Also known as thiamin, vitamin B1 is a water-soluble vitamin. Since it is not stored in body fat, after the body uses what it needs, any excess vitamin B1 is excreted in the urine.
Like most of the B vitamins, thiamin plays a variety of roles in the human body. Its most important function is to help the body's cells convert carbohydrates into ATP – the fuel the body runs on. It is also involved in metabolic activities relating to the heart, brain and muscles, and it helps ensure proper nerve cell function.
According to the National Academy of Science, the recommended daily allowance (RDA) for thiamin is as follows:
Thiamin is found in almost all foods, but the best sources are pork and other lean meats. Other good sources include enriched and fortified cereals, oatmeal, corn, nuts, beans, cauliflower and sunflower seeds.
Vitamin B1 deficiency can result in edema and abnormal heart rhythm. Severe B1 deficiency (also known as beriberi) is rare in the U.S. but can occur in severely malnourished people, alcoholics, or people on long-term dialysis. Symptoms may include paralysis, loss of balance, loss of feeling in the legs and feet, visual problems and congestive heart failure.
To date, no toxic effects have been reported for vitamin B1. Because it is water-soluble and is not stored in the body, the chances of enough B1 building up to toxic levels are highly unlikely. Most people taking multivitamins with high levels of B1 or eating foods rich in amounts of B1 need not worry about toxicity.
References
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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