Benfotiamine and Diabetic Nephropathy
Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most dreaded complications of diabetes as it leads to the progression of the end-stage renal disease. When kidney operation deteriorates, the kidneys fail to perform their primary filtrating function. The outcome is far from promising: patients have to resort to kidney dialysis which gives them from 4 to 7 years and then, if possible, to transplantation with a risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.
This is a complication threatening most of diabetes sufferers, and, unfortunately, awaiting most of them. No universal remedy has so far been found but for a strict regulation of your blood sugar level. Benfotiamine with its ability to inhibit the build-up of glucose in the bloodstream therefore gives hope to many diabetes sufferers that a really efficacious medication capable of at least relieving and postponing some of the complications.
Thus, benfotiamine has manifested its ability to slow down and to reduce diabetic nephropathy. The major effect attributed to benfotiamine is that this supplement in patients with diabetes ameliorates kidney function. It normalizes glucose levels and prevents advanced glycation products formation in the endothelial cells of the kidneys stimulating transketolase enzyme activity in the kidney filtration system. Thus, it exerts a multilateral effect on the kidneys including reducing oxidative stress, hampering irreversible tissue damage in the kidneys, inhibiting the development of the protein in the urine (microalbinuria) the appearance of which is an evident sign of kidney dysfunction and at the same time promoting enzyme activity shielding protection against kidney disease and ensuring proper cellular nutrition.
Benfotiamine is also recommended for diabetes sufferers even with grave thiamine deficiencies and chronic renal insufficiencies. The observations of patients clearly suggest that high doses of thiamine suppressed the development of nephropathy. Benfotiamine possessing the quality of bioavailability produces a greater beneficial effect without any recorded negative consequences. That is why benfotiamine therapy is a potential strategy of preventing diabetic nephropathy at early stages of diabetes or addressing this complication and slowing it down which can prolong patients' life without a necessity to be attached to a haemodialyser.