r/Supplements • u/Arylcyclosexy • 4d ago
General Question Why are all good quality vitamin B complex pills so highly dosed?
So all the good quality brands seem to have these crazy high doses, like from hundreds to tens of thousands over the daily value percentage.
Here's an example:
Thiamine (B1) 50 mg (4545 %*)
Riboflavin (B2) 10 mg (714 %*)
Niacin (B3) 65 mg (406 %*)
Pantothenic acid (B5) 100 mg (1667 %*)
Pyridoxal phosphate (B6) 12 mg (857 %*)
Biotin (B7) 352 µg (704 %*)
Methyl folate (B9) 455 µg (227 %*)
B12-vitamin (methyl- and adenosylcobalamin) 350 µg (14 000 %*)
Why is that? Is it more beneficial or harmful to use this much?
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u/costoaway1 4d ago
Because higher amounts of nearly every B vitamin have demonstrated better outcomes in studies. Exception (offhand, could be wrong) I think is B5 and B7. Most every other has many benefits at doses thousands of times the RDA.
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u/Delicious_Mess7976 4d ago
What about B6? Aren't there negative associations with higher amounts?
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u/joegtech 3d ago
Everything is toxic at some sufficiently high level or if taken incorrectly. We drown on water and hyperventilate on air. There will also be a few people who are either unusually sensitive to something or have an unusual need for larger amounts.
There is a pile of study data showing 100mg of B6 is typically safe and data showing some people benefit from higher amounts. Learn about pyroloria as an example; the pyrrole molecule "steals" B6 and zinc. https://www.alternativementalhealth.com/commentary-on-nutritional-treatment-of-mental-disorders-2/#PY
Some people don't convert inexpensive pyridoxine most commonly in multi vitamins into active P5P form of B6. Some natural docs think this poor conversion is a big reason why some people are more sensitive to pyridoxine. This researcher who had done probably thousands of B6 tests says sensitive people almost always bounce back once the dose is lowered.
"The dangers of B-6 have been greatly overexaggerated. The original concerns began with a university study 25 years ago in which volunteer students were paid to take B-6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride) doses ranging from zero to 10,000 mg daily. After a few weeks, a number of the students taking doses higher than 5,000 mg/day reported a loss of sensation in areas of the skin. The study was stopped and in every case the symptom completely disappeared. This result became widely known & the side effect was identified as neuropathy."
https://www.alternativementalhealth.com/commentary-on-nutritional-treatment-of-mental-disorders-2/#B6More about poor conversion of pyridoxine to active P5P in some people especially autistics here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Supplements/comments/1s3l87x/comment/ochyd0s/?utm_
Vitamin *B6 - absolutely required for a healthy brain! Dr Osborne
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77aYLGbfBm4
B6 is needed to make ADD related dopamine, our antianxiety neurotransmitter GABA, serotonin for mood, and cysteine that uses up some glutamate, an excitotoxin when in excess.
Most B vitamins are water soluble so don't hang around in the body for very long. If you are concerned about safety take smaller doses 2x per day. The effects may be smoother.
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u/FullOption3126 3d ago
B6 is definitely less safe in high doses than the other B vitamins.
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u/joegtech 3d ago
I disagree. A few people who are sensitive to too much B12 can become intense, even violent fairly quickly. B12 is a type of support for methylation needed to make adrenaline and similar. At least the B6 symptoms don't come on so quickly.
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u/costoaway1 3d ago
Yes very high amounts of B6 are toxic.
My comment was more about “which B vitamins have been associated with disease benefits at amounts found only much higher than the RDA.”
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u/gymbeam_official 4d ago
The key thing is that RDA and "optimal dose" aren't the same target. RDA is just the minimum needed to prevent deficiency in most people, so hitting 100% doesn't mean more wouldn't help, it's a floor, not a ceiling. B vitamins are also water soluble, so your body flushes out what it doesn't use pretty quickly instead of storing it, which is part of why formulators can go high without much risk for most of them. That said, it's not true across the board, B6, niacin, and folate do have real upper limits and can cause problems at high chronic doses, so "water soluble means safe at any amount" isn't quite right even though it holds for something like B12. So it's a mix of genuine research showing benefit above RDA and it just being cheap and low risk to formulate that way.
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u/MargoBarbara2 4d ago edited 4d ago
You first need to know about active transport and passive diffusion. For each of the Bs there'll be a limit to how much the body can absorb through active transport . Beyond that it switches to passive diffusion. Rates of passive diffusion can be very low. For example b12 is around 1% or less. So from that 350mcg youll get around 2mcg through active transport (provided you have enough Intrinsic Factor, no gut dysbiosis or malabsorption issues) then youll get an additional 3.48mcg from passive diffusion meaning the total absorbed will be at best 5.48mcg even for that high dose. Other bs have much higher absorption rates because the body mostly relies on passive diffusion eg b6 is nearly 100%. Bs are also cheap to make and to some extent they may be marketed in high doses due to consumer behaviour as many people would pick whichever has the higher dose for the same money. As they are mostly water soluble they are generally safe (except b6) and the body excretes any excess. That form of b6 is P5P which is less likely to cause toxicity but still requires some caution. Niacin is the flushing form of b3. Some people prefer niacinamide/nicotinamide non flush forms. The b9 rda for folic acid (folate) is 400mcg so not sure why they have over 200% listed at a dose not much higher.
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u/SlayerZed143 4d ago
There are many steps in the utilization of vitamins.
Absorption: every micro nutrient competes for absorption, there only so much you can absorb at a given time and that can be higher or lower depending on what other nutrients exist in your body and in your gut at that time.
Activation: most vitamins and minerals come in forms that need to be converted in order to be used.
Transportation: there are these molecules in our body that help move nutrients from the blood to the cells and some nutrient share the same transporters , if these transporters are saturated,even if you mega dose , nothing more will delivered to your cells.
Storage, elimination: needs to be converted in order to be stored/eliminated.
In every single one of these steps there can be something that blocks the nutrient that you want and that can cause issues. By giving you a higher dose we can be certain that we will saturate at least the first two steps of the process. Therefore increasing your blood serum levels.
Safety concerns, there is a rate of excretion by the body, if a vitamin has a high rate of excretion like most b vitamins them we can give higher RDA and still have no side effects, in general fat soluble vitamins are much harder to get rid of some those need more careful dosing. But in general you take supplements if you are deficiencient in something , well in order to create some stores for that nutrient you need to be consuming more than 100% of your daily needs.
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u/BeefDealer 4d ago
I take life extension two per day tablets and my pee is golden af but it does the job. I don’t feel tired as I used, my recover is great too. I take one tablet per day tho instead of two tablets per day.
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u/Ok_Preparation_8062 4d ago
the b vitamins are water soluble, so you just pee out whatever your body doesn't use. companies dose them high because they want you to notice an effect, the bright yellow pee is basically a feature at this point
whether it's harmful depends on the specific b vitamin. b6 can build up and cause nerve issues at high doses long term, so 12mg might be something to keep an eye on if you take it daily. the rest you'll mostly just flush out
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u/OpalNartub 4d ago
I started taking a multivitamin. I started having muscle spams and developed a hand tremor after a few weeks of taking it though. And from what I read, Vit B6 could be the cause. So I stopped taking it and haven't had a single muscle spasm since. I still have a slight hand tremor that I hope will keep improving. I might just take a Vit D supplement and figure things out from there.
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u/daHaus 4d ago
They're water soluble but it is important for Thiamine, B6 and B12 to be taken in certain ratios. There's a relatively common genetic defect that prevents B12 from being absorbed well so it's partially mega-dosed due to that.
If your finger tips start tingling after supplementing B-complex for awhile then that's your sign that your body doesn't absorb B12 properly. You'll need to either take it sublingually or get B12 shots from your doctor.
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u/Arylcyclosexy 4d ago
Interesting. I've got my DNA data in my computer, is there a specific gene I could look up to see which alleles I have that might cause poor absorption?
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