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Prevent diabetes complications naturally with benfotiamine
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Prevent diabetic complications
When you hear “diabetes,” most people think of sugar or glucose levels and insulin. But the need to protect against the common complications of the disease, such as blindness, amputation, heart disease, stroke, and nerve damage, and kidney problems, is critical too. Yet many people don’t think about it until they begin to experience symptoms. A natural way to provide that protection is with benfotiamine.
What is benfotiamine?
Benfotiamine is a fat-soluble form of vitamin B1, or thiamine, which has been shown to prevent the development and progression of complications associated with diabetes. It has been used for decades in Europe to help ward off the progression of diabetic nerve, kidney, and retinal damage, and to relieve the pain that accompanies diabetic neuropathy, a condition in which the nerves have difficulty transmitting messages to the brain and tiny blood vessels to the extremities are impaired, which can lead to amputation.
Benfotiamine works by blocking the pathways by which high levels of blood sugar damage cells in the body. It is a “cousin” of thiamine, a vitamin that helps to convert fats and carbohydrates into glucose, which makes it an essential factor for regulating glucose metabolism.
The fact that benfotiamine is fat soluble (most B vitamin are water-soluble) allows it to enter cells much more easily than thiamine and thus it can help to prevent diabetes-related disorder within cells. This ability to enter the cells makes it especially effective in treating hyperglycemia-related (high blood sugar) damage to the body.
How benfotiamine differs from diabetes drugs
While diabetes drugs attempt to increase insulin output or to improve the cells’ response to insulin, only benfotiamine reduces elevated levels of glucose within the cells and change the body’s biochemical response to the breakdown of toxic products such as advanced glycation end products (AGEs) from excess sugar. Benfotiamine stimulates the production of transketolase, an enzyme that transforms these toxic products into harmless substances that the body can safely eliminate.
What’s so special about AGEs? They are associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetic neuropathy, diabetic retinopathy, peripheral vascular disease (which affects blood vessels in the extremities), and kidney disease. Because benfotiamine protects against the damage caused by AGEs, it can reduce the risk of or help treat complications associated with AGEs and diabetes.
How to take benfotiamine
Based on clinical studies performed to date, the suggested daily dosage of benfotiamine is 300 to 450 mg in divided doses. Benfotiamine can be found in some Phoenix-area health and vitamin stores, including the Natural Medicinary, which is associated with the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe.
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