anyone has idea if only benfotiamine can cause cancer or any thiamines in high doses can do the same, like the mostly synthetic ones like thiamine HCL ?
Benfotiamine does not " cause " cancer. It is a transketolase ( TK ) activator. It is interesting that patients with diabetes have low levels of thiamine and transketolase , but have a higher incidence of cancer. Benfotiamine is often administered to these patients to inhibit glycation and it's Ill affects.
The issue is that existing tumors use TKTL1 to accelerate growth. I haven't found anything in the literature that says that benfotiamine activates this form of TK. It has been shown that Thiamine supplementation in mice with preexisting tumors, showed accelerated tumor growth. Yet, if high dose supplementation started 7 days before the mice had tumors , growth of the tumors were diminished.
A clear thiamine stimulatory effect on tumour growth was found in a range of thiamine concentrations between 12.5 and 75 times the RDA, with a maximum effect (164% of cell proliferation increase with respect to controls) at a dose of 25 times the RDA. Interestingly, the dose–response curve shows a dual thiamine effect depending on the doses. Thus, a high overdose of thiamine, rather than promoting cell growth actually produces a slight decrease in tumour proliferation. To evaluate whether a high thiamine overdose could be of therapeutic interest as a preventive cancer treatment, we performed experiments in which different thiamine doses were administered to mice from day 7 before tumour inoculation until day 8 after tumour inoculation. We found that a thiamine overdose of 2500 times the RDA can produce an inhibitory effect on tumour growth of 36% as compared to control animals.
The does " benfotiamine " cause cancer argument reminds me of the does testosterone hormone therapy cause prostate cancer discussion. The state of the current knowledge is that supplemented testosterone doesn't cause, and may prevent prostate cancer. We also know that existing prostate cancer can use testosterone to grow, hence the use of antiandrogenic drugs to fight prostate cancer.
I am still taking benfotiamine , albeit in smaller (75 mg ) doses.
Edited by Kevnzworld, 19 August 2012 - 05:54 PM.