Choline is a nutrient that is not classified as a vitamin, yet is still essential to good health. Choline is beneficial to your heart health; the nutrient controls the amount of homocysteine that builds up in your bloodstream. High levels of homocysteine can lead to heart disease. Choline also regulates nerve function and maintains communication between your nervous system and your muscles. Your body makes a small amount of the nutrient, but you can be at risk for deficiency if you do not take in enough through diet.
Recommended Intake
The Institute of Medicine's Food and Nutrition Board recognized choline as an essential nutrient in 1998 and determined recommended daily intake amounts for adults and children. Babies under a year old should consume 125 to 150 mg daily of choline; suggested intake for older children between the ages of 1 and 13 ranges from 200 to 375 mg daily, according to their age. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends that adolescent males take in 550 mg each day; female teens need only 400 mg. Adult women's recommendations for choline range from 425 to 450 mg, with the higher doses reserved for pregnant and nursing moms. The daily recommended allowance for adult males is 550 daily.
Deficiency Symptoms
You may suffer from symptoms of choline deficiency if you're not getting your recommended daily intake through diet. The main sign that you need more choline is the development of a fatty liver or other forms of liver damage. Choline helps keep fat from building up around your liver because it causes low-density lipoproteins to distribute fat to tissues throughout your body. This transportation of fats to other areas of your body does not occur when you do not have enough choline in your system, which contributes to liver damage and to some extent, muscle damage as well.
Fatty liver symptoms are not always present in people who have the condition. Some may experience generalized abdominal pain or a swelling of the organ that becomes apparent during physical manipulation, according to the Merck Manual.
Supplements
One of the ways in which choline deficiency is treated is through supplementation. Dietary supplements are available in a tablet form. The Linus Pauling Institute recommends supplementing choline at dosages of 500 mg daily for men and 425 mg daily for women. Vegetarians who do not eat animal-based products, including eggs, may have a higher risk for deficiency and should consult their doctors to determine appropriate supplement doses.
Choline-Rich Foods
Choline is naturally-occuring in a variety of foods. Boosting your intake of choline-rich foods can be a natural way to reverse deficiency and its associated symptoms. The World's Healthiest Foods, an information service of the George Mateljan Foundation, reports that eggs, potatoes, soy products, flaxseed, peanuts, sesame seeds and butter are food sources of choline. Cauliflower and lentils also contain choline.
Interactions
Drug and food interactions can change the way your body processes choline and may put you at risk for deficiency. According to the Linus Pauling Institute, your chances of suffering from a choline deficiency may be higher than normal if you take the powerful anti-cancer drug methotrexate. The World's Healthiest Foods states a relationship between choline and folate, also known as folic acid. Low levels of folate tend to follow with low levels of choline, and vice versa. Increasing the amount of folate you consume--through spinach and other greens and fresh produce, for example--may keep you from becoming deficient in choline.
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