Thiamine #2: Supplementation
If you saw my Instagram this week you likely saw my thiamine post. If not I have linked that HERE.
Thiamine is one of those critical yet really overlooked vitamins. Even with very obvious symptoms of deficiency, many doctors will not notice.
Let’s first start with thiamine-rich foods!
If your body is in a deep state of depletion, you have gut issues or you present with a lot of symptoms, I have not found thiamine-rich foods to be enough to pull someone out of deficiency. Thiamine-rich foods can definitely help MAINTAIN adequate levels though with occasional supplementation needed.
‘In a functional deficiency, dietary thiamine intake is somewhat irrelevant because the concentrations obtained via the diet are simply not sufficient to overcome enzymatic inactivation”
Onto supplementation!
Thiamine HCL is what is in most supplements. Unfortunately, this is the cheapest and least bio-available form. The forms I prefer are alliathiamine, lipothiamine or benfotiamine. You can get all of these in pill form with alliathiamine being the most potent. For children, if you are needing to open the capsule I would stick to something like benfotiamine because the taste of the alliathiamine can really be unbearable.
A great option for those with sensitive guts, sulfur sensitivity, or kiddos would be to use sublingual thiamine. The sublingual form bypasses the gut and may be well tolerated by sensitive individuals.
For extreme sensitivity, you could even use a transdermal option. For some people with MCAS, starting thiamine may increase histamine response so depending on your level of sensitivity it may be wise to start with the transdermal option and move to sublingual after a month or so.
Let’s talk cofactors-
To supplement Thiamine, I highly rec taking a good basic B vitamin complex as only doing one isolated B vitamin may create further imbalance. If you only supplement B1, you risk an imbalance in vitamin B2(cracks in the corner of the mouth, light sensitivity). My favorite B vitamin is linked at the bottom of this email.
Another important cofactor for thiamine is going to be magnesium and other electrolytes. A deficiency in magnesium will cause an automatic thiamine deficiency because, without mag, thiamine cannot even work properly. If you’ve been around here long enough you are likely already taking magnesium and doing adrenal cocktails or some other electrolyte which is the perfect balance for thiamine. I have included all these options in my thiamine protocol on fullscript.
So what might this protocol look like?
Breakfast: B complex, thiamine, mag
Lunch: B complex, thiamine, mag
Add in electrolytes or adrenal cocktails mid-morning and/or mid-day
If you are sensitive, start just one dose of thiamine in the morning and consider additional histamine support if you are generally histamine sensitive.
Unless you’re dealing with serious symptoms of deficiency I rarely suggest jumping right into thiamine alone because it can throw other B vitamins out of balance, but there are times when quick supplementation is warranted and only you and your trusted health professional can make that decision.
Now let’s talk dosing-
There are a few different thought processes out there on dosing, most say working towards high dosing is best but when starting, it needs to be slow between 10 and 50mg which is perfect because that is what most B complexes contain. When you add additional thiamine, you will have to open capsules or break pills in the beginning.
High dose:
Thiamin Hcl 500-2000mg per day for high dosing
Benfotiamine 300-1200mg per day for high dosing
Alliathiamine/lipothiamine 200-500mg per day for high dosing
It is not uncommon with major deficiency to notice some sort of negative reaction. When this occurs, do not dose thiamine again until the reaction is resolved. Reactions are typically fatigue, headache, and worsening symptoms of thiamine deficiency in the beginning. These reactions can be greatly eliminated by starting with the proper cofactors FIRST.
For a thiamine protocol all in one place, you can find that here in my Fullscript:
More Info Here:
My Favorite Book:
