Let’s say you take 1 mg (1,000 mcg) of B12 and you have a boost in focus or energy (it’s an ingredient in 5-hour Energy, and Red Bull has “B-group vitamins” which probably has B12; etc) Did that not use up the B12? Excess B12 is stored in the liver for YEARS (wtf) and can be used later, but what does my body determine is the daily amount to release if I don’t take any other B12? What of what I consume gives me energy, and what gets stored? Is there any way I can just walk down to my liver, pick up some B12 off my liver’s shelf, and consume it? Is there any way I can SUMMON B12 from my liver for extra focus/energy?? Related thread on another message board; bit confusing, argumentative, and contradictory…
Is there a simple answer?
It usually doesn’t work. It probably works in those people who are chronically short of B-12, yet still are able to metabolize it. Those people probably don’t have any left in their liver. I might be wrong on that last part, but there definitely is a lot of B-12 deficiency out there. At least in myself and a lot of my family.
hrmm… it’s a thought, that’s interesting. I think a whole lot of people get focus/energy from B-12 though; I’m not fully sold that all those people are just B-12 deficient. Other opinions? (There’s a lot of good info/discussion in the thread I linked to; nothing seems simple with this.)
These articles seem to support your claim that it only boosts energy in people who are deficient in it. I’m still a little unsure. healthline.com article ------- livestrong.com article
There’s at least one thing in that article that’s incorrect. B-12 can be stored in the liver for years, everything says that. That article says that only fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the liver.
I didn’t read any of the links and I’m no doctor or chemist, but here’s what I’ve learned (right or wrong) about B12, having been found deficient ten years ago.
As I recall, the liver does store a few years’ worth of B12, as someone mentioned above. To extract B12 from food (mostly found in animal products) is a very complex and delicate process. Stomach acid is necessary and that’s where I got into trouble because I was taking antacids long-term for acid reflux. It eliminated enough acid so that my digestive system couldn’t extract enough B12 from my diet.
What I’ve been doing for the past ten years is to take sublingual B12 tablets, as they are absorbed under the tongue directly into the bloodstream, by-passing the digestive system.
Some people think that “if some is good, more is better.” Not necessarily true, especially with vitamins or other essential nutrients. Being deficient in B12 can have horrible symptoms; it can mimic multiple sclerosis, among other things. Vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) can cause old mended bone fractures to break again, teeth can fall out, and you will eventually die. BUT, flooding your body with excess vitamins won’t give you “super health.”
Your body knows what it needs, and with water-soluble vitamins like B or C, the excess is flushed out in the urine. From what I understand, an excess of fat soluble vitamins CAN be toxic because they are stored in fat cells. Something like that. A few years ago my doc found I am also deficient in D, although there were no symptoms yet – so I take those also. Most of this is just because I’m old (68 next month) and things just don’t work as well as when we’re young.
In general, if you are not deficient in vitamins (blood test) it is pointless to take supplements.
Normally that’s good advice for anything, but if your digestive system cannot extract enough B12 from your diet (for various reasons), then you need either shots – which I initially started with ten years ago – or sublingual tablets so it goes directly into your bloodstream.
I once took some methylated vitamin b12 and got very hyper and energetic. I told someone who works in health care and they told Mei may have issues in certain COMT enzymes. Sure enough I ran my DNA through a program that tests for it and that was the case. Taking a non methylated form of b12 didn’t cause these issues.
So for certain people with enzyme deficiencies, certain forms of b12 can make you feel hyper (not in a good way).
If you check google, others have mentioned how certain forms of b12 may make them irritable or energetic.
Maybe that is partly where the idea that b12 gives energy comes from.
I take a daily B-Complex. I sometimes forget it for weeks at a time, mostly out of a hectic schedule. I find that when I start it back up I feel invincible… to an extent. I have a balanced diet so I’m not deficient.
There are various reasons a person’s body can’t extract sufficient amounts of something from the diet, even if that diet is balanced and sufficient for everyone else. This wiki covers just the B12 problems some of which, prior to effective treatments, used to be fatal. About 2% of elderly people have this sort of problem which, while a small percentage, is a fair number of people in absolute numbers.
