Hi, I’m Dr. Jared Nielsen. I’d like to talk today about the importance of a vitamin called thiamine or B1. B1 is very, very important for liver function, especially for people who have a history of alcoholism. It’s quickly depleted in the system and is essential for that person to be repleted, if you will, their B1 vitamin.
There are a lot of people that don’t think, “I am really an alcoholic or I don’t really have a drinking problem.” What’s interesting is they’ll start to manifest some of the symptomatology of B1 deficiency, peripheral neuropathies, sensitivity or hyper‑sensitivity in the legs and feet.
These are very commonly overlapped with diabetics. Diabetics also would get that type of symptomatology as the liver becomes congested or a fatty infiltrated liver.
When we look at blood labs, a lot patients will actually say, when we see cholesterol levels going up and triglyceride levels matching or even exceeding that they don’t drink alcohol.
What we see a lot of times is that they’re chronic soda pop abusers. Without naming specifically different brands or types of soda drinks, what we find is people who have a daily soda pop actually will start to also have fatty infiltrated livers and their thiamine levels can start to go down.
Equally is important is when we have patients that have eating disorders that begin to experience metallic taste in their mouth is associated with the gall bladder but it also as an indication of thiamine or B1 deficiency.
I mentioned this again today specifically in some different protocols or categories of alcoholism, diabetes, non‑alcoholic fatty infiltrated liver associated with soda pop drinking. Then avoiding eating or anorexia, where in people begin to experience taste in the mouth, thiamine deficiencies are very common.
As you look at this and you contemplate the benefits or the values of what you may be in experiencing or what someone of a loved one may be experiencing, one of your key questions is that, do you experience a bitter metallic taste in your mouth in the morning?
I hope this will help. Have a great day.