Mega Benfotiamine – Supplement Review

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Life Extension’s Mega Benfotiamine is a 260mg supplement, containing a small amount of Thiamine(Vitamin B1) and a much larger amount of synthetic Vitamin B1 in the form of Benfotiamine.

Life Extension is a US based company producing synthetic supplements, is a rising brand, with a lot of good reviews for their products, also providing a certificate of analysis for every product they sell. The supplements are produced in the US and they claim to use pharmaceutical grade raw materials to produce some of the highest quality supplements on the market.

Information

Vitamin B1 is a very important vitamin for the human body involved in a multitude of processes. One of it’s main purposes is to help cells in the body convert food into energy. Many people with what seem like auto-immune conditions with marked fatigue and muscle weakness might simply be suffering from a Vitamin B1 deficiency.

A normal healthy person should in theory get enough Vitamin B1 from a health diet, but various situations can result in a deficiency that can’t be rectified through diet alone. This is why having a large dose of Vitamin B1 can help someone navigate out of deficiency.

The usual dose is 2 tablets per day for a severe deficiency, with or without food and avoid taking it with alcohol. The actual max advised dosage is 4 tablets per day. Benfotiamine is a lipid-soluble synthetic supplement, so is absorbed much more efficiently that water based sources of Vitamin B1, however your body for example doesn’t convert 250mg of Benfotiamine to 250mg of Vitamin B1 especially when ingested. Side effects are commonly stomach pain or nausea.

Summary

There are some promising studies that show a major benefit for Benfotiamine in reduction for tiredness and neuropathic pain, however results aren’t fully conclusive in some randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled studies. Therapeutic benefits generally take 3 weeks minimum to be observed.

It can be very difficult to test whether you truly have a Vitamin B1 deficiency through blood tests, so I recommend trialling this supplement if you suffer from unexplained fatigue and/or neuropathic pain whilst continuing to seek medical advice from your medical practitioner.