Vitamin B6 Facts

Vitamin B-6 is an essential nutrient, meaning that your body needs it for healthy function but can't produce the vitamin on its own. While nutritional supplements that contain vitamin B-6 can help you get enough of this vital nutrient, your diet is the best source of vitamin B-6, as well as other necessary nutrients. A water-soluble vitamin, B-6 has three significant forms: pyridoxamine, pyridoxine and pyridoxal. The form commonly found in supplements is pyridoxine hydrochloride.

Function

Because vitamin B-6 contributes to the making of antibodies, it helps you fight off infection and disease. It also helps your body break down protein, regulate blood sugar, maintain healthy nerve function and make hemoglobin. Signs that your body isn't getting enough vitamin B-6 include confusion, depression, irritability, a sore tongue and ulcers inside or around the mouth. Deficiency is uncommon, although alcoholics may be at increased risk.

How Much Is Needed

The Institute of Medicine established the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin B-6 as 1.3 mg for adults up to age 50, 1.5 mg for women over age 50 and 1.7 mg for men over age 50. Eating a balanced diet helps ensure that you consume adequate amounts of necessary nutrients, including vitamin B-6. However, if you take a B-6, B complex or multivitamin supplement, opt for brands that provide no more than 100 percent of the daily value of included nutrients, unless advised differently by your doctor.

Food Sources

Plant sources of vitamin B-6 include bananas, spinach, potatoes, avocados, sunflower seeds, walnuts, legumes and tomato juice. Among animal-based food sources of B-6 are chicken breast, lean roast beef and pork loin, and fish such as wild salmon, tuna and trout. Fortified foods such as oatmeal and ready-to-eat cereal may contain as much as 100 percent of the daily value of vitamin B-6.

Considerations

While vitamin B-6 toxicity from food sources is unlikely, taking high dosages of the supplemental form of B-6 is associated with sensory neuropathy, which refers to pain and numbness of the extremities. Such symptoms are associated with supplemental dosages of 1,000 mg or higher. However, incidences of sensory neuropathy have also been reported in individuals taking less than 500 mg daily for several months, according to the Linus Pauling Institute. Seek your doctor's advice before taking more than the daily value of any vitamin, including B-6. Your doctor may prescribe vitamin B-6 in various dosages in the treatment of hereditary sideroblastic anemia or B-6 deficiency or to lower homocysteine levels, for example.