Effect of Vitamin B1 - Thiamine

Based on the few references/websites on effectiveness of thiamine on stuttering and relieving the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, I decided to take thiamine and try. I could get only thiamine mononitrate not thiamine hydrochloride. I got thiamine mononitrate 100 mg tablet. As per the thaimine protocol by Martin F. Schwartz, 300 mg of thiamine hydrochloride is recommended.  Despite this difference, I decided to take thaimine mononitrate. I took 100 mg per day in the morning. At this time, I was not taking any other medication. I intentionally avoided all supplements to study the effect of thiamine alone in by body and brain. Thiamine mononitrate 100 mg/day produced good feelings of affection and reduced irritability. It increased the energy levels little. Not much. But it produced mild stuttering. The stuttering was of the type that I could not complete the sentences. The breathing broke down spontaneously towards end of the sentence and unable to complete the last word. So, I decided to lower down the dose and splitted the tablet. I tried with 50 mg twice a day, one in the morning and one in the night. This also produced mild stuttering. So, I down the dose to 25 mg twice daily. This produced less stuttering and stuttering was manageable. So, totally I took 25 mg twice daily for last three weeks.

Positive effects:
1. Increased feelings of affection towards family members and reduced irritability. This led to reduced number of fights with wife.
2. Slightly increased energy.

Negative effects:
1. Intolerance to cold - I was unable to sit in my air conditioned office. I had to wear a jacket to cover my body to avoid shaking of my muscles due to cold. Normally I don't feel much cold in my office. Even without air conditioning at my house also, I had to cover myself with blankets.
2. Seems to decrease the libido and early morning erections.
3. Could not focus or concentrate on any work during the day (This happened during the fasting.)

I need to use 300 mg of thiamine hydrochloride and observe the effects.

Update on 17/08/2015:

On 26 July, 2015, I tested for a complete health check up. Surprisingly, my cholesterol levels became normal. My total cholesterol was below normal, HDL-C was little decreased from normal, LDL-C was slightly increased from normal. TG was almost normal. My blood pressure was also normal (tested on two occasions; one by a doctor and another one by a nurse (130/80 at 11 am). My blood sugar (fasting and postprandial) and HbA1C were also within normal range.

The possible reasons:

1. I avoided rice completely during the fasting month. I took only chapathis and parottas. But I took mutton and chicken twice per week.
2. I avoided tea and coffee totally during the fasting month. Instead I took only green tea in the evening. This caused defecation issues. No regular defecation occurred. Incomplete feeling was there after passing stools.
3. I took 1 or 2 eggs daily in night.
4. I continued the thiamine mononitrate 25 mg in morning and 25 mg in night.

Update on 28/08/2015:

For the last 1 week, I have been taking benfotiamine. I tried to get thiamine hydrochloride 100 mg in India. But, I could not get it. Instead, I could obtain only benfotiamine 100 mg (Benalgis 100 mg). So, I decided to give it a try. I took 100 mg in the morning for few days. It gave me good mood. But mild stuttering was there. So, I split it into 50 mg in morning and 50 mg in night. During this time, I was taking tea without milk two times daily. I was taking supradyn recharge 1 tablet on alternate days. I felt very tired and less motivated. But I was not feeling much cold in my office when compared to thiamine mononitrate. But still, I felt little cold and tired. After reading some literature on benfotiamine and NFkB, I decided to reduce the dose to 50 mg and take at night time. This gave me good mood and manageable stuttering. Also, I was taking chapatis and parottas for breakfast and dinner during this time. But it appears to me that wheat based products stimulate some kind of inflammation in my brain. So, I need to try with only rice-based products.

Positive effects:

1. Good mood
2. Slightly increased motivation
3. Slightly increased concentration
4. Reduced irritation
5. The libido increased for few days (able to fantasize) and become stable afterwards
6. Manageable stuttering
7. Got early morning erections every day. I used to feel erection probably after every REM sleep stage

Negative effects:

1. Sleeping time slightly increased.
2. Inertia is still there.

Possible mechanism:

1. Benfotiamine may reduce the activation of NFkB. This may lead to increased GnRH secretion. Because, activated NFkB may reduce GnRH secretion.

Update on 29 April 2016:

For the last 1 month, I was taking pharmaton capsules which contains ginseng (1 tablet daily in morning). This gives me good working memory to juggle between multiple tasks with less perceived stress. I am able to remain motivated to continue with the tasks and still focus on other tasks. I think this may be due to the ginseng's effect and the presence of lecithin. I added zinc 15 mg, one tablet daily in night (Amino zinc, 21st Century). This was giving me good sustained focus and concentration to do tasks. Along with this combination, when I took vitamin C 500 mg (Celin 500) in the morning, it increased my libido very much.

The ginseng produced little stuttering. With vitamin C, the stuttering was less and more manageable. But, in the afternoon, after the lunch, the stuttering was worse. So, I stopped vitamin C. The ginseng produced stuttering probably due to increased dopamine. So, I added thiamine mononitrate 25 mg daily at night. It effectively reduced stuttering and anxiety especially when one more dose (25 mg) was taken in the morning. Strikingly, the effect of thiamine is consistent and similar to that of previous observations in 2015 July. Similar to the positive effects, it produced the negative effects (unable to focus or concentrate on academic work, intolerance to cold temperature, reduced libido) also with the same consistency. These effects are noticeable approximately after 5-7 days of daily dosing. The efficacy of thiamine to suppress stuttering and induce fluent speech is remarkable.

Yesterday, I had to do interview a person through skype along with my dean and a person from HR. I was fluent in speech and without anxiety. I could ask questions to the interviewee and talk with other team members without any noticeable stuttering. The speech was clear. Amazing! Only a stutter will know how much stressful it is to talk over phone or other online chat applications. Yesterday, I did not take pharmaton capsule to lessen stuttering. Instead, I took 25 mg thiamine mononitrate after lunch. The night day before yesterday, I took 15 mg zinc (Amino zinc) 25 mg thiamine mononitrate. The breakfast was two bread slices (sandwich bread with wheatgerm) and the lunch was rice with chicken curry and chicken 3 pieces of chicken. The interview was at 3 pm.

Because of intolerance to cold and unable to focus on work, I stopped thiamine mononitrate yesterday. Instead, I took benfotiamine 50 mg at night. Today morning, I found my libido is good and I am able to focus on work. The stuttering is also little worse than yesterday. I don't know whether it is due to benfotiamine or stopping of thiamine mononitrate. I need to follow up for few more days and see.

It appears to me that the thiamine mononitrate may act by increasing GABA similar to Ashwagandha. So, the increased GABA may reduce dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin possibly leading to all those symptoms observed. Contrastingly, benfotiamine appears to be acting with different mechanism than that of thiamine mononitrate. The long term effects of benfotiamine needs to be studied.

Update on 14 June 2017:

Recently, I was taking thiamine mononitrate 25 mg every night after dinner. It was not reducing stuttering much during the fasting month. So, I took 50 mg of thiamine mononitrate in night after dinner. The next morning, I observed increased salivation in the mouth and reduced stuttering and increased loudness of voice. This indicates possible increase of cholinergic or parasympathtic drive by thiamine mononitrate.

Update on 26 March 2018:

I did a blood check up on 2 Feb 2018. My total cholesterol (273 mg/dL) and LDL-cholesterol (191 mg/dL) were very high. Prior to the check up, I was taking L-thyroxine (25 mg) [Thyronorm] every night 2 hrs after dinner for 3-4 months. I don't know whether thyroxine consumption can increase LDL-cholesterol or not. After seeing the LDL-C levels, I stopped taking thyroxine. I remembered my 2015 experiment of taking thiamine and reduction in cholesterol levels. So, I wanted to repeat that experiment. So, I have started taking thiamine from 14 Feb 2018 similar to the 2015 experiment. I am taking 25 mg of thiamine mononitrate two times daily (morning and night, both after food). I am also taking multivitamin + minerals (Blackmore) 1 tablet daily in the morning after food. Along with these drugs, I used to take Vitamin D3 1000 IU (Cholecalciferol 25 mcg) (Blackmores) one capsule every day. But, after 3-4 days of taking Vitamin D3, my stuttering gets worst. So, I had to stop taking vitamin D3. If I take B+C (Blackmores) along with thiamine, it increases focus and concentration (suitable for research). However, it increases stuttering mildly. I am also doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (elliptical cross training) daily in the evening around 8.30 - 10.00 pm before dinner. I am planning to test my cholesterol levels around May 14. Surprisingly, this time, I am not feeling cold intolerance as I had before. Also, no lack of focus and concentration.

Update on 14 May 2018:

I did a blood check up on 12 May 2018. My lipid profile is as below:

Total cholesterol (TC):  220 mg/dL
LDL-C: 148.10 mg/dL
HDL-C: 35.96 mg/dL

As expected, the TC and LDL-C values are reduced 19% and 22.46% respectively with the thiamine mononitrate therapy approximately for 3 months. The reduction is much less when compared with one month therapy with thiamine mononitrate during 2015. This suggests that the increased cholesterol synthesis may happen due to either milk consumption or multivitamin consumption. This requires further research.

Update on 27 June 2018:

I did a blood check up on 25 June 2018 after the fasting month. During this fasting month, I stopped the thiamine mononitrate due to an unexpected sudden occurrence of right knee pain (a very unique pain occurred. No pain was observed during normal walking or sitting but severe unbearable needles-like pain was observed when I kneel down only especially during prayer). So, I stopped all medications for nearly one month. After 45 days, the knee pain disappeared completely and did not return.

My lipid profile is as below:

Total cholesterol: 239.2 mg/dL
LDL-C: 175.7 mg/dL
HDL-C: 43.5 mg/dL

It appears that stopping thiamine mononitrate has significant impact on cholesterol levels especially on LDL-C levels even for 1 month time.