During the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese soldiers fell one by one to a great unknown disease. It started with significant fatigue, irritability, memory loss, and poor sleep and progressed to shortness of breath, swollen legs, lower body paralysis, difficulty in speech, and finally, death. While the Japanese army reckoned bacteria and viruses to be the reason behind this disaster, the answer hid in their diet, white rice instead of brown.
The soldiers were suffering from a form of vitamin B1 deficiency called Beriberi. The army provided white rice to soldiers as a method of motivating enlistment. But although white rice was a symbol of wealth and healthy nourishment, at that time, it had only one-tenth of the vitamin B1 present in brown rice. The mortality rate of the soldiers for this disease was only 10%. They were cured of their deficiency by consuming the ordinary diet, which included other vegetables, potatoes, and brown rice.
What does vitamin B1 do?
Vitamin B1 or thiamine was the first vitamin B form discovered by researchers. It is most critical for survival due to its role in converting carbohydrates to energy. Thiamine is also essential for glucose metabolism and healthy nerve, muscle, and heart function.
Beriberi, mental disorders, nervous system issues, and cardiovascular conditions, such as an enlarged heart, are all potential vitamin B1 deficiency threats. The vitamin is required for the absorption of other vitamins, meaning that thiamine deficiency may lead to general malnourishment.
Vitamin B1 consumption is not as much about benefits as about survival. As one of the vitamins responsible for energy production, thiamine creates the foundation for our health. In this article, we will explore its benefits, functions, and why it is a staple nutrient in all Sanbera supplements.
What foods contain vitamin B1?
Vitamin B1 is part of the water-soluble vitamins team. Our bodies do not store these nutrients but can excrete the excess, meaning that the probability of thiamine overdose is very low, but it must be consumed daily.
Vitamin B1 is naturally present in plant-based foods such as rice, soybean, peas, beans, legumes, lentils, and vegetables, including potatoes, cauliflower, asparagus, and kale.
In the US, where it is mandatory by law to fortify certain foods with nutrients, most people consume around half of their daily vitamin B1 value through fortified products like flour and cereals. In European countries where food fortification is not applied, it is even more important to be aware of your diet or take supplements to prevent thiamine deficiency.
Vitamin B1 and metabolism
Metabolism is the clock of the body and the rhythm to which every operation adapts. Irregular metabolic activities harm your vital functions, such as breathing and digestion.
Thiamine is responsible for breaking down carbohydrates and is involved in the conversion of proteins and fats to energy. Therefore, your vitamin B1 levels directly affect your metabolism.
Suboptimal thiamine values may lead to metabolic issues such as weight loss, low energy, fatigue, and impaired immune system. Those struggling with weight gain or constant tiredness might be vitamin B deficient.
Strengthens the immune system
Thiamine’s role in energy conversion is not a small responsibility. Energy production is the base of all the other operations and processes running in the body. Our energy levels and metabolic flow impact our immune system and stress resistance.
Vitamin B1 partakes in maintaining muscle tone along the digestive tract walls, which can be considered the core of the immune system. Digestive tract health is just as essential to the absorption of thiamine as it is to its maintenance.
Low vitamin B1 levels will cause issues in hydrochloric acid production, which is crucial for the complete digestion of foods. As the unhealthy digestive system cannot absorb nutrients, vitamin B1 deficiency is the potential beginning of many others.
Protects and boosts brain activity
Vitamin B1 aids the brain and the body in interacting and communicating. Without vitamin B1, the nerve protection shell, also known as the myelin sheath, cannot be created.
Thiamine is so famously associated with improved memory and brain function that many scientists refer to it as the “morale vitamin”. The morale vitamin is a potential treatment for conditions such as Alzheimer's and Cerebellar Syndrome for its antioxidant properties. Many scientists believe that free radical damage is one of the causes behind these conditions, and research has brought positive results. Thiamine may be beneficial in slowing down the progress of dementia and preventing the free radical damage that causes brain diseases.
Deficiencies and free radicals are two leading causes of brain conditions, which can be prevented through a controlled diet, and supplements. Sanbera acknowledges the healing power of nutrients and aims to lower the risk of these conditions by ensuring that your brain is well-fed with highly bioavailable ingredients.
Improves and supports eye health
Many eyesight conditions can be traced back to impaired muscle and nerve signaling between the eyes and the brain. Vitamin B1 supports brain-muscle communication by regulating the flow of electrolytes. It appears to successfully prevent glaucoma and cataracts.
The eyes are one of the first windows through which we come in contact with the world, one of the most sensitive organs, and one of the first places that reflect the deficiency symptoms of various nutrients. Sanbera supplements combine vitamins such as B1, A, and E to ensure your eye health and prevent conditions such as age-related macular degeneration.
Boosts sharpness and learning abilities
Aside from how the energy regulation role of B1 affects memory and clear thinking, researchers have discovered that thiamine deficiency has a visibly negative impact on the cerebellum.
The cerebellum is in charge of many functions that one could understand as “self”. It manages certain cognitive functions, including language, fear regulation, attention, and procedural memories along with motor control and balance.
Procedural memories, also known as implicit memories, are skills learned through repetition, such as swimming, knitting, or biking. Vitamin B1 deficiency blocks nerve interactions, causing dropouts from procedural memory storage. The cerebellum’s many responsibilities may explain many Beriberi symptoms.
Your learning and memory are dependent on nutrients like vitamin B1. Thinking is more difficult when your body is nutritionally struggling. Sanbera believes that supplementing safe doses of essential nutrients is the best solution for the low comings of our modern living.
Your thoughts, memory, and how you interact and understand the world create the whole you recognize as yourself. In Sanbera supplements, thiamine is combined with other essential brain foods, such as vitamins B6, B12, and B9 to ensure your health and longevity.
How does vitamin B1 improve heart health?
Your heart beats to the rhythm of your metabolism based on the orders sent by your brain. Vitamin B1 is involved in both of these operations. It fuels your metabolism by breaking down the carbs and is part of the creation of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is the messenger bringing the orders of the brain to all muscles, including the heart.
Thiamine deficiency can threaten your heart health for these two reasons, along with its impact on the absorption of other vital heart food nutrients. Dangerously low suboptimal vitamin B1 values may cause irregular cardiac functions.
Research shows that the supplementation of thiamine for people suffering from congestive heart failure successfully improved their echocardiograms. While more research is still required, ensuring that your thiamine levels are sufficient is a good step in taking care of your heart health.
How does vitamin B1 support mental health?
Research suggests that people who suffer from mental disorders such as depression and anxiety might have lower vitamin B1 levels. The vitamin B group is called the “Anti-stress Vitamin” due to the ways it boosts the immune system and our tolerance to stressful situations.
Irregular energy circulation caused by the deficiency of metabolic vitamins, including vitamin B1 disturbs the rhythm of all ongoing operations inside the body. Metabolism impacts the speed of our thinking, our thoughts, memory, and mood. It is harder to feel well mentally if we are not feeling well in our bodies. An irregular heartbeat may lead to anxiety, low energy levels may cause a lack of motivation for life, and unclear thinking can transform the world into an uncertain, scary place.
Our mental health is now more vulnerable than it has ever been in the history of human life. We live fast, and our thinking, memory, and learning must catch up to this data speed which they never experienced before. Because of this stress, nutritional deficiencies may easily harm our mood and mental health.
Most of us can not follow a diet plan that nourishes and meets our needs. We are bound by our routines and the food products that chain markets make available to us. Making homemade food and following that “perfect diet” can mean more stress. Sanbera supplements predict potential deficiencies and aim to provide you with the best daily and nightly nutritional solutions for providing the basic requirements for mental health.
Who benefits from vitamin B1 supplementation?
Due to its water solubility, vitamin B1 is harder to absorb. Heating, cooking, and boiling foods in water destroys thiamine. Even if brown rice is part of your usual diet, you must remember that a high portion of its vitamin B1 value is dissolved in the cooking water.
But again, most modern food options available at the grocery stores are made with white flour or white rice, which has one-tenth the thiamine brown rice provides. Furthermore, drinks such as tea or coffee contain tannin, which negatively interacts with thiamine and makes it even harder to absorb. If you are not following a plant-based diet and are a big fan of fish and shellfish, please note that some of their chemicals destroy thiamine and may lead to deficiencies. Cooking these chemicals rids you of them, but it harms the vitamin B1 too.
Thiamine is so impactful on energy levels and nervous and muscle functions that it is a prohibited substance for athletes in the US. So, supplementing moderate doses of thiamine might not be a bad idea to ensure a healthy metabolism and high energy.
If you have difficulty keeping track of your diet or consume a lot of alcohol, your doctor might recommend you take thiamine supplements. People who suffer from conditions causing malnourishment, such as anorexia, HIV, liver diseases, or diabetes, may develop thiamine deficiency. Research shows that thiamine helps fight fatigue and stress and strengthens the immune system.
If you suffer from any pre-existing conditions, you should consult your doctor before taking any supplements. But vitamin B1 supplementation is generally safe and beneficial in preventing deficiencies and the various conditions caused by it.
We value thiamine as a gear to the metabolic engine and the core of a robust immune system. Vitamin B1 is in every Sanbera formula for women and men.
Our supplements are created with 100% vegan ingredients from organically grown plants and fruits, resulting in the highest bioavailability. We believe that health cannot be achieved on a sick planet. Our Swiss heritage brings out the value of long-lasting results while ensuring sustainability and the safety of the health of our planet.