Vitamin supplements are essential for our body to perform all the biological tasks that are necessary to keep us healthy, and thiamine provides variety of health benefits. We need such supplements when our diet fail to provide adequate amounts of specific vitamin. In this article, I will go over some of the benefits of thiamine, deficiency symptoms and common sources.
As soon as our food is cooked, cut or processed in any other way, we loose part of its nutritional value. If our food intake, containing vitamins that we need, is not enough, vitamin supplements should be taken.
Thiamine is a very essential vitamin and provides various health benefits, and prolonged deficiency of this vitamin leads to a variety of medical problems and severe disorders described later in this article. Thiamine, also known as Vitamin B1, is a water-soluble compound and belongs to the group of B-complex vitamins. Because of its water-solubility (hydrophilicity), Thiamine is excreted out of the body whenever present in excess amount. On the other hand, water-insoluble vitamins are stored in the body, mostly in the liver.
Therefore, we need to make sure that we are getting enough thiamine daily, as per RDA, to prevent unwanted medical problems. The recommended dietary allowance for thiamine (vitamin B1) is 1 mg for women and between 1.2-1.4 mg for men.
Role of Thiamine in the body
- Thiamine is required to metabolize sugars in our body
Problems leading to Thiamine (Vitamin B1) deficiency
- Compared to other vitamins, thiamine is less widely distributed in food
- Thiamine is water-soluble and is excreted out of the body via urine. Therefore, new thiamine ‘deposits’ need to be formed daily
- Eating too much of sugar-laden food depletes the thiamine in our body
- Research also suggests that drinking coffee also depletes the thiamine reserves in our bodies, and decaffeinated coffee and tea are just as bad. Tea is an alternative if and only if you drink it with a squeeze of lemon, which contains vitamin C and protects against tannic acid present in tea.
Thiamine Benefits (Vitamin B1)
- Thiamine helps metabolize carbohydrates
- May help stop seizures
- Thiamine strengthens the heart and immune system, which are the two most important organs in human body
- Thiamine supplements are very beneficial to the patients with liver diseases
There are plenty of other thiamine benefits, but major benefits of thiamine are listed above.
Shortage of Thiamine (Vitamin B1) in our diet can lead to the following medical problems
- Beriberi disease
- Heart muscle weakness
- Edma (abnormal accumulation of body fluids)
- Neuropathy (degeneration of the nerves leading to paralysis)
- Neurosis
- Wernicke’s disease (caused by severe thiamine deficiency)
- Depression
- Irritability
- Insomnia
- Inability to concentrate
- Loss of memory
- Cancer is also linked with thiamine deficiency
The medical disorders mentioned above are not permanent. Most of the time these disorders fade away if we are making sure that we are taking appropriate amounts of thiamine. Major sources are listed below as they provide variety of thiamine benefits. Click here to find out more about thiamine deficiency symptoms
Sources of Thiamine (Vitamin B1)
- Brewer’s yeast
- Sunflower seeds
- Soybeans
- Beef kidney
- Navy beans
- Soy flour
- Kidney beans
- Beef liver
- Rye flour
- Rolled oats
- Brown rice
- Whole wheat flour
- Chick-peas
- Salmon steak
- Split peas
- Buckwheat flour
- Chicken liver
- Cornmeal
- Collards
- Asparagus
Chemical structure of Thiamine
Image source: Wikipedia