B Important Among The B Vitamins

When most people hear the word anemia, they immediately think of iron. But a shortage of Vitamin B can also cause a type of anemia because this vitamin is vital to the healthy generation of hemoglobin in the blood of a normal, healthy person. You may also associate Vitamin B with sugar diabetes, and thats because one of the important functions of this vitamin is to regulate the amount of sugar in the blood. Vitamin B is also known as pyridoxine. You may not have heard of many people who were found to have a serious Vitamin B deficiency, and theres a good reason for that. B is so readily available in so many foods that its a fairly simple matter to get your daily recommended allowances of this vitamin. Some of the common sources of B include tuna, roast beef, tomato juice, trout, pork loin and peanut butter. Naturally, cereals that are fortified with vitamins are excellent sources and many provide percent of the bodys need for cereal. Three raw bananas also provide a full days supply of the necessary Vitamin B. A medium baked potato (including the potato skin) provides about one-third of the daily requirement. Evaluating the foods rich in this vitamin reveals that many people are already meeting the daily requirements for B. So what are the dangers of having too little Vitamin B in your daily diet? Recent studies suggest that a lack of this vitamin is a factor for determining the risk of stroke and some types of heart disease. That means that people with deficiencies are more likely to suffer from these health issues than their counterparts who are getting sufficient amounts of Vitamin B. Depression is another problem potentially impacted by a Vitamin B deficiency. Though there may be some difference of opinion as to the role and the importance of B and depression, there appears to be a link that cant be denied. In fact, depression is listed by some as one of the symptoms of insufficient Vitamin B in the diet. There are some risks of taking too much B. Nerves especially in the outer extremities are sometimes damaged by overdosing the body on vitamin B. In the majority of cases, simply eliminating any vitamin supplements appears to eliminate the nerve problems as well. Its unlikely that a normal person can take in enough Vitamin B from a normal diet to cause toxicity at this level, and more likely that these severe effects of too much B are caused by taking too many vitamin supplements containing B.