These people often need supplements
for better health. Yet, outside of these special groups, many conventional doctors
assert, the recommended daily allowance
(RDA) is adequate for most of us.
Other practitioners, however, vehemently disagree. They argue that B
deficits are far more widespread — and
that chronic, low-grade deficiencies pose
a serious threat to public health.
Tom Petrie, BS, CDN, nutritionist at
the Schachter Center for Complementary
Medicine in Suffern, N. Y., for example, says
that people under life stress are at risk, as
are adolescents feasting on junk food.
James Gordon, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical
School and author of Unstuck: Your
Guide to the Seven-Stage Journey Out of
Depression (Penguin, 2008), agrees: “With
all our processed food, up to 60 percent of
Americans have a B-vitamin deficit.”
Most Americans could
probably benefit from
taking up to three times —
or more — of the RDAs for
many of the B vitamins.”
Burt Berkson, PhD, MD, director of
the Integrative Medicine Center of New
Mexico in Las Cruces and coauthor of
User’s Guide to the B-Complex Vitamins
(Basic Health Publications, 2005), agrees
that most of us are woefully deficient.
“Most Americans could probably ben-
efit from taking up to three times — or
more — of the RDAs for many of the B
vitamins,” he writes.
For physicians like Gordon, who rely
on B vitamins to enhance energy and optimize mood, blood levels deemed adequate
by mainstream doctors often turn out to
be seriously low.
Keeping a steady supply of B vitamins in the body requires ingesting them
daily, because unlike fat-soluble A and
D vitamins, water-soluble Bs are not
stored by the body. Any Bs not promptly
absorbed are washed away.
Pivotal Roles
Played by Bs
Long ago, B vitamins were considered a
single vitamin — just as vitamins C and D
are today. But now scientists understand
the Bs as a complex of chemically distinct
vitamins often found in the same foods
and frequently functioning together as
a group.
The biochemical actions of the Bs are
truly multifarious, affecting every organ
system and all aspects of our health.
But a few roles stand out: Bs are crucial
to methylation, the process by which
protein and DNA are produced and sustained in the body; they can lower levels
of the amino acid homocysteine, helping
us with heart health; and they are pivotal
in creating neurotransmitters responsible
for brain function and mood.
• DNA Stabilization: In the process of
methylation, a single unit of carbon (
otherwise known as a methyl unit) is added
to another molecule, propelling the stepwise chemistry of life. Involving hundreds
of reactions in all, the interconnected cascade of methylation controls protein and
DNA synthesis throughout the body. When
methylation is slowed, neurotransmitter
levels might fall, resulting in psychiatric
issues, and the liver might have trouble
clearing toxins from the body and blood.
While B-vitamin deficiency affects the
entire cascade, the implications are especially profound when slowed methylation
destabilizes DNA, propelling out-of-con-trol cell growth and increasing cancer risk.
Indeed, a raft of recent studies link
B-vitamin consumption to a lowered
cancer risk. Researchers have associated
dietary intake of B- 1 and B- 3 with improved
survival for breast cancer, and folate (B- 9),
B- 2 and B- 6 with lowered risk of colorec-
tal cancer. At the National Institutes of
Health, a new study shows folate reduces
the risk of pancreatic cancer in women.
Dozens of such studies across a range of
cancers show the Bs are essential in slow-
ing or preventing the disease.
