Derrick LonsdaleThiamine Deficiency Disease, Dysautonomia, and High Calorie Malnutrition

Anyone who is in to holistic health, mineral balancing, nutrition, investigating the overlap between nutritional deficiencies and psychological troubles, and even allopathic healthcare providers need to read this amazing book! The authors did a great job of streamlining a dense body of research alongside their clinical cases to inform readers of the vast and seemingly unrelated symptoms of thiamine deficiency. If more holistic and allopathic practitioners had access to this information, physical and psychological ailments would either see tremendous improvements or be ameliorated.

Gift this book to a medical doctor who says that you have a psychosomatic illness and go take B1 and magnesium to get better…B1+B Complex+minerals … this book should be common knowledge for docs and non docs as so many ailments come from B1 deficiency as per the researchers…

As a patient, this book has really opened my eyes. For over two years now, I’ve suffered from debilitating symptoms due an adverse drug reaction to metronidazole (aka, Flagyl). These symptoms mysteriously wax and wane—some days I barely notice them and then, due to a mild illness or physical exertion, they resurface, sometimes forcing me to back to bed to rest and recoup for days at a time or longer.When I was taking the drug, I lost the ability to walk and speak, along with a dozen other symptoms. Even when I discontinued, almost all of the symptoms persisted. I would later realize that, if you lose the ability to walk and speak while taking metronidazole, there’s almost a 100% chance lesions have formed on the back of your brain, specifically the cerebellum, with the brain stem being the second most-hit region. It's called "metronidazole-induced central nervous system toxicity."Along with the walking/speaking issues (I’d later learn were caused by cerebellar dysfunction), there were also several autonomic issues like difficulty swallowing, constipation, respiratory issues (it felt like my brain forgot how to breathe correctly, which resulted in me having a borderline enlarged heart), severe anxiety, insomnia, depression, heart palpitations, chest pressure, and several other problems.Every single one of my symptoms is listed in this book. It even explains why they keep flaring up.Doing more research, I discovered that metronidazole and thiamine are antagonists; the drug inhibits thiamine from being absorbed in the body and plummets the body into deficiency. In medical literature, metronidazole toxicity is constantly being compared to another type of brain dysfunction, Wernicke’s encephalopathy. This is because the symptoms and the lesions on the back of the brain are strikingly similar, and these two conditions are continuously compared to one another. Wernicke’s is caused directly by thiamine deficiency.I suffered a major flare up this November; as I dealt with its effects, that’s when I happened upon this book. I started on a thiamine/magnesium regimen, and my flare up has calmed down at record speed. It’s gone from debilitating (I missed several days of work) to mild, where I’m able to work and function in social activities. I still have a long way to go, but I’ve never recovered this fast from a flare up before.Unfortunately, there are no doctors to guide patients like me. I’ve discovered the hard way that doctors don’t believe in adverse drug reactions; not only will they not treat the condition, they won’t acknowledge it exists. I started a support group for people who suffer from metronidazole toxicity; when I created it, there were three of us. Now there’s over a hundred. All of us have the same symptoms. Only one member in the group has a doctor who believes her. We even have to warn new members how their doctors will react, in hopes it will prepare them for the reality of being dismissed by the medical community.Now, we might finally have some answers, and a way to treat our condition. Thank you, Dr. Marrs and Lonsdale for all the hard work and dedication to give us this knowledge! Research like yours saves lives!

I struggled for about five years with dysautonomia, getting worse all the time, and chronically fatigued. I had testing in Boston - a right heart catheterization and CPET test. I was told by Dr. Systrom that I had a POTS like dysautonomia, small fiber neuropathy, and mitochondrial disorder. I followed advice of using a recumbent bike everyday. However, as I continued to be ill, I received more and more medication. No one took the time to see if I had something like a vitamin deficiency was causing my illness. Thank God for this book! I started high dose B1 treatment, and within three weeks most all of my symptoms lifted. I am now in the process of weaning off all the medications I was put on. Three meds I was able to just stop cold turkey. I lost five years of my life to this B1 deficiency! I thank the fine authors for understanding how nutritional deficiencies weak havoc on our bodies! With all the expensive testing and specialist visits, my doctors missed this common deficiency.

Thiamine is a crucial nutrient in many processes in our bodies. Its deficiency is very common, yet overlooked in nearly all medical venues, even in nutritionally-oriented functional medicine. Yet deficiency can cause quite a number of severe, even life-threatening symptoms and issues. Many things can cause deficiency. This definitive book explains thiamine's roles and the various pathologies associated with deficiency. It is the culmination of Dr Lonsdale's decades-long research and patient treatment in his work at the Cleveland Clinic. While there is much technical language, Lonsdale & Marrs have endeavored to also make it more understandable for the layperson. Vital information for those struggling with complex chronic health issues and for practitioners working to help such patients. Perhaps even more relevant now in the era of long-haul-covid, as evidence points to the depletion of thiamine as one crucial factor in this mysterious illness.

In the age of the internet it is difficult to imagine that if you have an intellectual curiosity and some time, that the answers cannot be found somewhere online. The issues of dysautonomia and Thiamine deficiency are unusual in that few practitioners have the knowledge and expertise to appropriately recognize the symptoms and their underlying causes. Little cohesive information can be found on this topic anywhere. This book contains information I have been searching for, for 10+ years. It is expensive but to me would be worth much more in value in how transformative it has been to my life. It takes the insightful observations and studied expertise of Dr. Lonsdale and Dr. Marrs to fit pieces together that would, under the standard treatment in mainstream medicine, be missed entirely. I appreciate the frequent use of case studies throughout the book because figuring out what key variables changed before the onset of new symptoms, on both a micro and macro level, can be the key to renewed health. I have read this book multiple times and reference it often.

The information in this book is invaluable.

Testo fantastico, e pieno di informazioni utilissime.

Even though I paid for the more expensive price for this book, i was happy to.Given this is the sum of the life's work and research into this topic from Dr Derrick Lonsdale, who, by the way, still writes about this subject, with such passion well into his 90's, really deserves the price.While in the past many suffered from malnutrition deficiencies, we are now seeing the converse of this with high calorie malnutrition.This book outlays the entire model on how many of the "common" diseases, seen in the 21st century, is a result of this high calorie malnutrition, with Thiamine acting as a gatekeeper all the way down to the mitochondrial level.I highly recommend this book, from my hero Dr Derrick Lonsdale and his co author on this Dr Chandler Marrs.Thank you both.