 Despite intensive strategies designed to achieve good metabolic control, diabetic patients are still at a markedly increased risk of eye and kidney disease, nerve damage, limb amputation, stroke and myocardial infarction as a result of long-term hyperglycemia. It has recently been shown that supplementation with lipid soluble vitamin B1 benfotiamine in diabetic rats could effectively block three major biochemical pathways of hyperglycemic damage. It has also been shown that supplementation prevented the development of experimental diabetic retinopathy and nephropathy, without changes in glycemic control. However, the applicability of the above findings to humans is unknown, and the diabetic late complications in experimental animals do not in every aspect mirror the human diabetic complications. 