Double the Vitamin B12 to Go, Please!
Natural Health advocates have known for a LONG time that the government’s RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) dietary guidelines are more like the “Recommended absolute minimums to stay alive”… not, to remain healthy. Now, research is proving us right (again!)
“Vitamin B-12 is essential for maintaining healthy nerve cells and red blood cells; a deficiency in the vitamin can cause symptoms ranging from the subtle — including fatigue and mild dizziness — to more severe complications like nerve damage, anemia and even dementia.
Though the typical Western diet provides people with far more than the current RDA for B-12, certain individuals are at risk for a deficiency.
Unlike most vitamins, B-12 occurs naturally only in animal products, including meat, poultry, fish and, in lesser amounts, eggs and dairy. So vegetarians and vegans — who avoid all animal products, including dairy — may have low stores of the vitamin.
The same is true of adults older than 50, as many have a thinning in the stomach lining that prevents the proper release of digestive acids. Stomach acids are essential for ‘shaking loose’ vitamin B-12 from its food source, allowing it to be absorbed. So older adults are advised to get their B-12 from pills and fortified foods like cereal; the synthetic version of the vitamin is more readily absorbed than the natural form.”
I disagree, of course, with that last statement. Natural vitamins are better absorbed, as long as accompanied by natural enzymes. So, good, whole, raw organic food is best.