Posted on 08/03/2025 1:43:05 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in sepsis research. In a study on mice, the researchers demonstrated that vitamin B1 (thiamine pyrophosphate, TPP) restores mitochondrial energy metabolism, drastically reduces lactate production, and increases survival rates in sepsis.
Sepsis is the body's runaway reaction to an infection. Instead of only attacking the pathogen, the immune system goes into overdrive and also attacks the body itself, while patients experience an excessive buildup of lactic acid in the blood.
In the study, the research team has discovered a simple yet powerful therapeutic approach: a combination of vitamin B1 and glucose.
In 2021, the same group had shown that lactic acid accumulates in the blood of sepsis patients because the body can no longer efficiently clear it. When too much lactic acid remains in the bloodstream, the patient's blood pressure plummets rapidly, often with fatal consequences.
With a new study, the research group has now uncovered why and how this can be counteracted: an acute shortage of vitamin B1 in the mitochondria—the cell's energy factories—forces another molecule, pyruvate, to be converted into lactic acid.
The researchers investigated whether they could restore energy metabolism by administering vitamin B1. In mouse models, they observed that such treatment drastically reduced lactic acid production and improved survival rates. But the real breakthrough came when they combined vitamin B1 with glucose.
"Although it seems logical to give extra glucose, this often leads to more lactic acid production, which is undesirable in sepsis patients. Thanks to vitamin B1, however, we were able to reprogram glucose metabolism. Glucose was safely converted into pyruvate and then into energy, rather than into toxic lactic acid," explains Nuyttens.
"The results are truly spectacular," says Prof. Libert. "In our severe sepsis animal models, nearly all mice survived with the combination of vitamin B1 and glucose."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
The problem causing sepsis is that we run out of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine), it appears.
Great great news
Had sepsis over a year ago. Still am not 100%.
B1 and glucose? Can’t patent that.
This could be really valuable in the NICU, where antibiotics do a lot of damage in establishing the gut microbiome.
Selections from the rest of three relevant keywords, sorted:
Dr Joel Wallach wins again. He should be the Surgeon General or a close advisor to RFK Jr.
Interesting. I started taking 1000 mg B1 as Benfothiamine to help with blood sugars. I’m not sure it has helped with that, but I have noticed that I am no longer as sore after my pilates workouts. I can actually do a workout two days in a row now, where before I had to skip a day or two. Does that have to do with lactic acid buildup?
Bkmk
Methods
snip..."We conducted a retrospective, propensity score–matched cohort study of patients with septic shock admitted to our pediatric ICU (PICU) between January 2014 and February 2019. Patients with septic shock were defined as those with a suspected or confirmed infection who required vasoactive infusions within 24 hours of admission. Stress-dose hydrocortisone therapy (“hydrocortisone only”) and HAT therapy were initiated at the discretion of the bedside physicians. HAT therapy was first used in May 2017; this protocol consists of i.v. ascorbic acid (30 mg/kg/dose every 6 h for 4 d; maximum 1,500 mg/dose), i.v. hydrocortisone (50 mg/m2/d divided every 6 h), and i.v. thiamine (4 mg/kg/d for 4 d; maximum 200 mg/dose). Patients were considered treated with these therapies if they were started within 24 hours of initiation of vasoactives."
snip...
"In summary, children with septic shock treated with HAT therapy had an associated lower mortality when compared with matched untreated control patients and matched hydrocortisone-only therapy patients. Larger, multicenter studies in children with septic shock are needed to confirm our findings."
Thiamine is readily available via a sensible diet:
whole grain products such as cereals, rice, pasta, and flour
wheat germ
beef and pork
trout and bluefin tuna
eggs
legumes and peas
nuts and seeds.
Old news; the below article saved from 2017.
The Effective B1 sepsis protocol was developed by Dr.Paul Marik of Eastern Virginia Medical School. This is the doctor who was let go during C19 for giving effective C19 protocols.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
EVMS Magazine 9.4, 2017
fromThePresident
Home
Has sepsis met its match?
New treatment may save millions around the world
Paul Marik, MBBCh
Dr. Marik is board certified in Internal Medicine, Critical Care Medicine, Neurocritical Care and Nutrition Science. He has written over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles, 80 book chapters and authored four critical care books. He is the 2017 recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award from the American College of Physicians for his work with medical residents and fellows.
Dr. Marik has been featured in The Washington Post regarding end-of-life healthcare in the United States.
Sepsis, an infection that kills millions worldwide each year and is the third leading cause of death in the United States, may have finally met its match.
Paul Marik, MBBCh, the EVMS Foundation Distinguished Professor in Internal Medicine, Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, believes he has developed a cure for the life-threatening infection. His innovative treatment breakthrough – a product of medical intuition and serendipity – promises to revolutionize sepsis care worldwide and produce results that are nothing short of astonishing.
A vile of Dr. Marik’s sepsis treatment.
The Marik Protocol
Vitamin C is often used intravenously as part of a treatment for cancer.
Hydrocortisone is commonly used to relieve inflammation and for a variety of conditions ranging from arthritis to severe allergies and asthma.
Thiamine is a vitamin commonly used as a dietary supplement.
Sepsis kills more than 250,000 people in the U.S. annually and is responsible for eight million deaths globally each year. It is the leading cause of death among hospitalized patient.
“Dr. Marik has developed a brilliant and elegantly simple hypothesis in the treatment of sepsis,” says Richard Homan, MD, President and Provost of EVMS and Dean of the School of Medicine. “The implications of the findings are profound and, if replicated, may transform the treatment of sepsis worldwide.”
As a critical-care physician and head of the general intensive care unit (GICU) at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, Dr. Marik used to be locked in a life-and-death struggle with sepsis. Despite his efforts, one to two people under his care died each week from the disease. That all changed unexpectedly Jan. 5, 2016.
The breakthrough came as Dr. Marik struggled to save a woman dying from overwhelming sepsis. He had recently read about vitamin C as a potential treatment for sepsis, and he recalled that steroids, a common treatment for sepsis, might work well in concert with the vitamin C.
Aware that both were safe and would not harm the patient, he gave her the vitamin C and steroid combination intravenously.
Within hours, his patient was recovering. Two days later she was well enough to leave the ICU.
Dr. Marik and is colleagues were astonished. “We said, ‘What just happened?’”
In the following days they used the combination therapy on two more patients seemingly destined to die of sepsis. Twice more the patients recovered. Dr. Marik and his team quickly adopted the combination therapy as standard practice.
1. Sources of infection; 2. Bacteria enter blook; 3. Leaking blood vessels; 4. Organ dysfunction; 5. Death
What is sepis?
A potentially life-threatening complication of an infection. It’s mostly dangerous and common in older adults or those with compromised immune systems, however, it can develop in anyone.
Despite the continued successes, Dr. Marik found that many colleagues were skeptical. For one thing, pharmaceutical companies have conducted more than 100 clinical trials and spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 25 years in an unsuccessful search for a sepsis treatment.
And then there is vitamin C. It has been purported as a cure or treatment for a wide range of conditions — with little scientific evidence of its effectiveness.
To strengthen his case and to allay his own apprehensions that this was too good to be true, Dr. Marik worked with colleagues to study the interaction in a lab setting. Two separate biological tests proved that vitamin C and steroids were effective against sepsis — but only when used together.
“We haven’t seen a patient die of sepsis since we began using the combination therapy a year ago,” Dr. Marik says. “We have completely changed the natural history of sepsis.”
Paul Marik, MBBCh
A year after Dr. Marik’s chance discovery, sepsis has become a controllable infection in his ICU. Other hospitals and ICUs are beginning to adopt the combination treatment.
Dr. Marik’s findings are published in CHEST, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.
“We haven’t seen a patient die of sepsis since we began using the combination therapy a year ago,” Dr. Marik said one year to the day after treating the first patient. “We have completely changed the natural history of sepsis.”
Find more information for medical professionals and members of the media.
More in EVMS Magazine
AAMC selects EVMS-led team for project to improve community health
EVMS scientist wins two grants that will fund smoking research
Family manages memory loss with help from EVMS
Relaxing in the Rink
Young student finds inspiration in family and volunteer work
No, but Benfothiamine has strong anti-inflammatory properties which may account for this.
Cantraey to what you are presuming, the authoors temper their own experimental results with their warning as follows:
"Although the results of this study are promising, it is important to note that further research is needed before this can be implemented in practice. Research in mice is only the first step toward a potential treatment in humans. Therefore, the findings of this study cannot be applied to humans just yet."Let your readers be so warned as you should have been. But as to your identificsation and posting of this article, a good job!
A couple of things to note:
1. I fit the article into the 300 word excerpt limit, so everyone sees the full version link at the bottom, where it says “(Excerpt) Read more at…”
2. The excerpt I did include clearly states it was done on mice—multiple times.
3. No one here is self-treating for sepsis.
4. If someone is in the hospital, chances are that their doctors, or the doctors of someone they know who has sepsis have not read this new study in Cell Reports and they can pass this on. Adding a little Vitamin B1 and glucose is not likely a negative in treatment for sepsis in humans, as you know.
5. I am the last person who would tell people to wait 15 years for a Cochrane Review of a dozen studies on this specific protocol before considering telling your doctor to consider it. I believe people should have the opportunity to profit from cutting edge health material—because doctors can't stay educated enough, as it is, and yes I get near-daily updates from Medscape—for over 20 years.
6. In my “Take Charge of Your Health” ping list (Post #2), I literally state: “This high volume ping list is for health articles and studies which describe something you or your doctor, when informed, may be able to immediately implement for your benefit.”
I believe I have more than adequately covered any concern with any study I am posting. I will not hold back cutting edge information and I am not holding back any context, either.
I had in view was not accusing you of any overall lack of concern and ability to find good posts. It was just the one-line presumption that I was referring to, in your first leading comment, that’s all. I apologize if you were offended. It was not meant as a dig. Please forgive me if it was taken that way.
“The problem causing sepsis is that we run out of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine), it appears.”
Please note that I even qualified this comment with “it appears.” The write up also makes a similar judgment, saying:
“With a new study, the research group has now uncovered why and how this can be counteracted: an acute shortage of vitamin B1 in the mitochondria—the cell's energy factories—forces another molecule, pyruvate, to be converted into lactic acid.”
I see in the comments appending that Paul Marik, who once commanded an EVMS team in this area, but retired (was ejected? also from NIH?) from his position for his stance and work on damming the COVID-19 panic, once again appears to have been at the fore of this curative treatment for sepsis, previously having long ago anticipated the application of B1/C to sepsis (blood poisoning), way before the Dutch contingent whose investigations you found and posted now.
I have entrusted my own personal approach toward the C19 dilemma based on the reports from Marik et al. at the beginning of the 2020 virus situation: I immediately adopted the quercetin/vitamin C/Zn+ protocol, together with vitamin D3 as also urged by others, and have suffered no C19 infection except one that hit briefly in January 2023.
With the quercetin-ionophore/zinc environment, the virus replication was immediately blocked. Since the effects lasted less than two days, with complete relief from it before I could even get an appointment with my NP health advisor. His observation and approval following His tests showed positive C19 infection, but that it was no longer active.
There have been no more such incidents, none before or since, even though I have engaged in no preventive measres except normal cleanliness and prophylaxis. I have used the useless but situation-required distancing and masking practices only when required.
But over and above that history, since adding these substances I have experienced effects from no other respiratory infections (flu, colds) which previously I had become accustomed to! My healthiness has been better than ever before.
Before ever seeing your heads-up article, I had already added both B1 and benfotiamin to my daily complement of substances because of the recommendation of my primary physician that was meant to address symptoms of peripheral nreuropathy experienced in my fingers and feet. The B1 theme has not seemed much helpful so far, but maybe not enough of these substances. As aside note, the label of the benfotiamine capsules says "Blood Sugar Support" and under that. "300 mg -- Maximum Strength" to be takenonce daily.
So what I am saying is that the prehistory of discovery that was fully applied by the Marijk team is of great assurance to me for personal application. I trust their work on sepsis far more than the scenario presented in the article you posted, or your initial comment. If there is a difference, it resides in the perceive multiplication of usefulness by adding glucose to the protocol. But this raises a question as to the application to diabetics, who cannot properly process glucose.
Thank you again for bringing this to the attention of the FR forum, me in particular.
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