Benfotiamine

Author: John A. Senneff
Source: Numb Toes and Other Woes: More on Peripheral Neuropathy
(Volume 2 in the Numb Toes Series)

Stanley Mirsky was formerly the president of the New York affiliate of the American Diabetes Association. He claimed in his book, Diabetes: Controlling it the Easy Way (Random House), that 80% of those with diabetic sensory neuropathy were improved after taking vitamin B1, or thiamin.

Toes and Soles discussed the usefulness of this nutrient for PNers. It did not distinguish, however, among, the different forms of B1 in terms of relative effectiveness.

The one called benfotiamine is a lipid soluble version which is more bioavailable (i.e., more available therapeutically to the body) than its water soluble counterparts, thiamin hydrochloride or thiamin mononitrate. (The result is that benfotiamine is better at delivering thiamin into tissues where needed than the other forms.) The implication of this for us is that benfotiamine should be even more beneficial in dealing with peripheral neuropathy than water soluble forms of B1. A number of studies, in fact, have borne this out.