition primarily associated with energy failure. Nausea and vomiting, perhaps nonspecific as they are, also occur in beriberi.

It is proposed here that stimulating energy metabolism might improve the defensive action organized and conducted by the brain, obeying the dictum suggested by Louis Pasteur. It assumes of course that the genetics of the patient decide the intricacies of the defense program, but the relatively new science of epigenetics shows that energy, derived from nutrition, can improve genetic status. We believe that we have shown evidence that thiamine and magnesium supplementation are inherently necessary in a population in which nutrition is imperfect. In light of the success using thiamine and vitamin C in sepsis, one of the many negative outcomes of COVID-19, might a similar approach be employed in the treatment here. Moreover, if we consider the requisite ‘energy’ required to stave off any illness, might we also consider bolstering the nutrient stores e.g. host defense in at-risk populations, as a way to reduce the risk and severity of the illness? Doing so may help ensure the adequacy of energy in meeting the unseen enemy.

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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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The Voice of Hippocrates

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The Hippocratic Oath, supposedly sworn to by all physicians when they graduate, is well known to contain the sentence “Thou shalt do no harm”. In spite of this, the “Table of iatrogenic deaths in the United States” (deaths induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedure) lists 106,000 cases of adverse drug reactions, 98,000 cases of medical error and 37,000 cases of unnecessary procedures. Neither is this the complete table. I came across a September 2018 issue of “Life Extension” that discussed the use of preventive nutrition as an emerging medical methodology. Perhaps the most arresting statement made in this issue concerned the fact that about 250,000 Americans die from sepsis each year and that a recent study has shown that intravenous treatment with vitamin C, hydrocortisone and vitamin B1 reduces sepsis mortality by 87%. A statement like that should make headlines but it is very likely that it will be confined to a few physicians by association, at least for some time. A December 2018 issue of the magazine “Discover” claimed that Alzheimer’s disease is under attack and describes “lifestyle plans that improve brain health”. Our new book, “Thiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia and High Calorie Malnutrition” presents many case records of patients with symptoms that haunt thousands of doctor offices in the United States. The early recognition of these common symptoms as evidence of nutritional deficiency may well be a key factor in the prevention of much more serious disease.

Perhaps a short case history may help the reader of this website to be aware of the rising importance of a relatively new branch of medicine known as “Alternative Complementary”, sometimes as “Integrative”. The use of these terms indicates that the development of scientific medicine has come a long way, but that it needs an extension. The best developments are in surgery, but the removal of a sick organ as a therapeutic measure surely must be an indication of medical failure. When I was in practice, I was a member of a group of physicians whose medical fraternity was known as the “American College for Advancement in Medicine” (ACAM). Like all innovations, it has had to struggle for survival. Another group of like-minded physicians is known as the “International College of Integrative Medicine” (ICIM). There is no doubt that this branch of medicine is growing. However, in my association with friends, the idea of using nutrients in the treatment of disease is completely foreign to them. They are understandably baffled by telling them that dizziness, heart palpitations, and even fainting attacks could often be relieved by taking a simple vitamin supplement.

Nutrients, Energy, and Health

I will tell the story of an eight-year-old girl who had a lifelong history of extremely severe asthma. She was so allergic that she could not use any form of mattress and in fact she had been sleeping on a plastic lawn chair for years because of this. When I performed a clinical examination, I noticed that her body was covered with “goose bumps”. A reader may or may not be conversant with this phenomenon and it is likely that few would have any knowledge of why this occurs.

To give you an idea of the treatment that I chose, I must provide a simple explanation. At one time, the human body was covered with hair and if an individual was confronted with a dangerous situation he would get a well-known reflex known as the “fight-or-flight”. Each hair grew out of a tiny cavity in the skin known as a hair follicle and a tiny muscle known as erector pili (Latin for hair raiser) would be activated by this reflex, raising each hair to an erect position. It was thought that this mechanism in primitive hominins, (forerunners of the human race) by raising all the body hairs, would make the individual look much more aggressive in the confrontation. Well, most people have very little hair on the body but we have retained both the follicles and the erector pili muscles. “Goose bumps” are caused by follicles standing up on the surface of the skin as a result of the muscle contraction, even without the presence of a hair growing from the follicle. Some people will remember that a frightening situation may be associated with a feeling of hair rising on the back of the neck, another marker of this primitive reflex. Therefore, this child’s asthma was associated with at least part of the fight-or-flight reflex, known to be activated by the nervous system known as autonomic (automatic).

Because of my knowledge concerning nutrients and their reactions, I knew that thiamine deficiency would not only activate this reflex unnecessarily, but that it could produce an imbalance in the autonomic system that could result in bronchial constriction. Since giving a water-soluble vitamin like thiamine in a large dose could do no harm, I thought that it was worth trying. She began 150 mg/day of thiamine hydrochloride, readily available at a health food store. During the next five months she experienced only two mild attacks of asthma and her body weight had increased by 6.4 Kg. When I examined her chest, there was no evidence of wheezing. This remarkable increase in weight was probably because her energy metabolism had accelerated as a result of the introduction of an important factor in its production. She had grown to the normal body weight that she would have had if she had not had energy deficiency. You can perceive that the diversity of clinical expression was explicable from the single entity of thiamin deficiency, not several distinct diseases with separate causes.

The Practice of Medicine

Several factors enter into discussing a treatment that was not only completely safe, but derived from medical school training. It required knowledge concerning energy production and the effect of malnutrition in the nervous control of the body organs. It depended on a simple clinical observation and knowledge of its underlying mechanism.

The “practice” of medicine must surely indicate that the physician’s knowledge is expected to grow with clinical observation and experience. Since the body is a biochemical machine that relies on appropriate fuel for healthy and normal function, knowledge of nutrition is an essential element that has been sorely neglected in the modern world. Physicians have to understand how nutrition is turned into energy and then used for function. The present practice of medicine for the primary physician is almost confined to listening to the pharmaceutical industry in the production of the latest drug. The time allowed for each patient is restricted and it is no wonder that physicians are becoming disenchanted, often retiring earlier than usual. Surely we should be trying to follow the example set by “the father of modern medicine” in 400 BCE.

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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.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

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Reconsidering Sepsis

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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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Migraine, Diet, and Thiamine

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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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About TTFD: A Thiamine Derivative

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I recently received notification concerning a “review” posted on HerbCustomer, a commercial website that has been active since February 26, 2010. This so-called “review” was posted on January 16, 2018 by iHerbCustomer entitled “Dangerous allithiamine derivative with no thiamine activity”. The email was posted as well. This person made a potentially libelous statement by referring to me as lying about this thiamine derivative. Its commercial name is Lipothiamine. Its chemical name is thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD) and this post is to refute the accusations that are made public by this individual.

History of Thiamine Research

Thiamine is the chemical name for vitamin B1 and its deficiency in the diet has long been known as the cause of beriberi. This disease has been known for thousands of years but its underlying cause was only discovered in the closing years of the 19th century. Since beriberi was commonest in the rice consuming cultures, it is not surprising that the major research came from Japan. In the middle of the last century a group of university-based scientists was convened and they wrote a book (Review of the Japanese Literature on Beriberi and Thiamine). This was translated into English, ostensibly because these scientists wished to let people in the West know and understand the pernicious nature of disease resulting from thiamine deficiency. I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of this book from one of the scientists involved. The information in this post is derived from it. Because they were scientists and were well aware of the clinical effects of beriberi, their studies were very extensive. They knew that thiamine existed in garlic and much of their experimentation focused on studies of the garlic bulb. They discovered that there was a natural mechanism in garlic that created a derivative of thiamine and called it allithiamine. Note that this is a naturally occurring substance and the term should be entirely restricted to it.

On a number of occasions I have seen thiamine derivatives being called “The alithiamines” and one commercial product is called Allithiamine with a capital a. The name was given to this naturally occurring product because garlic is a member of the allium species of plants. It can be found in other members of the allium species. Because the Japanese scientists already knew a great deal about the clinical expressions caused by thiamine deficiency, they originally thought that this new derivative might have lost its vitamin dependent activity. They went on to test it in animal studies and found that it had a much greater biologic effect than the original thiamine from which it was derived. They found that it was extremely important that allithiamine was a thiamine disulfide derivative (disulfides are important in human physiology) and they synthesized many different types of thiamine disulfide as well as many non-disulfide derivatives, carefully testing each one for their biologic activity.

What is TTFD?

Without going into the biochemical details, what we now know is that thiamine tetrahydrofurfuryl disulfide (TTFD, Lipothiamine) is, for a number of reasons, the best of the bunch of synthetically produced derivatives and has exciting possibilities in therapy. For example, it has been shown from animal studies that Benfotiamine, a non-disulfide derivative, does not get into the brain whereas TTFD enables absorption of thiamine into the brain where it stimulates energy synthesis. When we take in thiamine, occurring only in our naturally formed food, it is biologically inert. It has to be “activated” within the body that possesses genetically determined mechanisms for its absorption and activation. To cut a technically difficult explanation, let me state that TTFD bypasses this process. It enables thiamine to split away from its disulfide attachment and enter the cells where its activity is required. The concentration achieved in the target cells is much greater than that achieved by the administration of the thiamine from which it was derived.

The Japanese scientists studied the effect of cyanide in mice and found that thiamine propyl disulfide (TPD), a forerunner of TTFD, gave significant protection from the lethal effect of this poison, an incredible discovery that alone should raise eyebrows. They studied this effect and were able to show its mechanism. They also found that it would protect animals from the effect of carbon tetrachloride, a poison that affects the liver. It is using its vitamin actions in a therapeutic manner.

Being myself a consultant pediatrician in a prestigious medical institution, I was able to obtain an independent investigator license (IND) from the Federal Drug Administration, and obtained TTFD from Takeda Chemical Industries in Osaka, Japan, the makers of this product. TTFD is a prescription item in Japan, sold under the commercial name of Alinamin. I have read several publications, showing that it reverses fatigue in both animal and human studies. I was able to study the value of this incredible substance in literally hundreds, if not thousands of patients. Far from being toxic, as this person claims, I never saw a single item that suggested toxicity. Its therapeutic potential is largely untapped in America. This is because the current medical model does not recognize that defective energy metabolism, genetic errors and the nature of stress are the interrelated components whose variable effects in combination are the cause of disease. Do not mistake the use of the word stress, a word that is so commonly used inappropriately. An infection and any form of physical or mental trauma represent a form of stress. It is the ability or the inability to meet the required energy demand to resist that stress that matters in the preservation of health.

Clinical Benefits of TTFD

It is important to understand that the beneficial activity of TTFD is exactly the same as the thiamine from which it is derived. It is the mechanism of its introduction to cells, particularly those in the brain, that enable it to have such an effect on energy metabolism. Because of its strategic position in the cell, thiamine is of vast importance in oxidative metabolism in the complex mechanisms of energy production. There are at least two methods by which thiamine deficiency can be induced. The commonest one is an excess of sugar and fat that overwhelms the capacity of thiamine to conduct the mechanisms involved in energy synthesis. The discovery that thiamine has a part to play in fat metabolism is quite recent. The other one is because of genetic errors involving its biochemical action. However, we now know from a relatively new science called epigenetics that some mistakes in DNA can be overcome by the use of an appropriate nutritional substance like thiamine. The completely non-toxic use of TTFD depends merely on its ability to introduce thiamine into the cells of the body that require its magic. Under these circumstances, the big doses of thiamine are acting like a pharmaceutical by stimulating the missing action. We are not dealing with simple vitamin replacement. This should represent a new era in medicine when nutrient biochemistry takes its place in patient care.

Conclusion

The person that wrote this criticism fails to understand that TTFD and other thiamine derivatives represent a new basic principle of therapy. It recognizes that healing is a function of the body, not the activity of a so-called “healer”. All it requires is the foundation substances needed for repair and sufficient energy to use them. It demands a dramatic change in thinking about health and disease. If you understand the principles involved, it forces the conclusion that the word “cure” is a pipe dream. The only form of pharmaceutical drug that matters is one that safely kills an attacking microbe. Almost all the rest of them merely relieve symptoms and have no effect on the ultimate outcome.

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. 

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