Natural Medicines Newsletter

Volume 3, Issue 8, 02/22/2011

Question

Why do alcoholic patients with vitamin B1 (thiamin) deficiency require the use parenteral instead of oral thiamin replacement therapy?

Answer

In order for the human body to have vitamins present to aid in various biological processes they must be ingested through our diet or administered directly into the body parenterally.  The ingestion or administration of vitamins is important since our bodies do not synthesize their own vitamins.  Anything that impairs these sources of vitamin delivery can put the patient at risk for medical complications, as seen in chronic alcoholics who become deficient in vitamin B1 (thiamin).(1,2)  

Our bodies get thiamin from two different sources with the majority coming from our diet and then normal flora found in our large intestines.  The problem with thiamin is in our ability to become deficient fairly quickly compared to...

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