Sep 01
Are You Short on Vitamin B?
There has been a lot of talk as of late about vitamin B. Both nutritional experts and the medical community have been talking about how important getting your B’s is to your immunity and heart health. Medical research has proven that vitamin b can help to treat fatigue, stress, headaches and fatigue.
Our bodies rely on B vitamins for many of their important processes. These vitamins play a role in your mood and help with detoxification, energy metabolism and gastrointestinal function.
Currently, there is some debate in the medical community about just how much vitamin b we need and the proper means of supplementation. However, they all agree that there are groups that have a much higher chance of developing a B12 deficiency.
These three groups are:
1. Vegetarians and vegans who do not get enough Vitamin B12 in their diets.
2. People over the age of 65 who no longer produce enough intrinsic factor to properly absorb vitamin B into their blood stream.
3. Smokers and heavy drinkers who can develop deficiency in both b6 and b12. Nutritional experts and medical professionals agree that everyone in these groups should be supplementing with b12, even if they have not yet developed b12 deficiency symptoms.
While you might think that you can simply focus on your diet to get the vitamin B that you need, typically this is not the case. The only natural sources of vitamin b12 are found in animal products. The reality is that for most vegetarians and all vegans, diet changes are not going to be enough to battle low B12 levels. Unless they fall into one of the other at risk groups, chances are taking an oral supplement will be sufficient.
However, the issue for those over 65, smokers and drinkers is an inability to absorb vitamin B. In these cases, taking b 12 shots is the best solution.
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