Vitamin B1
Compiled from published pharmacological and botanical literature. Not independently verified by Herbuno. Spotted an error or have a correction? Flag it below →
| Compound | Vitamin B1 (thiamine) |
|---|---|
| Chemical class | Pyrimidine ring linked to a thiazole ring by a methylene bridge; active as thiamine pyrophosphate |
| CAS | 59-43-8 (thiamine) · 67-03-8 (thiamine HCl) · 22457-89-2 (benfotiamine) |
| Primary source | Sprouted mung bean (Vigna radiata) for botanical grades; synthesis for isolated grades |
| Key applications | Carbohydrate metabolism, pyruvate dehydrogenase and transketolase cofactor, nerve conduction |
| Claim strength | High for deficiency, beriberi and Wernicke encephalopathy; Moderate for benfotiamine in diabetic complications |
| Typical form | Botanical concentrate, thiamine hydrochloride or mononitrate, or benfotiamine |
| Buy from Herbuno | Vitamin B1 4% from Sprouted Mung Bean · Liposomal Vitamin B1 (Thiamine HCl) · Benfotiamine |
| Origin | Processed / Sourced from India |
| MOQ | R&D 100 g / 250 g (subject to stock) · Pilot batch 1–5 kg · Bulk 10 kg, 25 kg and above |
| Lead Time | Dispatch within 72 hrs from stock · fresh-batch production (typically 50 kg+): 10 working days |
| Documentation | CoA & MSDS standard with every lot; phytosanitary on request |
Name origin: Thiamine takes its name from the sulphur-containing thiazole ring — thio for sulphur, plus amine. It was the first vitamin identified, and the word vitamin itself was coined for it: Casimir Funk isolated an anti-beriberi factor in 1912, believed it was an amine essential to life, and called it vitamine. The final e was dropped when later vitamins turned out not to be amines.
Traditional use and discovery: The history is one of the clearest demonstrations that a processing change can create a disease. Beriberi became epidemic across Asia in the late nineteenth century as steam-powered mills made polished white rice widely available, removing the thiamine-rich bran. The Japanese naval physician Takaki Kanehiro eliminated it from the navy in the 1880s by changing rations, before anyone understood nutrition. Christiaan Eijkman reproduced the condition in chickens fed polished rice in Java, work that eventually won him the Nobel Prize. The name beriberi is usually traced to Sinhalese, meaning weakness repeated for emphasis.
Research trajectory: Once thiamine pyrophosphate was identified as the coenzyme for pyruvate dehydrogenase, alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase and transketolase, the deficiency picture made sense: tissues most dependent on aerobic glucose metabolism, meaning nerve and heart, fail first. Research since has concentrated on Wernicke encephalopathy in alcohol dependence, on thiamine status in critical illness and heart failure, and on benfotiamine, a lipid-soluble derivative developed in Japan and studied mainly for diabetic complications.
Commercial source: Isolated thiamine is synthetic, supplied as the hydrochloride or mononitrate salt, the mononitrate being slightly more stable and preferred for dry fortification. Benfotiamine is a synthetic S-acyl derivative that is lipid-soluble. Botanical thiamine is extracted from material that accumulates it — sprouted mung bean in our case, sprouting raising thiamine content above the dormant seed — and standardised to a declared assay.
Evidence for Vitamin B1 Applications
Deficiency correction is unambiguous and the deficiency states remain clinically current, not historical. Dry beriberi presents as peripheral neuropathy, wet beriberi as high-output cardiac failure, and Wernicke encephalopathy as the triad of confusion, ophthalmoplegia and ataxia. Wernicke is a medical emergency and, untreated, progresses to Korsakoff syndrome with permanent amnesia. The at-risk groups are well defined: chronic alcohol use, bariatric surgery, hyperemesis gravidarum, prolonged parenteral nutrition without supplementation, refeeding after starvation, and diets heavily dependent on polished rice. Treatment is parenteral and urgent. Claim strength: High.
Thiamine is the least stable of the B vitamins, and this governs formulation more than any efficacy consideration. It degrades with heat, with alkaline pH, with oxygen, and with sulphites, which cleave the molecule at the methylene bridge and destroy it outright. Cooking losses in food are substantial, and the sulphite incompatibility is the one that catches formulators: sulphites are common preservatives in dried fruit, some beverages and certain excipient systems, and a thiamine product formulated alongside them will lose potency rapidly. Fortification practice uses the mononitrate salt specifically for its greater dry stability. Claim strength: High.
Benfotiamine is genuinely different in absorption, which separates it from most alternative-form claims in this catalogue. It is lipid-soluble, absorbed by passive diffusion rather than the saturable active transporter that caps water-soluble thiamine uptake, and it produces substantially higher blood and tissue thiamine levels at equivalent doses. Trials in diabetic peripheral neuropathy have shown symptomatic improvement, and the proposed mechanism — transketolase activation diverting glycolytic intermediates away from pathways generating advanced glycation end products — is coherent. Trial sizes are modest and outcome measures are largely symptomatic. Claim strength: Moderate.
Supplementation in people who are replete has little demonstrated effect, as with the other B vitamins here. Thiamine is marketed for energy on the reasonable-sounding basis that it is required for carbohydrate metabolism. It is required, but a cofactor at adequate supply does not become rate-limiting by adding more. Trials in non-deficient adults have not shown meaningful effects on fatigue, cognition or exercise performance. The energy positioning is an inference from biochemistry, not a finding. Claim strength: Emerging, trending negative.
Absorption is actively transported and saturable, which caps what a dose can achieve and explains benfotiamine's advantage. Water-soluble thiamine uptake occurs mainly in the jejunum via a carrier that saturates at around 5 milligrams per dose; beyond that, additional thiamine contributes little. This means very high oral doses of thiamine hydrochloride are largely wasted, and it is the specific limitation that the lipid-soluble derivative was designed to circumvent. Alcohol further impairs this transporter, compounding deficiency risk in the population most likely to be deficient. Claim strength: High.
No tolerable upper intake level has been established by EFSA or the US Institute of Medicine, reflecting absence of identified toxicity from oral intake. Excess is excreted renally. High-dose oral thiamine is therefore safe but mostly pointless given the absorption ceiling, which is an unusual combination: the constraint on dose here is futility rather than risk. Anaphylaxis has been reported with parenteral thiamine, but that is a clinical route consideration rather than a supplement one. Claim strength: High.
Sourcing vitamin B1 from Herbuno. Three routes: a botanical concentrate from sprouted mung bean for clean-label work, liposomal thiamine HCl, and benfotiamine for formulators targeting the lipid-soluble derivative specifically.
If your formulation contains sulphites anywhere — including in dried fruit, certain preservatives or some excipient systems — raise it with us before specifying, because thiamine will not survive alongside them. All lots ship with CoA and MSDS as standard; request a quotation for pilot or bulk volumes.
Dosage & Formulator Specification
Thiamine hydrochloride is about 89% thiamine by weight and the mononitrate about 92%, so the salt and the vitamin are close but not identical for label purposes. Our botanical concentrate at 4% delivers 40 milligrams of thiamine per gram of extract, so a 1.2 milligram RDA-level dose needs only 30 milligrams of material — one of the easier botanical micronutrients to formulate with. Benfotiamine is dosed as the compound, typically 150 to 300 milligrams in trials, and is not interchangeable with thiamine on a milligram basis.
Adult RDA is 1.2 milligrams daily for men and 1.1 for women. Typical supplement doses run 1.5 to 100 milligrams, the upper end reflecting habit rather than evidence given the roughly 5 milligram absorption ceiling for water-soluble forms. Clinical repletion protocols use far higher doses by the parenteral route, which does not transfer to oral supplements. For benfotiamine, 150 to 300 milligrams daily reflects the diabetic neuropathy trial literature and is a defensible specification where that is the target application.
Stability dominates formulation decisions. Avoid sulphites entirely — they cleave thiamine and the loss is not gradual. Keep pH acidic where possible, since thiamine is appreciably more stable below pH 6 and degrades rapidly in alkaline conditions. Limit thermal exposure during processing, control moisture in storage, and protect from light. Thiamine also carries a characteristic sulphurous, slightly yeasty odour that becomes noticeable at higher inclusions and in liquids, which is a real sensory constraint in beverages and chewables rather than a minor one. The mononitrate salt is the usual choice for dry blends on stability grounds.
For analytical control, specify the form explicitly — hydrochloride, mononitrate or benfotiamine give different numbers and are all legitimately called vitamin B1 — and assay by HPLC with fluorescence detection after thiochrome derivatisation, which is the standard method. For botanical grades require source species and plant part, confirm whether the material is sprouted, since that is the basis of the higher assay, and require extraction solvent and residual solvent limits. India-origin botanical material ships with phytosanitary certification on request alongside CoA and MSDS.
A final point on overage, which matters more for thiamine than for most actives. Because degradation is driven by several independent factors — heat, pH, oxygen, moisture and sulphite exposure — a single overage figure carried across different finished formats will be wrong in both directions: too generous for a dry capsule, too thin for a flavoured liquid or a chewable. Run accelerated stability on the actual matrix rather than inheriting a number from a previous product, and revisit it whenever the flavour system or packaging changes. Where a formulation cannot avoid an alkaline component, consider whether the thiamine can be physically separated into a different layer or dosage unit rather than accepting a loss that overage has to chase.
Frequently Asked Questions — Vitamin B1
What destroys thiamine in a formulation?
Sulphites above all — they cleave the molecule at the methylene bridge and destroy it outright, not gradually. Check for them in dried fruit, preservative systems and some excipients. Also alkaline pH, heat, oxygen and moisture. Thiamine is the least stable B vitamin, which is why fortification uses the mononitrate salt for its better dry stability.
Is benfotiamine better than thiamine HCl?
For absorption, genuinely yes — and this is a rare case where the alternative-form claim holds up. Benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and absorbed by passive diffusion, bypassing the saturable transporter that caps water-soluble thiamine at around 5 mg per dose. It produces substantially higher tissue levels. The diabetic neuropathy evidence is moderate: real, but modest trial sizes and largely symptomatic endpoints.
Why are there 100 mg thiamine products if absorption caps at 5 mg?
Habit, mostly. The jejunal transporter saturates around 5 mg per dose and beyond that uptake contributes little. High oral doses are safe — no upper limit has been set because no toxicity has been identified — but largely futile. The constraint here is pointlessness rather than risk, which is an unusual position for a nutrient.
Does thiamine give you energy?
Not if you are replete. It is required for carbohydrate metabolism, which is where the positioning comes from, but a cofactor in adequate supply does not become rate-limiting by adding more. Trials in non-deficient adults have not shown meaningful effects on fatigue, cognition or performance. In deficiency, correction transforms things — that is a different claim.
Will thiamine affect the taste of my product?
Yes, more than most vitamins. It carries a sulphurous, slightly yeasty odour that becomes noticeable at higher inclusions and particularly in liquids and chewables. Plan masking at the formulation stage rather than discovering it at pilot. The botanical concentrate at 4% needs only 30 mg for an RDA-level dose, which helps.
Why source B1 from India?
Around 80% of raw nutraceutical ingredients originate in China and a second qualified origin is increasingly a continuity requirement. For botanical B1, mung bean is a major Indian pulse crop and sprouting is a well-established domestic process — sprouting raises thiamine above the dormant seed, which is the basis of the assay.