benfotiamine- is it just snake oil

Just read that about benfotiamine...sounds not to good

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2008/06/15/39210.aspx

Benfotiamine nothing but "Snake Oil"
15. June 2008 23:01
A popular vitamin supplement is being advertised with claims that are demonstrably untrue, as revealed by research published in the open access journal BMC Pharmacology.

Benfotiamine is a synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1). It is marketed heavily as a dietary supplement using a selection of unsubstantiated, 'not-quite-medical' claims that tend to characterize this field. A large part of this campaign has been built around the belief that benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and, therefore, more physiologically active. Scientific research led by Dr Lucien Bettendorff of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Liège, Belgium, has entirely disproved these claims.

A severe deficiency of thiamine is known to cause weight loss, emotional disturbances, impaired sensory perception, weakness and pain in the limbs, and periods of irregular heart rate. Deficiencies can occur as a result of alcoholism or malnutrition. As thiamine itself is very poorly absorbed by the body, it must be taken in as various precursor forms. This research shows that benfotiamine may not be as effective in this regard as has been claimed, in particular concerning its ability to raise effective thiamine levels in the central nervous system.

According to Bettendorff, "We suspect that those companies selling benfotiamine have poisoned much of the recent literature in an attempt to bestow it with properties that it does not have". Benfotiamine has been previously shown to prevent several diabetic complications in experimental animal models. The researchers carried out experiments in mice in which benfotiamine was administered using several different techniques and the resulting levels of thiamine were measured in various parts of the body. Contrary to other claims about its solubility, the results show that benfotiamine is only sparingly soluble in water under physiological conditions and cannot be dissolved in octanol or oils.

As Bettendorff explains, "Benfotiamine is very often considered a 'lipid-soluble' thiamine precursor from the disulfide derivative family though it is neither lipid-soluble, nor a disulfide. Sometimes, it is considered to have more biological activity than thiamine disulfides, but our study shows that it does not even penetrate cell membranes, except in those cells containing an ecto-alkaline phosphatase. There is no evidence that benfotiamine would be more effective than other precursors as a therapeutic agent for complications of diabetes."

Due to the wide-reaching nature of the false claims about this supplement, it was important to the authors that their work be published in BMC Pharmacology as it is an open access journal that makes research freely available.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcpharmacol/

tao81 - Benfotiamine is very viable. How do I know? Well, the feedback from patients. Note that for conditions such as neuropathy, the dose needs to be quite high for an effect.

Benfotiamine is also excellent for various complications due to high glucose damage via glycation. It's extremely useful to save kidneys and the eyes from glucose induced damage.

The studies I've listed are just a small sample of many. It's pretty sad to see articles written to kill off a very therapeutic substance. The Japanese started using IV of Benfotiamine some 20-years ago, and the problem with thiamine is in diabetics, it doesn't "stick." but this form does.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/29/9/2064.long

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/30/10/2514.long

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20188835

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2010719

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20069914

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19943121

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18951979

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18663426

yea I´m also a firm beliver that benfotiamine is great stuff. But this article confused me...
Since I suffer from neuropathy I take benfotiamine, but honestly till now i can´t say it changed something maybe I´m taking to less?? what would you say is a good dose for neuropathy due to pressure damged nerv??

tao81 - If you take about a 1,000 mg and the pain does not go away, that should be a good test. If it works, then you can reduce the dose down at the appropriate level to maintain.

thx! I will do that. From the studies I know, they advise to take at least 1000mg Mg-orotate together with benfotiamine.. maybe I should try 2000mg or above.

Wasn't Benfotiamine in the original IH regimen? It is now missing.

What is the standard reccomended dose and schedule for taking Benfotiamine?

Whenever I see posts like this, that is research published by a some of these so-called medical journals of pharmacology, I no longer have respect to it that I used to have. Disinformation research results are everywhere and it is very difficult to prove it is disinformation. Look at it this way. eg. The horrible big bad wolf tells its employee: "go into that lab! and find something or make something up! to prove that this or that natural nutrient is useless/harmful! We can not have profit leaks from these natural cures! Hopefully when people read the results, they'll believe it and stop buying them and pay us instead. We can not have a healthy population. It is bad for business".

ViolatedBird wrote:Wasn't Benfotiamine in the original IH regimen? It is now missing.

What is the standard recommended dose and schedule for taking Benfotiamine?

Yes, I wiped it away only because it's redundant unless there is a kidney problem or prone to neuropathy,
nerve problems, hyperglycemia, poor sex drive, endothelial dysfunction, recovery or prevention of heart attack or being diabetic.

I wanted to keep things as simple as possible.

I agree MikeGore, the propaganda goes so far wide and deep. A lot of people are incredulous to find out the truth,
because it seems so hard to believe that the medical industry promotes sickness and death. However, of course
it makes perfect sense from business standpoint.

Benfotiamine is good stuff. I noticed an effect when I was a heavy drinker and took this brand:

http://www.iherb.com/Benfotiamine-Inc-Benfotiamine-V-150-mg-120-Veggie-Caps/3548

I noticed nothing from the Dr. Best brand, and I think the swansons brand is perhaps slightly better than Dr. Best, but still less potent than the one I linked to.

CS,

Does allithiamine, which is also lipid-soluble and found in garlic, have any of the AGE inhibiting potential that benfotiamine does?

anthonyspencer54 wrote:CS,

Does allithiamine, which is also lipid-soluble and found in garlic, have any of the AGE inhibiting potential that benfotiamine does?

Answer is yes.

Thanks, CS. If you needed one more reason to eat lots of garlic...