The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7465 p174
18 August 2007

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Thiamine deficiency in diabetics may increase complications

A deficiency in plasma thiamine in patients with diabetes may increase their risk of developing microvascular complications, suggest the authors of a small case-control study published online in Diabetologia (4 August 2007).

Researchers from the University of Warwick, Coventry, assessed the thiamine status of 26 patients with type 1 diabetes and 48 patients with type 2 diabetes through analysis of plasma, erythrocytes and urine. They compared the results with those from 20 healthy volunteers.

The researchers found that plasma thiamine concentration was decreased by 76 per cent in type 1 diabetic patients and 75 per cent in type 2 diabetic patients compared with the controls (P<0.001 for both comparisons). This was likely due to an increased renal clearance of 24-fold in type 1 and 16-fold in type 2 diabetic patients, say the researchers.

They suggest that deficiency in thiamine may increase the fragility of vascular cells to adverse effects of hyperglycaemia and thereby increase the risk of developing microvascular complications.

“Correction of the low plasma thiamine concentration with thiamine supplements may decrease the risk of microvascular complications in diabetes,” they conclude. They suggest that further research in this area is warranted.