Many of us including me on PN forum here, use Doctor's Best Benfotiamine. I get the 150mg at Amazon. It is much more potent than regular thiamine HCL and doesn't make you smell yeasty like the latter.

If you suspect or know that you are low, you can start at 300mg a day and drop down to 150mg after a couple of months. But some people choose to stay at 300mg a day.

http://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Best-B...t+Benfotiamine

Amazon is very competitive in pricing quality supplements these days. So we use it most commonly. I like to use the charity version of Amazon... called Smile.Amazon. I have an animal rescue that I choose for the Amazon donation. I even get some of my art supplies there now too.

mrsD's signature raises the problems that birds are facing. Ironically these problems may be due to a thiamine deficiency. Balk et al. write [1]:

"Wild birds of several species are dying in large numbers from an idiopathic paralytic disease in the Baltic Sea area. Here, we demonstrate strong relationships between this disease, breeding failure, and thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency in eggs, pulli, and full-grown individuals. Thiamine is essential for vertebrates, and its diphosphorylated form functions as a cofactor for several life sustaining enzymes, whereas the triphosphorylated form is necessary for the functioning of neuronal membranes. Paralyzed individuals were remedied by thiamine treatment."

Over the years a number of posts to this forum have been made suggesting that birds may play a part in the aetiology of Parkinson's.

Reference:

[1] "Wild birds of declining European species are dying from a thiamine deficiency syndrome"
Lennart Balk, Per-Åke Hägerrotha, Gun Åkermana, Marsha Hansona, Ulla Tjärnlunda, Tomas Hanssona, Gunnar Thor Hallgrimssonb, Yngve Zebühra, Dag Bromana, Torsten Mörnerd, and Henrik Sundberga
12001–12006, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0902903106
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/29/12001.full

[2] "Do birds play a part in Parkinson's"
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread184736.html

John

Does anyone know if it makes a difference when/how you take benfotiamine? I have read it is best to take B vitamins (water-soluble) on an empty stomach, but am not sure about benfotiamine since it is oil-soluble.

Anyone know?

You can take it either way. I found one study showing food is not an issue.

In all the years PNers have been using this here, no one has had any side effects or GI problems.

A decade ago this was extremely expensive and hard to get.
We had a PNer from BrainTalk who ordered his from Germany.
He had to pay over $60 a month then. Fortunately things have changed in that respect.

As with most supplements --if you have decreased kidney functions a lower dose is best as well as advice and supervision by your doctor.

In regards to US birds.... this is the article I saw recently:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...united-states/

There was also a more recent one in Science News, that said the marsh birds are not being affected so much as the little song birds.

And about that thiamine.... in Florida, runoff of fertilizers is implicated in loss of alligators in small ponds, due to the fish dying off leaving a species that contains an enzyme that inactivates thiamine...Hence the gators are dying off now too.
http://fl.biology.usgs.gov/posters/E...lligators.html

So I guess there are many factors impacting our environments and thus affected the wildlife.

Thanks for that article John, as it was very interesting.

Thanks, everyone, for these very interesting posts. My mom has PD and restless legs are one of her symptoms. We ordered benfotiamine and she is going to start it as soon as it arrives.

Zanpar, are you still noticing that benfotiamine helps your restless legs?

I have read that a racing heart is one side effect. Did anyone here experience that?

Thanks again!

Hi Rainbow.

Yes so far Benfotiamine seems to help my restless leg pretty well. Be sure to ask your doc of course to make sure it's ok for your mom. Keep in mind though that everything ingested will potentially affect your body. I am on a lowered sugar, gluten free diet as well. Sugar depletes Thiamine so my theory is that the high sugar intake that most folks ingest may be at the heart of the Parkinson's, diabetes, Alzeimers problem. I started out on a lowered dose (250 mg) and then increased it over time. I'm taking 500-750mg per day now.

Israelis Discover Clear Link Between Diabetes And Parkinson’s Disease

http://nocamels.com/2014/10/israelis...nsons-disease/