You can suffer nerve damage in many ways. Car accidents or falls that injure spinal cord discs can push the discs out of the cord and onto nerves, putting pressure on them. Diabetes can cause blood glucose levels to soar too high, damaging nerve coatings. But no matter what causes nerve damage, it's sometimes possible to help repair the damage by consuming certain vitamins that help nerves regenerate.
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B-12 helps the body maintain its nervous system well. If you don't get enough vitamin B-12, you can lose nerve function, resulting in symptoms such as tingling and numbness in your arms and legs and even difficult walking, says the Linus Pauling Institute. The National Institutes of Health reports that high doses of vitamin B-12 have been shown to repair nerve damage in laboratory rats and says that further research may show that vitamin B-12 can also repair human nerves. The recommended daily amount of vitamin B-12 is 2.4 micrograms for both men and women and 2.6 micrograms for pregnant women, according to the Linus Pauling Institute, and foods that are rich in vitamin B-12 include seafood, poultry, and other types of meat, as well as eggs, milk, and dairy products like cheese.
Folate
Folate, which is also called folic acid and vitamin B-9, helps your body produce new cells and keep existing ones working well. The University of Wisconsin says that folate plays an important role in developing unborn babies' nervous systems properly, and that experiments with rats have shown that folate shows promise as a nutrient that may someday help repair adults' central nervous systems. The Linus Pauling Institute says that the daily recommended amount of folate is 400 micrograms for men and women over age 18 and 600 micrograms for pregnant women, and good dietary sources of it include citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables and beans.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C supports your health in a variety of ways, including helping your body synthesize the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which works in your nervous system to affect your moods. Stanford University reports that vitamin C can protect nerve cells from a molecule called glutamate that can be toxic to them, thereby easing stress on the nerve cells that can help them heal if they've been damaged. The daily recommended amount of vitamin C is 90 micrograms for men and 75 micrograms for women, according to the Linus Pauling Institute, and some foods that are rich in vitamin C include fruit such as strawberries and oranges and vegetables like broccoli and sweet red peppers.
References
- National Institutes of Health: Ultra-high Dose Methylcobalamin Promotes Nerve Regeneration in Experimental Acrylamide Neuropathy
- Linus Pauling Institute: Micronutrient Information Center: Vitamin B12
- University of Wisconsin: Folic Acid Supplementation Enhances Repair of the Adult Central Nervous System
- Linus Pauling Institute: Micronutrient Information Center: Folic Acid
- Stanford University: HOPES: Vitamin C
- Linus Pauling Institute: Micronutrient Information Center: Vitamin C
