Low Vitamin B1 Levels Linked to Inflammation and Sepsis Risk: Frontiers
A new study published in the journal of Frontiers in Nutrition showed that in sepsis patients, vitamin B1 (VB1) levels are inversely correlated with important inflammatory indicators, and a higher frequency of sepsis is independently linked to lower VB1 concentrations.
It is hypothesized that vitamin B1 (VB1), a crucial coenzyme in cellular energy metabolism, may influence sepsis clinical outcomes. Nevertheless, little research has been done on the connection between VB1 and sepsis and it is still unknown what use it could have in medicine. Therefore, this study assessed the potential therapeutic value of VB1 in reducing coagulation dysfunction and organ damage caused by sepsis, as well as to look into the relationship between VB1 deficiency and the severity of sepsis.
This study involved the enrollment of 67 patients from Inner Mongolia Baogang Hospital. Of these, 26 patients had normal pneumonia and did not fit the clinical diagnostic criteria for sepsis, whereas 41 patients were allocated to the sepsis group (those with a clinical diagnosis of sepsis). Using peripheral blood samples and ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry, serum VB1 levels were determined. VB1's potential as an independent biomarker for sepsis was evaluated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. SPSS version 27.0 was used for all statistical analyses.
VB1 levels were considerably lower in the sepsis group than in the control group (p < 0.001). Subsequent analysis indicated that the VB1 deficiency group had a considerably greater proportion of sepsis patients than the control group, whereas the VB1 sufficiency group had a significantly lower rate of sepsis patients (p < 0.001).
Correlation study showed that VB1 levels were positively connected with albumin and significantly negatively correlated with procalcitonin, D-dimer, creatinine, cardiac troponin I, and sequential organ failure assessment scores. When VB1 was examined as a continuous variable, multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that a high VB1 level was independently linked to a reduced prevalence of sepsis (OR = 0.127, 95% CI: 0.022–0.744, p = 0.022).
Overall, this study shows that patients with sepsis have much lower circulating VB1 levels at admission than those with regular pneumonia. Although further intervention trials are needed to confirm whether supplementing to maintain adequate VB1 levels can prevent severe infection or improve outcomes in sepsis patients.
Source:
Yan, W., Ma, Y., Yang, J., Wang, H., & Li, T. (2026). Vitamin B1 and sepsis: a prospective single-center study. Frontiers in Nutrition, 13, 1730024. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2026.1730024
