Benfotiamine "little better than snake oil"

A popular vitamin supplement is being advertised with claims that are demonstrably untrue, as revealed by research published in the open access, pier-reviewed journal BMC Pharmacology.

The product, benfotiamine is a synthetic derivative of thiamine (vitamin B1). It is marketed heavily as a dietary supplement using a selection of unsubstantiated, "not-quite-medical" claims that tend to characterize this field. A large part of this campaign has been built around the belief that benfotiamine is lipid-soluble and, therefore, more physiologically active. Scientific research led by Lucien Bettendorff of the Center for Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Liege in Belgium has entirely disproved these claims.