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Is Folate inhibiting Thiamine (B-1) ?

dannybex

Senior Member
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3,561
Location
Seattle
I wasn't sure where to post this, but figured since many w/ME/CFS were or are using considerable amounts of folate with regards to methylation protocols, this might be something worth considering...

I found this study on another forum. It's not a study of ME/CFS patients, but rather patients with diabetic kidney disease. Still, the part that caught my eye was this:

"In addition to facilitating transport of folate, RFC-1 is also a transporter of thiamine monophosphate (TMP) and thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP)."

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/731177http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/731177

I don't have a subscription to Medscape, but here's part of the study that was quoted on the other forum:"A further factor underlying the association of high-dose vitamin B6, B9 and B12 supplements and metabolic dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy could be the effect of high-dose folic acid on metabolite transport via the folate transporter 1 (RFC-1). In addition to facilitating transport of folate, RFC-1 is also a transporter of thiamine monophosphate (TMP) and thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP).[8] Diabetic nephropathy occurs within a background of thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency owing to impaired renal reuptake of thiamine. Plasma thiamine concentrations were inversely linked to plasma soluble vascular cell adhesion protein 1 (sVCAM-1)—a risk marker of cardiovascular disease.[9] Folate binds to and is transported into cells by the RFC-1 transporter.[8] High-dose folic acid supplementation might exacerbate thiamine deficiency at susceptible sites, such as the kidney and vascular cells in diabetic nephropathy, by competing with TMP and TPP and impairing their uptake into tissues, thereby inhibiting sharing of thiamine metabolites between tissues rich in thiamine and those deficient in it."
So, I guess I'm wondering if perhaps high-dose folate (even if it's not 'folic acid') might be interfering with and/or creating a thiamine deficiency, the symptoms of which can almost mimic those of ME/CFS.

Severe thiamine deficiency is known as beriberi, which translated means, "I can't, I can't."

???
 

Asklipia

Senior Member
Messages
999
About thiamine, have you read this : http://fr.scribd.com/doc/74090699/Astrophysiology-and-Yeast

especially p.42 :
Acetaldehyde stemming from yeast is a thiamine antagonist. It combines irreversibly with thiamine to form 2,3-butanediol, a stable adduct, that is excreted in the urine. The thiamine molecules thus imprisoned are no longer available for either aspect of the chi cycle. Thiamine is required for the liver energy requirements during the aldehyde dehydrogenase oxidation of acetaldehyde and for neutrophils that attempt to surround and destroy budding yeast as it shifts into its hyphal form. Responding to the metabolic impact of yeast in the system has increased the demand upon thiamine reserves already serving the energy requirements of every other active cell in the body's conglomeration of organs and tissues.
When all of these concurrent demands reach a critical threshold and the normal background chi pressure that keeps the body's chi spring wound up creates a sudden shift of thiamine out of the bloodstream, then normal chi pressure becomes excessive chi stress and body processes start to fail. The symptom first experienced might be a sudden headache, hot flash, night sweat, panic attack, fit of rage, dizzy spell, nausea, spike in blood pressure, or enervating fatigue that continues to worsen until the condition becomes chronic and internal organs begin to fail. When there is an overall insufficiency of thiamine in the system, so that both blood stream and chi field requirements cannot be adequately met, the body has slipped into a state of sub-clinical beri-beri, the thiamine deficiency disease.

and p. 46 on how to do thiamine loading.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
I just take relatively high doses of most vitamins and minerals and just let my body sort things out. I'm not necessarily recommending that strategy, but that's my gameplan at the moment:cool: Maybe one day I'll be able to afford to get all my minerals and vitamins tested to know where my imbalances are. One can dream.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
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3,561
Location
Seattle
Thanks for all the replies...and thanks for posting the full study Victronix. Who knows...the fact that they used 'folic acid' may make some difference in the results, but for now I'm going to assume that overall, all folates would use the same receptor. ???

Lotus, that's a possibility re the b2/r5p. I'm cutting back on folate for now, as I've been supplementing with methylfolate and folinic, and while they help in some ways (definitely can sleep better with the folinic). But I have many of the unique symptoms of thiamine deficiency, like loss of appetite, delayed stomach emptying (for YEARS), and the most telling of all, the strange combination of considerable muscle wasting in my feet, yet with some edema as well. Skinny as hell, but still edemic. They're also very painful...(lactic acid?)...can hardly walk the last 2 years (got slowly worse while increasing folate and methyl-b12, but also while ignoring the krebs cycle, which needs b1, b2, b3, b5 and assorted other compounds).

Thanks Asklipia for the post about acetylaldehyde and thiamine. I've been reading about a lot of things that inhibit/block/interfere with thiamine, but that one specifically wasn't on my radar.

There are indeed quite a few anti-thiamine (thiaminase) compounds...from my googling, here's at least some more to consider:

Horsetail (silica)
Red Fern
Blueberries
Red Chicory
Red Currants
Red Beets
Brussel sprouts
Red cabbage
Molds like aspergillus, fusarium moniliform, fusarium proliferatum (the latter two 'produce a powerful thiaminase'), and all three can be found in wheat, corn and their byproducts.

And this quote that thiaminase enzymes are most often 'found in colored plants'...'the anti-thiamine activity is bound to phenolic compounds'. So perhaps that ties in with the salicylate/phenol intolerance that myself and others have experienced for years.

???
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Yet we are told that ‘colored plants’ such as blueberries, red beets, Brussel sprouts, and red cabbage are healthful. Maybe we just need to take/eat more thiamine?
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
Yet we are told that ‘colored plants’ such as blueberries, red beets, Brussel sprouts, and red cabbage are healthful. Maybe we just need to take/eat more thiamine?

I know. It's very confusing and complicated...lots of conflicting advice out there. But I've too been wondering if perhaps a salicylate/phenol intolerance may develop due to an overall depletion of thiamine (and perhaps other b's). In fact, a woman posted the other day on another forum that her son's salicylate intolerance resolved after they increased his thiamine.

Here's a book that kind of aptly describes the salicylate intolerance problem -- the title says it all:

http://www.amazon.com/Salicylate-Intolerance-Healthier-Revised-Edition/dp/0615317979
 

dannybex

Senior Member
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3,561
Location
Seattle
Revisiting this thread after going downhill big time in the last year and a half -- realizing that I probably stopped or slowed down my folinic acid intake due to misinterpreting this study -- I was doing 'better' at least in some ways on the folinic, but stopped taking it on a regular basis about August of last year.


Thanks again to @Victronix for posting the full study. I wish I had analyzed it in more detail last year, as it seems that the author's conclusions just don't wash.


They say: "Folate binds to and is transported into cells by the rFC-1 trans- porter.8 High-dose folic acid supplementation might exacerbate thiamine deficiency at susceptible sites, such as the kidney and vascular cells in diabetic nephropathy, by competing with tmP and tPP and impairing their uptake into tissues, thereby inhibiting sharing of thiamine metabolites between tissues rich in thiamine and those deficient in it."


But the study they reference says "Although the reduced folate carrier RFC1 and the thiamine transporters THTR-1 and THTR-2 share approximately 40% of their identity in protein sequence, RFC1 does not transport thiamine and THTR-1 and THTR-2 do not transport folates." But then they go on to say that in murine leukemia cells the folate receptor "may be one of the alternative transport routes available for TMP in some tissues when THTR-1 is mutated in the autosomal recessive disorder thiamine-responsive megaloblastic anemia."


And finally, it turns out there are several folate receptors, not just one, which of course makes sense. Who knows, there are probably several more they don't even know about...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folate_receptor


So…I'm sorry I started this thread in the first place. Sheesh...
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
@dannybex I could relate many of my reactions to folate with B1 deficiency back in March. Salicylate intolerance aggravated my reactions.

Perhaps some individuals are more susceptible to this interaction. Plus there can be a cascade that I can't explain right now of low B1 affecting potassium negatively.

Beri beri, which is lack of B1, can be aggravated with potassium supplementation if B1 levels are not corrected accordingly.

Other B1 antagonists are sulfites, gelatin and tea.

My resource is the book Potassium Nutrition by Charles Weber.

Low folate impairs B1 absorption:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545191/

I had more to say but am too brain fogged today.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
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3,561
Location
Seattle
I checked out your thread @Gondwanaland and can understand how confusing and complicated it can get when one is taking so many supplements (I'm trying to cut back as well), and have been indeed taking probably too much thiamine myself over the last year. (It helped me big time back in 2003, so I thought it would again.) But in doing so I may have depleted folate, so am backing off the b1, and increasing folinic again.


I've been dealing with salicylate issues for years (at least I think that's part of my problem) and have posted quite a bit here on PR about the thiamine/salicylate interactions (and sulfites, etc.), but also realized a few days ago that there is a connection with low folate/b12 and histamine. Methylation is one of the key ways that histamine is broken down, so that's another reason I'm going back on folinic.


I've seen that page by Weber before -- it's interesting, but I do worry about his emphasis on copper. Most vegetables are high in copper, at least compared to zinc, so one can end up getting too much copper rather than the other way around. But that's coming from someone who was diagnosed with 'copper toxicity'…so take it with a grain of salt. :)
 

Gondwanaland

Senior Member
Messages
5,092
I checked out your thread @Gondwanaland and can understand how confusing and complicated it can get when one is taking so many supplements
I never expected to piece it all together, but it is happening, thanks for your help, @dannybex !
I've been dealing with salicylate issues for years (at least I think that's part of my problem) and have posted quite a bit here on PR about the thiamine/salicylate interactions (and sulfites, etc.), but also realized a few days ago that there is a connection with low folate/b12 and histamine. Methylation is one of the key ways that histamine is broken down, so that's another reason I'm going back on folinic.
Histamine issues is another topic I started back then and you also helped me there. It looks like whenever we up a supp, something else falls short... As an ironic coincidence, when I realized I was having salicylate issues my order containing magnesium oxide had just been delivered. I had been trying to supplement magnesium for several months before with no success (the organic forms would interfere with ammonia or serotonin). Then I realized magnesium was relieving my intolerances.
I also started a topic wishing to understand it better and find out if it would help someone else, but had no feedback.
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/index.php?threads/food-sensitivities-and-pst.32839/
I've seen that page by Weber before -- it's interesting, but I do worry about his emphasis on copper. Most vegetables are high in copper, at least compared to zinc, so one can end up getting too much copper rather than the other way around. But that's coming from someone who was diagnosed with 'copper toxicity'…so take it with a grain of salt. :)
HIs book on potassium does not include copper discussion. I will try to summarize what else he says in the book about B1 later. I do worry about low copper due to blood vessel fragility.
 

Violeta

Senior Member
Messages
2,873
@dannybex I could relate many of my reactions to folate with B1 deficiency back in March. Salicylate intolerance aggravated my reactions.

Perhaps some individuals are more susceptible to this interaction. Plus there can be a cascade that I can't explain right now of low B1 affecting potassium negatively.

Beri beri, which is lack of B1, can be aggravated with potassium supplementation if B1 levels are not corrected accordingly.

Other B1 antagonists are sulfites, gelatin and tea.

My resource is the book Potassium Nutrition by Charles Weber.

Low folate impairs B1 absorption:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3545191/

I had more to say but am too brain fogged today.

This thread is interesting to me because I actually can hardly take any B1 because it speeds up Phase I liver detox which causes overproduction of porphyrins in my case. I can see that I have to be careful, though, because I may be seriously low in B1. I have been concerned about the overproduction of porphyrins because of porphyria symptoms, but you might be able to apply this to pyroluria, too. I know that when you have porphyria you have to be very careful about becoming potassium deficient, but I didn't realize that can be related to being B1 deficient. If I work on taking enough B2 consistently, I can take small amounts of B1 intermittently. I'm trying to start to add in some zinc, and also just recently realized I need to take enough B6. The balance between B2 and B6 seems crucial to avoiding headaches, I think. But I also am facing that I can't eat read meat (heme) and maybe not even chicken. Does anyone know if that would apply to pyroluria, too?
 
Messages
59
I started mega dosing b1 a few weeks ago and while I felt it curbed my anxiety initially, after a few days I felt depressed. When I took a metafolin, the depression went away within 15 minutes.
 

dannybex

Senior Member
Messages
3,561
Location
Seattle
I started mega dosing b1 a few weeks ago and while I felt it curbed my anxiety initially, after a few days I felt depressed. When I took a metafolin, the depression went away within 15 minutes.

Same here in general. It's all a balance, and a tricky one. That's one thing that Dr. Ben Lynch states over and over again, that for some, metafolin (or thiamine, etc) will only be needed every other day, or depending on one's symptoms. So complicated and complex.