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Benfotiamine is a fat-soluble B vitamin that has been used to treat diabetic complications. When I tried it, I had problems with my weight and my blood-sugar regulation that have not been reported in any of the studies I've seen.

By Tim Lundeen  Cub Noozer
Published: 31 July 2008 09:06 pm

- My conclusions on benfotiamine: if you have diabetes with neuropathy and cannot manage your blood sugar to keep it around 83, then benfotiamine may be helpful. However, benfotiamine increased my average blood sugar levels and caused me to gain weight, so it has serious side effects if you can otherwise manage your blood sugar and discomfort.

Benfotiamine is a manufactured fat-soluble thiamine (vitamin B1). Because thiamine is water soluble, it is not as readily absorbed and used by your cells as is benfotiamine.

Research on benfotiamine suggests that it is safe, with no adverse reactions reported, and that it helps reduce the damage from diabetes and high blood sugars. It has been used in Germany since 1992 to treat neuropathy, the pain from nerve damage caused by long-term exposure to high blood sugars, and found to be effective for this use.

I'd seen a number of articles on the benefits of benfotiamine, and decided to try it after reading the 2004 Banting Lecture by Dr Michael Brownlee, where he talks about how benfotiamine has been found to reduce or eliminate much of the damage from high blood sugars, and that it also appears to increase nerve conduction velocity. I thought it might be a cognitive enhancer as well as reduce age-related damage, and that the risks were small.

I bought 100mg capsules from Life Extension Foundation, and starting taking 1 per day in the morning with breakfast. Over the course of 3-4 weeks, the two small dead spots on the bottoms of my big toes started to feel normal, and I didn't notice them anymore when I went walking. My energy and general mood were good, and my fasting blood sugar readings were basically unchanged, staying in the 85-95 range. Scores on my daily math speed test were good, possibly slightly better than before.

Unfortunately, I started to gain weight, gaining about 10 pounds over the 10 weeks I took benfotiamine, without any other major changes to my regimen. Weight gain suggest higher average insulin levels.

I normally eat breakfast late, around 10:00am, to minimize blood sugar levels from the dawn effect, and then don't eat again until a small snack at 4:00pm to 6:00pm, after my blood sugar has dropped back down to normal (83 or less). Last time I lost weight, it was by resetting my normal blood-sugar levels so that my cells were adjusted to the 75-120 range, by just not eating until my blood sugar dropped down to below 80. It takes 4 days to reset your metabolism with this technique, and it isn't much fun -- you feel hungry, a little shakey, and a bit irritable. But once you are through it, you feel much better, and you are much more tolerant of blood sugar changes, and I lost 10 pounds of central body fat after I adjusted down to this lower level of blood sugar and insulin.

So, I thought I'd try this while I was on the benfotiamine, and make sure that I hadn't just started eating too much or too early. What I found was quite shocking -- I couldn't get my blood sugar below 83, and my typical low was 86-87 (instead of the 83 that is normal). When my blood sugar fell below 86, I felt awful, and very quickly would have a counter-regulatory response that kicked my blood sugar up to 92. (Normally, you get a counter-regulatory response when your blood sugar falls to 70 or so.) With benfotiamine, I had shifted from 75-120 range to a 85-120 range, and my counter-regulatory response had shifted from 70 up to 83. This explained the weight gain, caused by these ongoing higher blood sugar and insulin levels.

I stopped taking benfotiamine about 10 days ago, and my blood sugar is back to normal (e.g. 75-120, with a counter-regulatory response at 70 or so). I can see my blood sugar fall to 83, stabilize there, then drop down to lower levels when I delay eating. I expect my weight to drop back down over the next 10 weeks, and will update this blog with my results. And of course, the dead spots on the bottoms of my big toes are back and feeling funny again. No such thing as a free lunch, I guess

UPDATE: Seth Roberts blogged about this post at Benfotiamine and Self-Experimentation: Surprising Results and at More about Unreported Side Effects of Powerful Drugs, and raises some good points.