The vitamin B complex was originally thought to be just one lone vitamin (referred to simply as vitamin B) before researchers discovered there were actually 8 chemically distinct water soluble vitamins:
The B Vitamins:
- B1 (Thiamin)
- B2 (Riboflavin)
- B3 (Niacin)
- B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
- B6 (Pyridoxine)
- B7 (Biotin)
- B9 (Folic Acid)
- B12 (Cobalamine)
Each of the B vitamins has important functions to perform in order to keep your body in optimal health. You can read more about each separate B vitamin on the Vitamin List Page.
Every cell in your body equally needs vitamin B. This means that when your body is deficient, a lot of damage can be done before you realize what’s going on. You generally start coming apart at the seams and your whole body experiences a break down of sorts.
This is different than deficiencies of other vitamins that show up in abnormalities of just one organ or certain tissues. Only when vitamin B deficiency has reached a level of severity do deficiency signs show up in a particular group of cells.
How Can You Tell If Your Vitamin B Complex Intake Is Adequate?
A very general way to assess whether or not you have an adequate intake of the vitamin B complex is to go to the mirror and look at your tongue. A “normal” tongue is evenly pinkish in color, fairly smooth and moist, medium thickness with no cracks, coating or teeth indentations. The taste buds should cover the whole surface and be small and uniform in size.
You will probably find, as the majority of us do, that your tongue is “abnormal”. If you want to see a “normal” healthy tongue, you might have to search a bit to find one. Perhaps you’ll find a healthy child that will provide a good example.
Tongue changes that could indicate you are deficient in the B vitamins:
- Changes in the size, color and appearance of the buds
- Grooves and fissures
- Taste buds disappear altogether, beginning at the front and eventually all the way to the back
- Sore tongue
- Large, swollen tongue, beefy with teeth indentations
- Small atrophied tongue
- Change in color to purple, magenta, brilliant red, strawberry red, deep red, or a combination of colors indicate deficiencies
- Heavy coating
- Geographic tongue
How Much Vitamin B Do You Need To Stay Healthy?
Three of the vitamin B complex are known as the anti-stress vitamins. Under normal healthy conditions your body needs such a small amount of these vitamins that it can get by on the amount that is produced by bacteria in your intestines. However, in times of stress, your need for these vitamins increases exponentially. Stress could mean anything from emotional upsets, rocky relationships and financial problems to surgery, illness, being too busy, taking drugs or getting married.
Your body’s need for the B vitamins changes on a daily basis and varies from person to person. So it really is a matter of getting to know the variables that might affect the quantity of B vitamins you personally will need in any given situation.
Variables affecting vitamin B complex requirements:
- The sources of food you have available to you (nutrient density greatly varies from food to food)
- Your body size (remember that every cell in your body needs all of the B vitamins)
- How muscular you are (stored fat has no need for these vitamins)
- What kind of diet you have (if your diet is high in starches or sugar, you’ll need more of certain B vitamins)
- How much you eat (vitamin B complex is involved in the utilization of foods)
- How much you work and exercise (the harder you work and the more you exercise, the higher your requirements of vitamin B)
- How much you sleep (you need more of these vitamins the less you sleep)
- How much liquid you drink (vitamin B is water soluble and washed through the body by liquids)
- How much alcohol or coffee you consume (both can cause vitamin B deficiencies)
- Where you live/season of the year (vitamin B is lost in perspiration on very hot days as you drink lots of liquids)
You’ve got to listen to your body
Again, it comes down to learning to listen to your body to find what it needs as it varies day to day. As you learn to listen, you’ll begin connecting the dots and understanding what it is your body is trying to tell you. And pretty soon you’ll find yourself feeling your best and being your best!
The B Vitamins Are A Team
You’re never deficient in just one B vitamin. If the symptoms of a certain B vitamin deficiency become apparent, you can be sure this is a sign of a greater deficiency of all the B vitamins and it’s wise to swiftly improve your intake of the complete vitamin B complex before more serious consequences result.
You should always take the B vitamins together. Omitting some B vitamins while supplying others in disproportionate measure may do your body more harm than good. If you take just one B vitamin, your need for all the B vitamins increases, leaving you at risk for developing multiple deficiencies of the ones you aren’t supplying your body.
Taking a Vitamin B Complex Supplement
Vitamin B supplements may be something you need to take from time to time. The question is, however, whether it’s OK to make prolonged use of these supplements a regular source of the vitamin B complex.
To maintain optimal health, your cells need a certain proportion of each of the B vitamins on a daily basis. Vitamin B supplements that you might buy at a local pharmacy, supermarket, health food store or over the internet vary greatly in dosages and proportions. Let’s examine the label of a supposed supplement you might be taking.
If your supplement supplies 50 mg of B1, then it should also contain the same amount (50 mg) of B2, B6 and folic acid. It should contain approximately 20 times the amount of niacinamide, pantothenic acid and PABA than vitamin B1, that would be 1000 mg or 1 gram of each. The proportions of inositol and cholin should be 500 times more making it 25,000 mg or 25 grams. Are you getting the picture?
As you pay more attention to the labels, you’ll see how much the proportions vary from one supplement to another. Some supply an exponential excess of one vitamin while dangerously under supplying another.
And it’s noteworthy to mention here that only on prescription can you obtain vitamin B complex supplements with the correct proportions due to the fact that the FDA has limited the amount of PABA and folic acid that can be sold in over-the-counter preparations.
Obtaining Vitamin B Complex From Natural Sources Is Best
So, all that to say it’s always best to get your vitamin B from natural sources over the long run. Excellent sources of the complete vitamin B complex include liver, brewers yeast, wheat germ, bee pollen, spirulina and chlorella.
Other sources of certain B vitamins include organ meats, fish, molasses, whole grain cereals, nuts and seeds, eggs, milk and dark green leafy vegetables.
Oops, why so much intestinal gas?
By the way, if you get a lot of intestinal gas when adding more foods with B vitamins to your diet, it’s a sign that you’ve been deficient in these vital nutrients.
Be aware of increased need for calcium
Liver, brewers yeast, and wheat germ are high in phosphorus and contain very little calcium. Consuming large quantities of these foods without increasing calcium intake could induce a severe calcium deficiency. If you temporarily increase your consumption of liver, brewers yeast or wheat germ, it’s advisable to supplement with calcium lactate or calcium gluconate at the same time to prevent a harmful imbalance.
Your Body Synthesizes B Vitamins
Probably the most important source of vitamin B is what is synthesized right in your own body by bacteria in your intestinal tract.
