Transcription
I'm sure you heard about this benine vitamin. So what's all the hype? And do we really need it? And what is it good for?
Benine is a fat-soluble B1. Normally, B1, called thiamine, is water-soluble. And so there are several advantages of having this vitamin in a fat-soluble form. Number one, it can penetrate membranes that are made out of fat much easier, like by a factor of 360% more penetration. So benine is really good for anything neurological, anything brain, especially peripheral neuropathy, where you have the bottom of your feet tingling, numbness, burning, or that could be on the hands as well.
So what is it actually doing? One of the big things it's doing is inhibiting the formation of something called AGEs. That stands for Advanced Glycation End products. Now, what is that? Well, that's basically this, uh, formation of sugar with a protein or sugar with fat that's, um, morphed into this unusable protein. For example, when you are a diabetic and you test for blood glucose levels, a lot of times they'll do what's called A1C. And that test measures for this term glycation, which basically means how much damage to your proteins in your blood is occurring. Like the hemoglobin is protein, right? So they can measure how much of that protein is unusable because it's glycated because all the sugar interacts with the protein and kind of fuses it to make it unavailable. And so as the red blood cells are unavailable, guess what you get? You get a lot of complications from that. One being just a lowered amount of the ability to carry oxygen. And think about the cascade of effects that that can create.
Also, this glycation starts to accumulate in the mitochondria and it plugs up the machinery for your cells. So benine is a very potent antioxidant type nutrient that inhibits the formation of this glycation. It also supports the myelin sheath, that outer covering of the nerve that allows the nerve to actually work. And on a deeper level, we need B1 desperately for several enzymes in our mitochondria involved in metabolism. Certain enzymes are dependent on B1, and if your cells don't have B1, boy, all sorts of issues start occurring. So a lot of the complications, especially from diabetes, occur because of this lack of this B1. Because the more glucose you have flowing through your bloodstream, the more B1 you need. So by being a diabetic, you're basically sucking up all that residual B1 that you had, leaving you high and dry.
Now, there are four main tissues in the body that are affected by diabetes more than any other tissues in the body. Okay? We have the nerve and the brain, kind of the same tissue. We have the arteries. We have the eye. And we have the kidney. Now, what's so unique about these four tissues? Well, number one, they're the most metabolically demanding tissues of your body, which means they hog a lot of fuel and they also require a lot of oxygen. And then they, as a byproduct, put out a lot of oxidation. So that means these four tissues are very susceptible to problems with too much oxidation. And basically, that means that your balance of antioxidants versus your oxidants are out of balance. You don't have enough antioxidants to handle the amount of oxidation occurring. And you can kind of think about oxidation as kind of something rusting out in the body. And so the term for that is called oxidative stress. So these four tissues are very susceptible to becoming damaged with high levels of sugar because of the oxidation and the, uh, inability to repair. And so B1 can come in there to the rescue and lower this oxidation because it's kind of a very potent antioxidant.
Another thing that happens in diabetes is, um, you have damage to the microcirculation, the tiny capillaries that feed these tissues. These capillary walls start to leak and you get bleeding. And you especially see this in arteries. You see this in the eyes. It happens in the kidney. And so on a deeper level, we're getting all this glycated protein junk that's accumulating in the mitochondria, plugging everything up and literally starving the cells of fuel and oxygen. That's why you see peripheral neuropathy showing up as a kind of a one of the first things because it affects the extremities at the farthest distance from the heart.
This Advanced Glycation End product compound that's plugging everything up can come from several things. It comes from eating sugar with protein when it's cooked. It comes from eating sugar and fat when it's cooked. That would be like ice cream would be a perfect example. It comes from cooking in high heats, like you're deep frying something or you're grilling something where something is very crispy. You do get a certain amount of glycation. But just being a diabetic causes high levels of glycation. As you get older, you have more glycation. So age is a big factor. If you smoke, if you drink alcohol, and the more inflammation you have, the more glycation you're going to have.
This is why benototiamine for diabetics is so vitally important because it basically just starts slowing down this glycation process and getting rid of the complications from diabetes. And of course, hopefully, that person is getting rid of the real cause of diabetes, which is the diet. But sometimes the doctors don't really emphasize that. They're all about managing your blood sugars. Well, eventually, you need to fix the cause. But also, benine can help you with the symptoms along the way. And also, many times people combine alpha-lipoic acid with benototiamine because they're a bit synergistic. Alpha-lipoic acid directly targets inflammation as well as that oxidative stress, whereas benototiamine does that as well, but it also, uh, supplies you with the necessary B1 for the enzymes in the mitochondria, as well as directly inhibiting the formation of that glycation.
Now, inside your arteries, okay, uh, you have this inside layer of the artery and it's, it's called the tunica intima, which means innermost layer. And in that layer, there's a superficial layer of cells and they're just like one cell thick that are exposed to blood going through the arteries. And that's called the endothelial layer. That layer of cells, boy, that controls blood pressure, it controls all sorts of hormonal interactions. It gets hammered with this oxidative stress, and then you start getting inflammation, and you start getting scar tissue, and then you start getting more clots. One of the things that it does is it helps to prevent clots. But if it becomes damaged, you start getting clots. And there are also micro, uh, blood vessels that are supplying the artery walls. Those are called vasa vasorum, which means the vessels of the vessels. So the blood vessels also need blood to survive. And so all this high level of concentrated sugar in that area starts to create inflammation in those vessels, which are a little bit deeper. And then you start getting thickening of the arteries and stiffness of the arteries, which is not just going to lead to blood pressure problems, but a constriction of blood that's flowing through the arteries.
In other words, insulin is anti-atherosclerotic. In other words, it prevents this whole cascade of problems. Wait a second. I thought that too much insulin is bad. Well, it is. But you have this other factor involved. It's called insulin resistance. So a lot of these complications that are occurring from high glucose and high insulin are occurring because you actually have a deficiency of insulin because of the resistance. Because the body makes more, but it never actually gets to the right target to allow things to occur. And so by doing things to get rid of insulin resistance, you actually get more insulin to heal this whole area. So by eating things that increase insulin, it never is a good solution.
We have the arteries that are involved. We also have the kidneys that get destroyed. And so when you have this kidney filter that gets destroyed, you start getting this leakiness in the filter. So the holes become bigger, and then protein kind of goes out, and then sugar kind of goes out, and then you can no longer recycle this. And so the kidneys start losing their filtration.
Now, in the eyes, you have this effect, especially from the retina, which is nerve tissue that's extending from the brain. And it's actually out in the open. And so it's very susceptible to this oxidation. And so this is why a diabetic could eventually lose their eyesight and go blind. But guess what? Benine can come in there and slow this process down from happening and hopefully even reverse it in certain circumstances.
Now, when we get nerve damage from this process, it's not just the nerves in our feet. It's not just the neurons in our brain, which is also considered type 3 diabetes. But you also get destruction of the autonomic nervous system. There's something called diabetic autonomic neuropathy. It can exist in any part of your autonomic nervous system.
So, in summary, benototiamine can greatly help a diabetic in many different ways. It can actually help, uh, reduce this filling up of the mitochondria with this glycation and products. It can increase the number of mitochondria, which can increase the ATP, the fuel to these tissues. But remember, you also want to get on the correct eating plan at the same time. And if you have any questions on that, you need to watch this video right here.