It seems you have to saturate your system with thiamine in order to get it to your brain. I wonder if anyone has tried sulbutiamine. It is an OTC synthetic thiamine analog that easily crosses the blood-brain-barrier.

I've never tried it but it may not be safe long term.

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic...verse-affects/

Maybe Lipsomal Vitamin B-1 would be safer. Here's one that provides 51mg of Thiamine.

http://www.lifeosome.com/?page_id=6389

and here's a lipsomal B-1 with 137mg

http://www.livonlabs.com/cgi-bin/sta...e-blocker.html

[QUOTE=Deangreen;1127299]It seems you have to saturate your system with thiamine in order to get it to your brain. I wonder if anyone has tried sulbutiamine. It is an OTC synthetic thiamine analog that easily crosses the blood-brain-barrier.[/QUOTE

This doesn't make sense to me. If something doesn't normally get into the brain (ie, it does not cross the BBB, is that what you are saying?) then how does flooding the body with it resolve that problem?

I think every person on the planet would have thiamine deficiency if you had to flood the body with thiamine to get it into the brain. Where did you read this? Don't mean to be combative, just curious.

Everything I've read is to the contrary, actually, that the body can only absorb so much thiamine and if you take in more than that, you'll just pee it out.

[QUOTE=lurkingforacure;1127341]My understanding is that the BBB isn't really quite 100% impermeable. For example, those that take L-Dopa via the Hinz protocol take large quantities of L-Dopa and thus some crosses the BBB to be made into dopamine in the brain, but most gets peed out. Sinemet allows much more to cross the BBB by adding Carbidopa so much less L-Dopa is required to have an effect.

Regarding Thiamine, rather than saturating our body with Thiamine, it makes more sense to get IM thiamine injections or even take liposomol thiamine which allows more to get absorbed. Liposomol allows it to be protected in lecithin spheres until it gets further down the gut and thus more gets absorbed. What seems important is to get it into the brain before the body breaks it down and it gets removed.

[QUOTE=lurkingforacure;1127341]From what I understood about thiamine uptake into the brain (Thiamine Function, Metabolism, Uptake, and Transport, Biochemistry, 53, 2014) there are two mechanisms; 1. a carrier-mediated mechanism that can be saturated by excess thiamine, and 2. a non-saturable component that some hypothesize to be simple passive diffusion. So once you've inundated yourself with thiamine and saturated the carriers, I figure that the excess may simply diffuse through the BBB before your body has enough time to get rid of it by "peeing it out". Just a thought that is subject to debate.

Great news, but in the products you mentioned there is also a high percentage of vitamin b6 which contrasts the absorption of l-dopa.

[QUOTE=zanpar321;1127355]l-dopa passes the BBB via active transport, the more L-DOPA in the blood, the more will cross the BBB. but even with carbidopa which inactivates an enzyme which breaks down l-dopa in the blood, less than 5% gets into the brain and then enzymes there break it down into something other than dopamine so very little becomes dopamine.

Carrier-mediated transport enables molecules with low lipid solubility to traverse the blood-brain barrier. Glucose from blood enters the brain by a transport protein. Glucose is the primary energy substrate of the brain. Glucose transport protein (GLUT-1) is highly enriched in brain capillary endothelial cells. These transporters carry glucose molecules through the blood brain barrier. Although rare, patients with Glut-1 deficiency (caused by genetic mutations) can have severe learning difficulties. Low glucose sugar levels in the cerebrospinal, but not in the blood, will identify the condition.

The essential amino acids cannot be synthesized by the brain and, therefore, must be supplied from protein breakdown and diet. Phenylalanine, leucine, tyrosine, isoleucine, valine, tryptophan, methionine and histidine, which are essential amino acids, and also the precursor of dopamine, L-DOPA, enter the brain as rapidly as glucose. These amino acids are transported into the brain by the leucine-preferring or the L-type transport proteins. These compounds compete with each other for entry into the brain. Therefore, an elevation of plasma level of one will inhibit uptake of the others. This competition may be important for certain metabolic diseases such as phenylketonuria (PKU), where high levels of phenylalanine in plasma reduce brain uptake of other essential amino acids.

Small neutral amino acids, such as alanine, glycine, proline and GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid), are markedly restricted in their entry into the brain. These amino acids are non-essential amino acids and are transported by alanine-preferring or A-type transport protein. The A-type transport protein is not present on the luminal surface of the blood brain barrier. In contrast, these small neutral amino acids appear to be transported out of the brain across the blood-brain-barrier.

http://neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter11.html

There's another form of thiamine from garlic. It's called allithiamine and it does penetrate the blood brain barrier as well.

Does anyone have anything new to say about sulbutiamine? Is it working for you?

While I was researching this I found a comment that stated that the manufacture of sulbutiamine is suspect, though it was seemingly a knowledgeable source, it was an offhand statement so I'm not sure if it has any validity.

I'm gonna try this allithiamine (swallow it fast cause it's very garlicky and you'll lose all your friends) and see how it goes.

I am having great success with B2 tabs BTW. 100 mg x2 a day. Also some family members are finding big changes with it too. Maybe my family is predisposed to poor B2 absorption .. I dunno, but it's been a big improvement for me so far.

Hi Breezy Racer -- Great you are having a good experience w/B2 tabs. Would you be able to share a bit more info about what kind of changes you are experiencing?