Safe to supplement on b vitamins while treating b12 deficiency?

[Dolansan]

Would it be advised to supplement on additional b vitamins (ex. Thorne Research- basic b-complex) to support b12 supplementation for neural repair? I realize it can be a fine line, especially with folate and b6. However wondering if anyone has knowledge as to whether it may be a good idea.

Thx!

[Nackapan]

I think most have supplemented in a quest to get well.

I've certainly taken multivitamin b complex 50+ multivits vit d ect

Obviously not all together . I take iron as prescribed too.

I rotate vitamins . I have regular blood s to check folate (now 6 monthly was 3 monthly) iron ferritin vit d ect. Unfortunately folate ans b12 done together . Good at the start as important. Not so good noe if the 'wrong' Go sees the high b12 levels. Most with absorbtion problems will get low on some other vits and minerals. Its findings which you personally get low on so can supplement accordingly. Takes a while to try and find a suitable maintenance doses of things. I personally need 25ug of vit d daily. To keep levels in the 7o's some only need 10ug. I only need 200mcg 3 x weekly in my multivit . Some need 400mcg daily. And so it goes on

Just never supplement potassium or very high doses without medical guidance or learnt knowledge.

[fbirder]

It should be safe. But I wouldn't waste my money on those. I would opt for something cheaper, without ridiculously huge amounts.

The Thorne 'research' tablets are 50p each!

Sainsbury's are 2p each. And they are only 100% of the RDA (although, if you really want expensive fluorescent yellow pee, you could always take four a day).

[helvella in reply to fbirder]

But what form of B6 do they contain?

The inactive form pyridoxine competitively inhibits the active pyridoxal-5'-phosphate.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/287...

[fbirder in reply to helvella]

Isn't that only with high doses (>100 mg per day).

[helvella in reply to fbirder]

They define mega doses as > 50. And the low doses at which negative effects have been noticed being as little as 2. The conclusion of the paper says:

In conclusion, the present study strongly indicates that the neuropathy observed after taking a relatively high dose of vitamin B6 supplements is due to the vitamer that is used in the supplements, namely pyridoxine. The inactive form pyridoxine competitively inhibits the active pyridoxal-phosphate. As a consequence, the paradox arises that the symptoms of vitamin B6 supplementation are similar to those of vitamin B6 deficiency. Vitamin B6 supplements are used by a large number of people. The safety of vitamin B6 is debated and recently EFSA has lowered the upper limit for vitamin B6. The question is whether lowering the safe dose for vitamin B6 is the solution. Remarkably, even at relatively low dose, vitamin B6 supplementation has given rise to complaints. Our study indicates that the toxicity of vitamin B6 is not only determined by the dose, but by the vitamer in which it is taken. Perhaps it might be better to replace pyridoxine by pyridoxal or pyridoxal-phosphate as vitamin B6 supplements, which are much less toxic. In this way, the vitamin B6 paradox may potentially be prevented.

I'd rather play safe and avoid any pyridoxine in supplements.

[fbirder in reply to helvella]

Ah, so that's where the Thorne stuff may be better. It contains 10 mg of pyridoxal phosphate, whereas Sainsbury has pyridoxine - but just 2 mg.

[helvella in reply to fbirder]

Of course, there might be any number of other products which also contain pyridoxal phosphate rather than pyridoxine. But I am not in the mood to go chasing off to check out all the multi-B supplements on the market!

[fbirder in reply to helvella]

I've spent ten minutes looking on Amazon. But I restricted my search to those that didn't describe themselves as mega-high dose.

Didn't find any.

[Dolansan in reply to fbirder]

Yeah it’s a bit of homework to find appropriate doses. I don’t understand why most b complexes come in higher doses. B’s are water soluble but I think the kidneys work a bit harder to process and excrete. However I’m no expert. I may stick with Thorne unless I find an alternative with smaller b6 doses that are not Pyridoxine. Wish me luck. Thanks for your input!

[fbirder in reply to Dolansan]

It's really quite simple why a lot of vitamin supplements have such high doses.

The actual active ingredients are a small fraction of the total cost. You can buy 1 kg of methylcobalamin for just $30. If you put 10,000 mcg in your pill then that is 100,000 pills worth. The majority of the cost is the manufacture of the pills and packaging and, in the USA, advertising. So it costs just about the same to make a pill with 100% of the RDA as it does to make one with 500% of the RDA.

There are always going to be people who believe "If some is good, more must be better" especially when there are so many clickbait websites telling them that they will be more intelligent, more attractive and physically healthier if they take megadoses of Vitamin X. So there will always be a market for the super-high dose pills.

And the manufacturer doesn't want to make two dose levels (normal and super-high) because that would double the manufacturing costs. So they just make the high dose stuff.

[helvella in reply to fbirder]

I take a particular stand against the so-called "50" and "100" (and similar) B-complexes.

They just use the number, 50 or 100, to decide the dosage. For example 50 milligrams of everything except Vitamin B12, folic acid and biotin (50 micrograms, 400 micrograms, 50 micrograms respectively). No rationale or justification except arithmetic happenstance. The percentages of daily requirements vary from 100% to 4,545%.

hollandandbarrett.com/shop/...

Thorne might be expensive. They might still have quite a range of percentages. But there is some logic to their formulation.

[Dolansan in reply to helvella]

Hmm thank you so much for that insight. Definitely have to think like a chemist and titrate cautiously.