Thiamine for Brain Health: Benefits, Deficiency Risks, and Best Sources

What is Thiamine?

Thiamine is sometimes referred to as thiamin or simply vitamin B. More accurately, thiamine is a form of vitamin B1. It is a water-soluble vitamin that is naturally found in unrefined grains, beans, beef, legumes, nuts, and more.*

The main role of thiamine in the body is to convert food to usable energy. It also has an effect on energy metabolism and helps keep the nervous system healthy.*

It’s important to note that the human body does not produce thiamine on its own which makes it an essential vitamin. However, you can get it through many of the foods you eat such as the ones listed above.*

Thiamine is also important to brain function because lack of thiamine in the brain can lead to many issues including sluggish mental processes, cognitive impairment, and lack of mental energy.*

So thiamine and brain function go hand-in-hand. This is just part of what makes this often-overlooked nutrient so important to human health.*

Improve Energy, Memory, And Focus With Thiamine Find Out How!

How Thiamine Impacts Brain Function

So why is a lack of thiamine in the brain such a bad thing? Mainly because thiamine is essential for any kind of brain energy, neurotransmitter synthesis, myelin maintenance and more. Take a look at some of the ways that thiamine impacts brain function:

• Energy Production in the Brain – The role of thiamine in the brain is to help convert nutrients from the foods you eat into usable energy for the brain. It plays an important role in glucose (sugar) metabolism which supplies energy for brain cells.* This is one of the ways that thiamine and brain function are linked.
• Neurotransmitter Synthesis – Thiamine is also important in the production and healthy maintenance of neurotransmitters like acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that helps relay messages to different parts of the brain. According to the Cleveland Clinic, it plays an important role in many cognitive functions including learning, memory, and even muscle movement.*
• Myelin Sheath Maintenance – Myelin is a substance that essentially acts as a protective layer for neurotransmitters and nerve cells. Thiamine contributes to the production and healthy function of myelin.*
• Cognitive Function – Thiamine and brain function are also linked by general cognitive function. According to the National Institutes of Health, thiamine deficiency is associated with a host of neurological issues including but not limited to encephalopathy and dementia.*

Effects of Thiamine Deficiency on the Brain

The relationship between thiamine and the brain is a complex one but one thing is certain and should be understood by all: not getting enough thiamine in your diet can have a detrimental effect on your brain.

That’s why thiamine for brain health is often promoted by doctors, neuroscientists, and specialists of all kinds. Let’s take a look at some of the specific ways in which a lack of thiamine can negatively impact the brain:

• Neurological Symptoms – Remember that thiamine is responsible for providing energy to your brain cells. So when you don’t get enough, you are essentially starving your brain. This can lead to confusion, irritability, and even memory loss with chronic thiamine deficiency.*
• Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome – Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome is a neurological condition that is often caused by alcohol abuse. However, a severe lack of thiamine can also cause this condition which can cause confusion, lack of energy, low blood pressure, lack of muscle coordination, vision problems and more.*
• Brain Fog and Fatigue – Low thiamine levels can also affect mental clarity and energy on a daily basis. If you experience brain fog regularly or seem to tire out mentally very easily, the issue could be low thiamine levels in the brain.*
• Risk Factors for Deficiency – Aside from simply not eating enough foods that contain thiamine or not taking thiamine supplements, there are other causes of deficiency. For example, excessive alcohol intake has been associated with low levels of thiamine in the brain. Some medical conditions can also interfere with the way your body absorbs thiamine such as liver disease. Such conditions can lead to a lack of thiamine even if you are eating plenty of thiamine-rich foods and taking thiamine supplements because they can inhibit how much of the nutrient is absorbed into the body.*

Benefits of Thiamine for Brain Health

Using thiamine for brain health is extremely important and there are plenty of long-term and practical benefits to making sure you are getting enough of this vitamin in your diet. Let’s take a look at just a few basic reasons you should be getting enough thiamine:

1. Prevention of Cognitive Decline – Chronic thiamine deficiency can have damaging effects on your brain which can lead to long-term cognitive issues. Thiamine deficiency has been linked to age-related cognitive decline and more serious neurodegenerative diseases like dementia. So if you want to keep your brain healthy in a long-term sense, thiamine is an essential nutrient.*
2. Increased Mental Energy – Again, thiamine is critical for converting food into usable energy for your brain. So when you aren’t getting enough thiamine, you could experience mental sluggishness or simply a lack of mental energy. Conversely, ensuring that you are getting enough thiamine in your diet can help dispel brain fog and sharpen focus.*
3. Improved Memory – Since thiamine for brain health affects how neurotransmitters function, it also has a role in how you remember things. Taking a good thiamine supplement or simply adding more thiamine-rich foods to your diet is a great way to sharpen your memory and improve overall memory recall and memory retention.*

Support Memory And Brain Function Naturally With Thiamine!

Recommended Intake & Supplementation

Taking thiamine for brain health isn’t complicated. You can get thiamine into your diet in a couple of ways. One way is to simply incorporate more natural foods that contain thiamine into your normal diet.

Another way is to take a thiamine supplement which can be very beneficial because a supplement will give you a more accurate idea of how much thiamine you are getting each day.

Speaking of dosage, you may be asking yourself, ‘how much thiamine should I be getting every day?’ at this point. Let’s take a look at the daily recommended dosage for thiamine:

• For Men: For adult males, the recommended daily intake of thiamine is between 1.2 and 1.5 milligrams.
• For Women: For adolescent and adult females, the daily recommended dosage for thiamine is between 1 and 1.1 milligrams. Pregnant females should up their daily intake of thiamine to about 1.5 milligrams.*

In most cases, it is considered healthier and more effective to get your daily dose of thiamine through your diet. Once again, here are some foods that are good sources of thiamine:

• Pork
• Black beans
• Brown rice
• Legumes
• Sunflower seeds
• Peas
• Lentils
• Eggs
• Liver
• Salmon

It’s also important to note that you can overdose on thiamine. However, the upper limits of daily thiamine supplementation have not been clearly defined. For the most part, the upper limit of thiamine dosage is considered to be around 50 milligrams per day or more.*

It’s important to try to stay under 50 milligrams as much as possible and to seek medical attention if you aren’t sure how much thiamine you are getting and/or need to get.