By Cindy Krischer Goodman | [email protected] | South Florida Sun Sentinel

Four South Florida clinics are enrolling patients in a nationwide trial for a vitamin that may offer a solution for slowing memory loss and halting the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

The trial will study benfotiamine, a laboratory-made form of thiamine, also known as vitamin B1, as a treatment to slow Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers have discovered that thiamine does not enter the brains of people with early Alzheimer’s despite having a sufficient supply of it in their blood. Benfotiamine, which is more readily absorbed by the body, can increase the blood level of thiamine 100 times above normal.

“We know that the brain needs thiamine and that people with Alzheimer’s disease have a thiamine deficiency in the brain,” said Dr. Marc Agronin, geriatric psychiatrist, chief medical officer for MIND Institute at Miami Jewish Health, a site participating in the BenfoTeam trial. “This study will determine if benfotiamine can help resolve that deficiency.”

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