Holisticonline.com - Vitamin B Knowledgebase

Vitamin/ Mineral Name: Vitamin B1: Thiamin

RDA for Men: 1.5 mg

RDA for Women: 1.1 mg

RDA for Pregnant Women: (1.5 mg

RDA for Nursing Women: 1.6 mg

Daily Value (DV): 1.5 mg.

Benefit: Carbohydrate metabolism Maintains healthy nervous System Severe deficiency results in a mortal disease called beriberi, which has symptoms such as weakness, paralysis, heart pains, and cardiac failure. Lesser deficiencies are known to reduce the efficiency of the brain and central nervous system. Several experiments reported that adding thiamin has the beneficial effect of improving the learning and intelligence. Older persons are especially advised to watch out for the deficiency of thiamin as they use it less efficiently.

Food Sources: Thiamin is generally added to baked goods, breakfast cereals, snack foods, etc. It is added to bleached white flour (by law) Pork Wheat germ Pasta Peanuts Legumes Watermelon Oranges Brown rice Oatmeal Eggs

Effect of Overdose: This Vitamin is water soluble. The body does not store it to any great extent. Excess amounts are readily removed through urine. Thus for healthy people, this is pretty safe in any reasonable quantity. No medical harm is reported from any overdose.

Description: It is questionable whether we take enough of this vitamin necessary for the proper functioning of our nervous system and for optimum mental health. This vitamin is not very stable. The heat of cooking, storage, exposure to air or light, soaking or prolonged cooking in water etc. destroy them. Alkaline solutions such as baking soda also has a harmful effect on this vitamin.