Why Blood Tests Don’t Always Tell The Whole Story
As I mentioned, less than 1% of the Vitamin B1 in your body is stored in your blood. So, a simple blood test usually won’t tell you if you have enough. The levels can also change day to day depending on how much sugar, alcohol, or medicines you’ve taken. That’s why it’s really important to pay attention to the signs your body gives you and understand what might be causing the shortage.
What Can Cause a Vitamin B1 Shortage?
Vitamin B1 is super important for helping your cells turn food into energy for your heart, nerves, and muscles. Because of this, you need to get at least 1.1 milligrams of it from your food every day. However, certain things can really use up your Vitamin B1, making your needs go way up. For example:
- Alcoholic drinks quickly use up your Vitamin B1 and stop your body from taking it in from your small intestine.
- If you eat too many carbs or sugary foods, they quickly turn into blood sugar, which uses up your stored B1 to turn them into energy.
- Caffeine and tannins found in coffee, tea, soda, or energy drinks can overstimulate your nerves, which uses up more B1 to help calm them down.
- Long-term stress can cause a B1 shortage because of the increase in adrenaline or cortisol.
- Foods high in sulfites, like wine, gravies, or dried fruits, can harm the good bacteria in your gut that usually make some B1.
- Finally, certain medicines like antacids, antibiotics, birth control, and diabetes medicines can also use up Vitamin B1.
How to Get Your Vitamin B1 Levels Up
If you’re experiencing some of these signs, here’s how you can boost your Vitamin B1 levels:
- Start eating at least three tablespoons of unfortified nutritional yeast every day. This is hands down one of the best natural sources of Vitamin B1 and the B complex. You can mix it with yogurt, sprinkle it into stews, stir-fries, or sauces.
- You can also get good amounts of Vitamin B1 from foods like sunflower seeds, organic pork, wild salmon, garlic, asparagus, squash, and mussels.
- You could take a daily supplement called Allithiamine, which has 50 milligrams of Vitamin B1 in a fat-soluble form. This is actually the most stable natural form of Vitamin B1, taken from garlic and other similar plants.
- If you have nerve or neurological problems, take 300 milligrams of Benfotiamine twice a day. This is a man-made but fat-soluble version of B1 that’s five times better absorbed and can get deep into nerve tissue to help fix existing damage.
- I also suggest cutting out alcoholic drinks and refined sugary foods, which are using up your B1 stores.
- Switch your rice. White rice has its B1 removed during processing. When you eat it, it can also use up your stored B1. So, swap it for a healthier option like cauliflower rice. Sometimes, you could have a small serving of wild rice instead.
- Your gut bacteria can also make Vitamin B1 for you. To help boost your good gut bacteria, eat foods rich in lactobacillus and saccharomyces, such as sauerkraut, kefir, kimchi, miso, tempeh, pickles, and lots of fiber from vegetables, seeds, nuts, and berries.
Supplements to Be Careful With
Always check the ingredients on supplements. I suggest avoiding thiamine mononitrate or thiamine hydrochloride for long-term use. It’s hard to know how these man-made forms were made, and they can sometimes have bad stuff like ammonia or acetone, which are used in the making process. I’d stick with nutritional yeast, allithiamine, or benfotiamine for the best results.
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