Ominous
B1 Deficiency Found
Throughout Food Chain
Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola - Fact Checked
October 11, 2021
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
· Vitamin B1 (thiamine) is
used by nearly all your cells, metabolizing the carbohydrates and lipids in the
foods you eat, helping to convert food into energy and boosting the flow of
electrolytes in and out of your nerves and muscles
· Thiamine is important for
healthy immune function, and may actually be crucial to protect against
infectious respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19
· While thiamine deficiency
is often the result of alcohol misuse, chronic infections, poor nutrition
and/or malabsorption, recent research suggests vitamin B1 has dramatically
declined throughout the food chain in recent years
· The transfer of thiamine up
the food chain may be blocked by a number of factors, including the
overabundance of thiaminase, an enzyme that destroys thiamine. Thiaminase is
naturally present in certain microorganisms, plants and fish that have adapted
to use it to their advantage
· Thiamine deficiency has
been identified in dozens of animal species and is now suspected of driving
declines in wildlife populations across the northern hemisphere. This means our
diets are likely to be low in thiamine, thereby raising the risk for thiamine
deficiency in the human population
This article was previously published February 8,
2021, and has been updated with new information.
Vitamin B1
(thiamine) is used by nearly all your cells, and helps to metabolize the
carbohydrates and lipids in the foods you eat. It also facilitates converting
your food into energy and boosting the flow of electrolytes in and out of your
nerves and muscles. It's considered "essential" because your body
can't produce it on its own; it must come from an outside source.
Thiamine is
sometimes referred to as an "antistress" vitamin for its positive
influence on your central nervous system, and it's also important for healthy
immune function. In addition to nutrients such as zinc and vitamins C and D,
vitamin B1 (thiamine) may actually be crucial to protect against infectious
respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19.
Thiamine
deficiency syndrome (beriberi) has also been implicated in other types of
severe infections and bears many similarities to sepsis. This is one of the
reasons why thiamine is such an important part of Dr. Paul Marik's sepsis
treatment.1 Sepsis, in turn, is a
major contributor in influenza deaths in general, and a primary cause for
COVID-19 deaths specifically.
While thiamine
deficiency is often the result of alcohol misuse, chronic infections, poor
nutrition and/or malabsorption, recent research suggests vitamin B1
availability has dramatically declined throughout the food chain in recent
years.2
Lack of Thiamine Is
Disrupting Ecosystem
In a January
28, 2021, article in Hakai Magazine,3 Alastair Bland
reviews findings showing certain marine ecosystems are being decimated by an
apparent lack of thiamine. Problems were noticed in January 2020 at salmon
hatcheries in California. Fish were acting disoriented and mortality was
surprisingly high.
Initially, they
feared a virus might be at play, but after digging through the medical
literature, they found research discussing thiamine deficiency in marine life.
As noted in the article, vitamin B1 is "a basic building block of life
critical to the functioning of cells and in converting food into energy."
Biologists
tested the theory by dissolving thiamine powder into the water, and within
hours, nearly all of the fish were acting normally again. Meanwhile, the
behavior of fish in an untreated batch continued to decline. As a result of
this research, many hatcheries took to applying thiamine, but the underlying
problem still remains.
"Since the fish acquire thiamine by ingesting
it through their food, and females pass nutrients to their eggs, the troubling
condition indicated that something was amiss in the Pacific Ocean, the last
place the fish eat before entering fresh water to spawn," Bland writes, adding:
"California researchers now investigating the
source of the salmon's nutritional problems find themselves contributing to an
international effort to understand thiamine deficiency, a disorder that seems
to be on the rise in marine ecosystems across much of the planet.
It's causing illness and death in birds, fish,
invertebrates, and possibly mammals, leading scientists from Seattle to
Scandinavia to suspect some unexplained process is compromising the foundation
of the Earth's food web by depleting ecosystems of this critical
nutrient."
What's Causing
Ecosystem-Wide Thiamine Deficiency?
As explained by
Bland, "Thiamine originates in the lowest levels of the food web."
Certain species of bacteria, phytoplankton, fungi and even some plants are
responsible for synthesizing thiamine from other precursor compounds.
From there,
thiamine makes its way through both the animal and plant kingdoms. All
organisms need it. In animals, enzymes interact with thiamine to generate
cellular energy. Without sufficient amounts of thiamine, fundamental metabolic
processes start to fail, causing neurological disturbances, reproductive
problems and increased mortality.
While beriberi
has been recognized as a serious health risk in humans for nearly 100 years,
and thiamine supplementation has been standard practice for domesticated
livestock such as sheep, cattle, mink and goats for several decades,4 the presence in and
effect of thiamine deficiency on wildlife wasn't discovered until the 1990s,
when Canadian scientist John Fitzsimons started investigating the decline in
Great Lakes trout. Bland writes:5
"Studying lake trout born in captivity,
Fitzsimons observed symptoms like hyperexcitability, loss of equilibrium, and
other abnormal behavior.
He wondered if a nutritional deficiency was at
play, and to test for this he dissolved various vitamin tablets in water and —
using trout in different life stages, including fertilized eggs — administered
the solutions to the fish, both through injection and baths.
The idea was to see which vitamin, if any, cured
the condition. 'It came down to a range of B vitamins, and it was only the
thiamine that was able to reverse the signs I was seeing,' he says."
Since the
publication of Fitzsimons' findings in 1995, thiamine deficiency has been
identified in dozens of animal species, including birds and moose. While severe
deficiency has lethal consequences, sublethal deficiency can have insidiously
devastating effects, including:6
·
Lowering strength and coordination
·
Reducing fertility
·
Impairing memory and causing other neurobehavioral
deficits.7 In humans, thiamine
deficiency has been shown to play a role in cases of delirium. In one study,8 45% of cancer
patients suffering from delirium had thiamine deficiency, and 60% recovered
when treated with intravenous thiamine
·
Paralysis
·
Loss of vocalization
B1 Deficiency May Be
Responsible for Wildlife Declines
Thiamine
deficiency is now suspected of driving declines in wildlife populations all
across the northern hemisphere.9 Bland cites research showing marine and
terrestrial wildlife populations declined by half between 1970 and 2012.
Between 1950 and 2010, the global seabird population declined by 70%.10
While habitat
loss and other environmental factors are known to impact biodiversity, these
declines are allegedly occurring far faster than can be explained by such
factors. Researchers strongly suspect human involvement, but how?
"Scientists are floating various explanations
for what's depriving organisms of this nutrient, and some believe that changing
environmental conditions, especially in the ocean, may be stifling thiamine
production or its transfer between producers and the animals that eat
them," Bland writes.11
"Sergio Sañudo-Wilhelmy, a University of
Southern California biogeochemist, says warming ocean water could be affecting
the populations of microorganisms that produce thiamine and other vitamins,
potentially upsetting basic chemical balances that marine ecosystems depend on.
'In different temperatures, different phytoplankton
and bacteria grow faster,' he says. This, he explains, could hypothetically
allow microorganisms that do not produce thiamine — but, instead, acquire it
through their diet — to outcompete the thiamine producers, effectively reducing
thiamine concentrations in the food web."
The transfer of
thiamine up the food chain may be blocked by a number of factors, including
overfishing. But there's yet another possibility, and that is the overabundance
of thiaminase, an enzyme that destroys thiamine. Thiaminase is naturally
present in certain microorganisms, plants and fish that have adapted to use it
to their advantage.
"When
larger animals eat prey containing thiaminase, the enzyme rapidly destroys
thiamine and can lead to a nutritional deficiency in the predator," Bland
explains. One thiaminase-rich species is an invasive species of herring called
alewife, which during the 20th century have spread through the Great Lakes,
displacing native species.
This, some
researchers believe, has led to chronic and severe thiamine deficiency in
larger fish species. "The Great Lakes' saga illustrates the outsized
impact that one single nutrient can have on an entire ecosystem," Bland
writes.
An
overabundance of thiaminase-containing species also appears to be responsible
for the decline in Sacramento River salmon. In this case, northern anchovy,
which is rich in thiaminase, is the suspected culprit.
Unfortunately,
few answers have emerged as of yet. Giving thiamine to fish in hatcheries is
not a long-lasting solution, because once they re-enter the wild, the
deficiency reemerges. One scientist likened the practice to "sending a kid
with a fever off to school after giving them a Tylenol."12
Signs and Symptoms of
Thiamine Deficiency
Considering
both plants and wildlife are becoming increasingly thiamine-deficient, it's
logical to suspect that this deficiency is becoming more common in the human
population as well. Early symptoms of thiamine deficiency
include:13,14
·
Fatigue and muscle weakness
·
Confusion and/or memory problems
·
Loss of appetite and weight loss
·
Numbness or tingling in arms or legs
As your
deficiency grows more severe, the deficiency can progress into one of four
types of beriberi:15
·
Paralytic or nervous beriberi (aka "dry beriberi")
— Damage or dysfunction of one or more nerves in your nervous system, resulting
in numbness, tingling and/or exaggerated reflexes
·
Cardiac ("wet") beriberi — Neurological
and cardiovascular issues, including racing heart rate, enlarged heart, edema,
breathing problems and heart failure
·
Gastrointestinal beriberi — Nausea, vomiting,
abdominal pain and lactic acidosis
·
Cerebral beriberi — Wernicke's encephalopathy,
cerebellar dysfunction causing abnormal eye movements, ataxia (lack of muscle
coordination) and cognitive impairments. If left untreated, it can progress to
Korsakoff's psychosis, a chronic brain disorder that presents as amnesia,
confusion, short-term memory loss, confabulation (fabricated or misinterpreted
memories) and in severe cases, seizures
Thiamine is
frequently recommended and given to people struggling with alcohol addiction,
as alcohol consumption reduces absorption of the vitamin in your
gastrointestinal tract. An estimated 80% of alcoholics are deficient in
thiamine and therefore more prone to the side effects and conditions above.16
Thiamine is
also very important for those with autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory
bowel disease (IBD) and Hashimoto's (a thyroid autoimmune disorder).17 In case studies,18,19 thiamine supplementation
has been shown to improve fatigue in autoimmune patients in just a few days.
Interestingly,
in one of these studies,20 which looked at patients with IBD, patients
responded favorably to supplementation even though they all had
"normal" baseline levels.
The authors
speculate that thiamine deficiency symptoms in such cases may be related to
enzymatic defects or dysfunction of the thiamine transport mechanism (opposed
to being an absorption problem), which can be overcome by giving large
quantities of thiamine.
Thiamine in Infectious
Disease
As mentioned
earlier, thiamine deficiency has also been implicated in severe infections,
including COVID-19. In fact, researchers have noted that, based on what we know
about B vitamins' effects on the immune system, supplementation may be a useful
adjunct to other COVID-19 prevention and treatment strategies.
More generally,
a 2016 study21 in the journal Psychosomatics sought to investigate the connection
between thiamine and infectious disease by looking at 68 patients with
Korsakoff syndrome.
Thirty-five of
them suffered severe infections during the acute phase of the illness,
including meningitis, pneumonia and sepsis, making the authors conclude that
"Infections may be the presenting manifestation of thiamine deficiency."
Another study22 published in 2018
found thiamine helps limit Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) by regulating your
innate immunity. According to this paper:
"… vitamin B1 promotes the protective immune
response to limit the survival of MTB within macrophages and in vivo … Vitamin
B1 promotes macrophage polarization into classically activated phenotypes with
strong microbicidal activity and enhanced tumor necrosis factor-α and
interleukin-6 expression at least in part by promoting nuclear factor-κB signaling.
In addition, vitamin B1increases mitochondrial
respiration and lipid metabolism … Our data demonstrate important functions of
thiamineVB1 in regulating innate immune responses against MTB and reveal novel
mechanisms by which vitamin B1 exerts its function in macrophages."
Thiamine
deficiency is also associated with the development of high fever, and according
to a letter to the editor,23 "Is Parenteral Thiamin a Super
Antibiotic?" published in the Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism in
2018, thiamine injections are "likely to eradicate microbial
infections" causing the fever.
By dramatically
increasing susceptibility to infections, thiamine deficiency could potentially
have the ability to impact the spread of just about any pandemic infectious
disease — including COVID-19.
Are You Getting Enough B
Vitamins?
While
biologists struggle to find an ecosystem-wide solution for thiamine deficiency
in the food chain, the solution for us, in the meantime, may be to make sure we
get enough thiamine through supplementation. Evidence suggests thiamine
insufficiency or deficiency can develop in as little as two weeks, as its
half-life in your body is only nine to 18 days.24
Ideally, you
can select a high-quality food-based supplement containing a broad spectrum of
B vitamins to avoid creating an imbalance. The following guidelines will also
help protect or improve your thiamine status:
•Limit your sugar and refined grain intake — As
noted by the World Health Organization,25 "Thiamine
deficiency occurs where the diet consists mainly of milled white cereals,
including polished rice, and wheat flour, all very poor sources of
thiamine."
Simple carbs
also have antithiaminergic properties,26 and raise your
thiamine requirement for the simple fact that thiamin is used up in the
metabolism of glucose.
•Eat fermented foods — The entire B group vitamin
series is produced within your gut provided you have a healthy gut microbiome.
Eating real food, ideally organic, along with fermented foods will provide your
microbiome with important fiber and beneficial bacteria to help optimize your internal
vitamin B production as well.
•Avoid excessive alcohol consumption, as alcohol
inhibits thiamine absorption, and frequent use of diuretics, as they will cause
thiamine-loss.
•Avoid sulfite-rich foods and beverages such as
nonorganic processed meats, wine and lager, as sulfites have antithiamine
effects.
•Correct any suspected magnesium insufficiency or
deficiency, as magnesium is required as a cofactor in the conversion of
thiamine.
Daily Intake
Recommendations
While individual
requirements can vary widely, the typical daily intake recommendations for B
vitamins are as follows:
|
Nutrient
|
Supplement Recommendations
|
|
Thiamine (B1)
|
Adult men and women need 1.2 and 1.1 mg respectively each day.27 If
you have symptoms of thiamine deficiency, you may need higher doses.
Thiamine is water-soluble and nontoxic, even at very high doses, so you're
unlikely to do harm.
Doses between 3 grams and 8 grams per day have been used in the treatment of
Alzheimer's without ill effect.
|
|
Riboflavin (B2)
|
Suggested daily intake is about 1.1 mg for women and 1.3 mg for men.28
|
|
Niacin (B3)
|
The dietary reference intake established by the Food and Nutrition
Board ranges from 14 to 18 mg per day for adults.
Higher amounts are recommended depending on your condition. For a list of
recommended dosages, see the Mayo Clinic's website.29
|
|
Vitamin B6
|
Nutritional yeast (not to be confused with Brewer's yeast or other
active yeasts) is an excellent source of B vitamins, especially B6.30
One serving (2 tablespoons) contains nearly 10 mg of vitamin B6, and the
daily recommended intake is only 1.3 mg.31
|
|
B8 (inositol/biotin)
|
B8 is not recognized as an essential nutrient and no recommended daily
intake has been set. That said, it's believed you need about 30 mcg per day.32
Vitamin B8 is sometimes listed as biotin on supplements. Brewer's yeast is a natural
supplemental source.33
|
|
Folate (B9)
|
Folic acid is a synthetic
type of B vitamin used in supplements; folate is the natural form found in
foods. (Think: Folate comes from foliage, edible leafy plants.)
For folic acid to be of use, it must first be activated into its biologically
active form (L-5-MTHF).
This is the form able to cross the blood-brain barrier to give you the brain
benefits noted.
Nearly half the population has difficulty converting folic acid into the
bioactive form due to a genetic reduction in enzyme activity.
For this reason, if you take a B-vitamin supplement, make sure it contains
natural folate rather than synthetic folic acid.
Nutritional yeast is an excellent source.34 Adults need about
400 mcg of folate per day.35
|
|
Vitamin B12
|
Nutritional yeast seasoning is also high in B12, and is highly
recommended for vegetarians and vegans.
One serving (2 tablespoons) provides about 67 mcg of natural vitamin B12.36
Sublingual (under-the-tongue) fine mist spray or vitamin B12 injections are
also effective, as they allow the large B12 molecule to be absorbed directly
into your bloodstream.
|
- Sources
and References
·
1 Chest June 2017; 151(6): 1229-1238
·
2 The Science Times January 31, 2021
·
3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12 Hakai Magazine January 28, 2021
·
4 Los Angeles Times January 26, 2021
·
7 Brain Sciences August 2020; 10(8): 565
·
8 EJCN January 29,
2021
·
9 Scientific
Reports 2016; 6 Article number 38821
·
13, 15, 16 alcoholrehabhelp.org
Thiamine
·
14 Healthline May 18, 2018
·
17 Thyroidpharmacist.com February 3, 2015
·
18, 20 Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine 2013 Aug;19(8):704-8
·
19 Journal of Alternative and
Complementary Medicine 2013; 00(00): 1-4 (PDF)
·
21 Psychosomatics
Nov-Dec 2016; 57(6): 624-633
·
22 Frontiers in
Immunology 2018; 9(1778)
·
23 Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism 2018;72:149–150,
Letter to the Editor
·
24 Journal of Thoracic Disease 2016 Jun; 8(6): 1062–1066,
Thiamine Elimination and Associated Thiamine Insufficiency Syndromes
·
25 WHO.int Thiamine Deficiency and Its
Prevention and Control in Major Emergencies (PDF)
·
26 Nutrition
Journal February 10, 2005; 4:7
·
27 NIH Thiamine June 3, 2020
·
28 NIH Riboflavin January 6, 2021
·
29 Mayo Clinic Niacin Dosing
·
30 Self Nutrition
Data, Nutritional Yeast
·
31 NIH Vitamin B6 February 24, 2020
·
32 NIH Biotin June 3, 2020
·
33 Mount Sinai Health 2021
·
34 Chalkboard, Nutritional Yeast
·
35 NIH Folate July
11, 2019
·
36 USDA Nutritional Yeast Seasoning July
17, 2019
