Vitamin B6
Back to ingredients
Form: Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate
Food source: Vegan sources include pulses, lentils, navy beans, bananas, avocados, walnuts, sweet potatoes, fortified cereals and soy foods such as tofu. Also found in poultry.
Benefits of Vitamin B6
- Energy production
- Mental performance
- Regulates hormones
- Cardiovascular health
- Pregnancy support
What is Vitamin B6?
Like all B Vitamins, Vitamin B6 contributes to energy production. It helps convert the food that we eat into energy that we use throughout our day. This means that consuming B6 contributes to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue, and makes it an important vitamin for conditions that can lead to a lack of energy, including PMS and menopause.
Unlike other B Vitamins, Vitamin B6 plays an important role in contributing to the regulation of hormonal activity and our psychological function. It is involved in making the mood-stabilising and stress-relieving hormones, serotonin and dopamine, and also the sleep hormone ‘melatonin’.
Not only does B6 help power our brain through the day and the brain’s ability to rest, Vitamin B6 also helps protect our brain. B Vitamins break down homocysteine, an amino acid that your body uses to make proteins. High levels of homocysteine, which can be due to a deficiency in Vitamin B6, are associated with dementia and Alzheimer’s. B Vitamins help ensure there is very little homocysteine remaining in your blood. These neurological functions also make Vitamin B6 an important vitamin during pregnancy, both to ensure the mother receives sufficient levels and also for the neurological development of the baby. Discover ‘A nutritionist recommended pregnancy diet guide’.
Having lots of homocysteine is also considered a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, blood vessel health, and the build-up of plaque which reduces blood flow. Vitamin B6 lowers high homocysteine and also contributes to the formation of red blood cells, which carry oxygen and nutrients to the rest of our body.
