Vitamin B6: Pyridoxine - Pyridoxamine - Pyridoxal.
Deficiency symptoms
Epilepsy-like nervous symptoms, hysteria, depression, irritability and mental disorder with emotional imbalance, iron therapy resistant microcytic anaemia, low blood sugar, obesity because of oedema, and seborrheic dermatitis (severe dandruff).
Seborrheic dermatitis is a chronic, recurring scaly rash involving the face, ears, eyebrows, scalp, and sometimes the chest. It occurs more frequently as people get older.
Also insensitivity and arm- and leg spasm, cracks around mouth and tongue and on the hands, morning sickness, uneasiness, insomnia, and narcolepsy are signs of a deficiency.
Deficiency symptoms are common in people with liver diseases, alcoholism, renal diseases, renal failure with uraemia, coeliac disease (gluten allergy) and intestinal inflammation, pregnancy, stress, extreme protein intake, high age, and some forms of cancer.
Women who take contraceptive pills often suffer from B6 deficiency. Since there is an intense cooperation between this vitamin and magnesium, the deficiency symptoms of the these two nutrients will often be the same, such as Chvostek's Sign, epilepsy, migraine, osteoporosis, cancer, heart attack, circulatory problems, PMS, high blood cholesterol, kidney stone, coeliac disease, hypoglycaemia, and spasms.
The classic way of detecting B6 deficiency is the tryptophan load test: Take 50 mg. of tryptophan per pound of body weight and collect the urine for the next 24 hours. If more than 30 mg. of xanthurenic acid can be found, this indicates B6 deficiency.
RDA: 2 mg.
As a general supplement
10 mg. daily
Therapeutic dosage
In case of severe deficiency: 100 to 1000 mg. daily in short periods.
Vitamin B6 is non-poisonous, and doses of up to 500 mg. are tolerable.
Negative reactions have only been observed by large intakes of 2 to 6 g. daily in periods of 2 to 40 months. Practitioners only rarely use vitamin B6 in doses of over 500 mg. and only in short periods.
Richest natural sources
Organ meat, fish, whole grain, moulded cheese, soy beans, avocado, peanuts, walnuts, and fresh fruit; bananas especially. B6 plays an important role in the amino acid metabolism. The need for B6 therefore depends on the protein intake. But the vitamin also has other functions in connection with the metabolism of carbohydrates, fat, and nucleic acids. The vitamin's active coenzyme is pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (PLP).
More than 60 PLP-dependent enzymes have been identified in the human body! Although vitamin B6 is formed in the intestines, this does not contribute to the body's vitamin B absorption. Since vitamin B6 is also involved in the build-up of the haemoglobin molecule, deficiency can lead to anaemia.
Pyridoxine has been called "The Sleeping Giant of nutrition science" due to the belief that a deeper understanding and more intensive use of pyridoxine is the solution to many health problems in the Western world.
Zinc also plays a role for B6 activity. New research has shown that vitamin B6 via PLP as a coenzyme of lysyl oxidase is responsible for the cross-binding of collagen and elastin in the tissue and with that the stability of the connective tissue.
Orthomolecular treatment with vitamin B6 is used for cancer and asthma-type allergy.
The vitamin is also used as a general fortification of the immune system.
Ten baboons were kept ona B6-poor, but nutrient-rich diet for a period between 2 and 6 years. Half of the animals developed liver cancer precursors, and their blood proteins indicated the presence of cancer. In animal tests with transplanted melanoma vitamin B6 reduced the occurrence of cancer by 62%, when the vitamin was administered prior to the operation, and by 39% when administered after the operation.
Only few similar tests have been carried out on humans, but even a dose as low as 25 mg. daily was able to reduce relapses in newly diagnosed bladder cancer patients. Other studies have shown that cancer patients generally suffer from severe pyridoxine deficiency.
Asthmatics and histamine-type allergy sufferers often appear to suffer from vitamin B6 deficiency. The vitamin not only counteracts histamine release, but blocks the leucotrienes which are co-responsible for a number of allergic reactions. Vitamin B6 supplements of 200 mg. daily led to considerable improvement in 72 asthmatic children.
Moreover, good results have been achieved with vitamin B6 treatment maintaining good physical and mental health, including for maintaining a normal circulatory system.
