Today we are talking about the vitamin B1 and B2 (thiamine and riboflavin). Just for an introduction we are going to go terribly deep here but in general it’s extremely important to realize that B1 and B2 are vitamins that are available and are fairly safe to take. But they can be taken too much and they can be taken too little.
Vitamin B1 ( Thiamine )
We see in vitamin B1 is thiamine. We see that in student population because students use their brains so heavily that they deplete themselves of vitamin B1 more readily than other people might.
You see B1 deficiencies or thiamine deficiencies in alcoholics as well. And what it can give you is some real mental situation problems where you just can’t focus, you can’t think, you have depression, you have anxiety, you have memory problems. You can have a very common problem that we have seen quite a lot of which is korsakov’s dementia which is alcoholism that causes B1 deficiency.
Most of the doctors have seen people those look like they have alzheimer’s disease and they are actually alcoholics and doctors give them vitamin B1 instead of methylfolate supplements. Sometimes doctors give injections and sometimes they give vitamin B1 orally and it works very well. In most cases unless there’s an absorption problem in the guts they can snap them out of these depressions with memory loss and dementia with B1 in a few days.
If they go back to alcoholism it’s not going to last and they will get worse but you can see this commonly B1 and B12 are involved in alcoholism most commonly.
There are children that will get B1 they deficiency. They will have memory problems, focus problems, and the parents will go what the heck is wrong with my child and sometimes a little B1 will snap them right out of it.
Vitamin B2 ( Riboflavin )
The next vitamin is B2. B2 is riboflavin, B2 we see a lot of the time in northern climates where it gets cold and dry because B2 is involved in skin cracking especially in the folds of the body, in the corners of the lips. There’s actually a really common sign called angular kelosis or angular cheilitis. Which is where the corners of the mouths crack and bleed, we also get cracks in the groin, cracks in the fingers, and we get cracks in the creases of the body. While that can also be symptoms of omega 3 or 6 deficit which will make skin crack and cause thickening of the heels. And another signs that look like gallbladder signs and bile signs like dry flaky ashy heels, and dry flaky ashy calves and shins and scalp.
We see is also not just from omega 3 and 6 fats but from B2. So B2 is very pathognomonic or indicative when you see these angular cheilitisin and cheilitis of the corners of the mouth. You will also see cracks in the lips, you will see these corner cracks especially, you might see cracks in the eyelids, and you might see painful bloody cracks in the creases of the toes or fingers where the folds are. It can happen in the summertime when a person is doing a lot of cellular turnover of skin.
Conclusion
So B1 is focused really on the brain and B2 is really more focused on the skin they both do have to do with the brain and the skin. All the B vitamins are related to rapid DNA turnover. Whenever your body is trying to produce a whole lot of something, a whole lot of new cells, whole lot of energy, or whole lot of ATP for energy you are going to use B vitamins and minerals at high rate.
