By IANS,
Washington : Researchers have debunked the hype over a popular vitamin supplement, being touted in ads as a wondrous dietary compound.
Benfotiamine, synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1), is being aggressively marketed as a dietary supplement with the help of unsubstantiated and inflated claims that characterise this field.
Much of the campaign is being sustained on the belief that benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and, therefore, more physiologically active.
However, research led by Lucien Bettendorff of University of Liège, Belgium has entirely disproved these claims.
A severe deficiency of thiamine causes weight loss, emotional disturbances, impaired sensory perception, weakness and pain in the limbs, and periods of irregular heart rate.
Deficiencies can occur as a result of alcoholism or malnutrition. As thiamine is poorly absorbed, it must be taken in as various precursor forms.
This research shows that benfotiamine may not be as effective as claimed, particularly concerning its claims to raise effective thiamine levels in the central nervous system.
Bettendorff informed: “We suspect that those companies selling benfotiamine have poisoned much of the recent literature in an attempt to bestow it with properties that it does not have.”
Benfotiamine has been previously shown to prevent several diabetic complications in experimental animal models.
Researchers carried out experiments in mice in which benfotiamine was administered. Resulting levels of thiamine were measured in various parts of the body.
Contrary to other claims about its solubility, the results show that benfotiamine is only sparingly soluble in water under physiological conditions and cannot be dissolved in octanol or oils.
These findings have been published in BMC Pharmacology, an open access journal.