subject: How B Complex Vitamins Benefits Your Health [print this page] The B Complex vitamins are the powerhouses in your body. Quite literally. These essential nutrients help the body produce energy and form red blood cells. There is some evidence that taking these nutrients in supplement form can benefit our health even more by treating or preventing certain health condtions.
Understanding B Complex
Vitamin B Complex in supplement form contains all eight of the B vitamins: B1 (thiamine), B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6, B7 (biotin), B9 (folate) and B12. Each one of these is crucial to maintaining certain body functions. B1 and 2 help support the muscles, nerves and heart while B3 regulates the nervous and digestive systems. B5 and 12 are needed for growth and development. B6 supports the immune system and helps break down protein. B7 helps with hormone production and B9 helps cells make and maintain DNA.
How B Complex Vitamins Benefits Your Health
With as many functions as these nutrients support, it's easy to see why they are so important to overall health, but a closer look reveals that the B's benefits our health in surprising ways.
Numerous studies have shown that B Vitamins can help:
* Increase energy and combat fatigue
* Enhance mood
* Improve memory
* Stimulate the immune system and help prevent many types of cancers
* Lessen anxiety and depression
* Help prevent heart disease
* Alleviate premenstrual syndrome and skin problems
The B's are considered so important to healthy body function that they are often added to fortified foods such as cereal and whole grains. Other good food sources include green leafy vegetables, chicken and eggs, citrus fruits, nuts, kidney beans and bananas.
Supplements Can Provide That Extra Boost
For as helpful as these nutrients are to our bodies, they don't remain with us very long. B vitamins are water soluble, which means they must be dissolved by water before your body can begin to use them. Water-soluble nutrients are used by your body to meet short-term needs, with any excess of the vitamin excreted through urine. They do not accumulate in the body to create a storehouse like other nutrients.
That's why it is so important to eat healthy every day and try to gain as many nutrients from your food as possible. Of course, that is not always possible which is why taking supplements is vital. Sometimes our bodies simply can't absorb nutrients in their natural form and supplementation is necessary. At other times, supplements help ensure we are meeting our daily needs and can give us that little extra boost to get us to appropriate levels.
When choosing a supplement always check the recommended daily allowances (RDA) and the percent of the individual B vitamin so you know how much of each you are getting. It's also recommended to take a B Complex vitamin as opposed to trying to take all the B's on their own. You don't need equal amounts of the different B vitamins and it can be difficult and confusing to try and monitor that on your own. B Complex fixes that problem for you by providing appropriate amounts of each in relation to one another.
Your doctor or pharmacist can help you determine how much Vitamin B Complex you need and which products are trustworthy.
