Search:

What is Vitamin B12

By: Alison Addy This article talks about Vitamin B12 and it's purpose in our body and how to prevent a Vitamin B12 deficiency.

Importance of Individual Vitamins

All our lives we've been told the importance of taking bodies for good health. We're very familiar with many of the more common vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin C & D, but other vitamins many aren't familiar with such as the Vitamin B group. Each vitamin has a certain role to do in our body. In most cases, each of these roles is different. If we have a certain vitamin deficiency in our body, we need that vitamin or the deficiency will continue. For instance, if our body has a Vitamin B12 deficiency, we can take all the Vitamin C and D in the world and it won't help the deficiency of Vitamin B12. Sound simple enough? Unbelievably, many don't understand this concept.

What Vitamin B12 Does For Our Body

Vitamin B12 is sometimes referred to as Cobalamin because it contains a metal called cobalt. One of the more important vitamins we take for overall good health is Vitamin B12. Many don't fully understand the importance of this vitamin or its role in enhancing our good health. Vitamin B12 helps maintain red blood cells and healthy nerve cells. It helps promote proper brain and central nervous system functions as well as producing DNA. Vitamin B12 plays an important role in our digestion as well. It helps to metabolize our fatty acids and turn it into energy. We all know that fat is a major source of energy for us and we obtain this energy when we burn stored fat. Although exercise helps us to burn fat, Vitamin B12 helps contribute to our ability to smoothly transition this metabolic function.

Sources and Required Amounts of Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 can be found in many different foods, but specifically from in foods that come from animals such as fish, poultry, meat, eggs, milk and milk products. Vegetarians can get their sources of Vitamin B12 from different fortified breakfast cereals on the market today. Specific sources of this important vitamin are mollusks, clams, beef liver and trout. The Recommended Dietary Allowances of Vitamin B12 are 2.4 micrograms per day for adults, 2.4 micrograms for teenagers, 1.8 for ages 9-13 and approximately 1 or under the age of 9. Pregnant and nursing women require from 2.6 to 2.8 micrograms per day.

Vitamin B12 Deficiency

According to recent surveys, most adults and children consume the required amounts of Vitamin B12. A Vitamin B12 deficiency may still occur in certain circumstances such as an individual that is unable to absorb the vitamin from their food or a vegetarian that is not eating the right foods that have the vitamin. Most of the people that develop a Vitamin B12 deficiency are those having an intestinal or stomach disorder making it unable to absorb the vitamin. Some of the symptoms of deficiency are reduced cognitive function, anemia, fatigue, weakness, loss of appetite, constipation. This deficiency can also lead to numbness or tingling in the feet and hands and maintaining balance.