What Doctors Say About the Benefits of B Vitamins

Below we offer some excerpts from some of the extensive research that has been done on the efficacy of B Vitamins, such as those we use in our formulas, on the nervous system.

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Researchers Find Promising Drug For Preventing Serious Complications Of Diabetes
Excerpted news release from – Albert Einstein School of Medicine – of Yeshiva Hospital.

“Opening up the possibility of a new approach to the treatment of diabetes, researchers have shown in animal studies that a drug long available in Europe can simultaneously block three of the major biochemical pathways responsible for the blood-vessel damage that causes serious diabetic complications.”

“Dr. Michael Brownlee of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University was the senior researcher for the international consortium that carried out the study, which appears in the current issue of Nature Medicine.”

“Research over the past 30 years has identified four biochemical pathways by which diabetes injures blood vessels – damage that makes diabetes the leading cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks and nontraumatic amputation of legs in the U.S. In this study, from the Einstein Diabetes Research Center, the drug benfotiamine completely blocked three of those pathways when tested in diabetic rats, animals often used as models for studying the disease. Benfotiamine is a synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1) and has been available for more than a decade in Germany. It is prescribed there for treating diabetic neuropathy, sciatica and other painful nerve conditions.”

“In people with diabetes, all cells are bathed in blood that contains elevated levels of glucose. Most cells still manage to keep their internal glucose at normal levels. But certain cells – particularly endothelial cells that line arteries and the capillaries of the retina and kidney – are unable to regulate glucose and instead develop high internal levels of the sugar, which they can’t completely metabolize. As a result, glucose-derived “intermediate” metabolic products accumulate inside these cells, where they activate pathways of cellular damage that can eventually lead to blindness and other complications.”

“As reported in the Nature Medicine paper, benfotiamine successfully blocked all three major destructive biochemical pathways in experiments with arterial endothelial cells. Next, the researchers treated diabetic rats with benfotiamine and then examined their retinal tissue. (For comparison, they also examined the retinas of control diabetic rats and normal rats.)”

“Chemical analysis showed that all three biochemical pathways had been “normalized” in the benfotiamine-treated diabetic rats so that their retinas were biochemically identical to the retinas of normal rats. The drug also prevented diabetic retinopathy in the animals, since microscopic examination revealed that the retinas of benfotiamine-treated diabetic rats were free of vascular damage.”

“In addition to Dr. Brownlee and his Einstein colleagues, authors of the Nature Medicine paper included scientists from Germany, Italy, China and Japan. The research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.”

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A Health Care Professional’s Opinion On Benfotiamine
Dr. Paul Chous is the recent author of a critically acclaimed book for patients and health care providers on diabetes and the eye, Diabetic Eye Disease: Lessons From A Diabetic Eye Doctor – How To Avoid Blindness and Get Great Eye Care (Fairwood Press).
Below are excerpts from Dr. Chous’ communications and his recent book:

“I suspect strongly that benfotiamine will mitigate (or, hopefully, prevent) diabetic retinopathy.”

“The case for symptomatic relief of neuropathy symptoms is, of course, more tangible.”

“In a study that may represent a major breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of diabetic retinopathy and other microvascular complications of diabetes, a multinational team of researchers has announced that a lipid soluble form of Vitamin B1 (thiamine) prevented the development of diabetic retinopathy in rats over a 36 week period. The synthetic thiamine derivative, called benfotiamine, has been used safely for more than a decade in Europe, where it is prescribed to treat painful neuropathies.”

For over 30 years, scientists have known of four biochemical pathways responsible for the blood vessel damage that causes many diabetes complications – damage that makes diabetes a leading cause of eye disease, kidney disease, nerve disease and heart disease. This study, appearing in the March 2003 issue of Nature Medicine, shows that benfotiamine completely blocked three of these four chemical pathways, and prevented the development of retinopathy in diabetic rats, whereas control animals all developed some degree of retinopathy.”

“Moreover, this compound has long been used in Germany without reported side effects.”

“Interesting to note that benfotiamine is naturally found in cooked garlic, though at low levels.”

“Add to this the fact that there is a substantial body of evidence that demonstrates many patients with diabetes have thiamine deficiencies, and as benfotiamine represents a much more bioavailable form of thiamine, it seems to me that the use of benfotiamine is scientifically “rational.”

“I suspect it may be widely recommended in years to come.”

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Vitamin B12: Under Appreciated
Excerpted from and article by Richard A. Kunin, M.D.

“I have recently treated over half a dozen patients whose lives have been ruined by vitamin B12 deficiency–a preventable disorder. In every case there was medical error and/or patient ignorance and skepticism leading to permanent harm. It is easy to miss the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency. In the first place, it is a vitamin and our medical education is not only weak on vitamin diagnosis, it often reviles those doctors who treat with vitamins.”

”The practical effects of B12 activity are straight-forward.”

”Activation of the vitamin, folic acid, redoubles anti-cancer effect and together they support synthesis of myelin, the insulating covering of nerves.”

”Production of myelin, the insulation of nerves. Repair of nerves prevents damage to the spinal cord and brain, so-called subacute combined degeneration. This involves pain (early) and loss of muscle perception and vibration sense (late) in the hands and feet. It also causes mental impairment, typically with paranoia and depression, is similar to Alzheimer’s. In fact, about 30 percent of patients with Alzheimer’s actually have B12 deficiency.”

Vitamin B12 does not fit the mold of the deficiency diseases theory, or the one-disease-one-drug model of medicine that is taught in medical schools. The most important medical fact about vitamin B12 is that deficiency does not show up only as anemia. In fact, in many cases there is no anemia, only neurological symptoms, such as numbness in the extremities, inability to walk and stay in balance, especially at night or in the dark, and serious personality changes, such as depression and paranoia. Unlike the anemia, which always responds to B12 replacement, if the nerve and brain symptoms are not treated promptly the damage is likely to be permanent.

”One reason is that most doctors expect to find B12 problems in patients past age 60; and therefore may fail to consider it in younger folks. One of my patients was only 28 when B12 deficiency reached a critical state. Patricia had been able to cover-up her mental fuzziness and depression for years but the pain in her extremities finally drove her to seek medical help. Somehow the diagnosis was missed at two medical centers. Only after she had a severe progression of spinal cord damage following anesthesia for laparoscopic surgery did the diagnosis become obvious.”