Vitamin B deficiency has been associated with depression and anxiety.
Nobody ever would have thought that taking a diet rich in vitamins can help in curing depression. Honestly, deficiency of nutrients can alter brain function and lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders. Nutrient deficiencies can have a profound influence on the brain and mood. There are a variety of vitamin deficiencies that can lead to depression symptoms. Correcting deficiencies, when present, often relieves depression.
Vitamin B deficiency has been associated with depression and anxiety
However, even if a deficiency cannot be demonstrated, nutritional supplementation may improve symptoms in selected groups of depressed patients. Endogenous depression is a type of depression that can be due to internal biochemical abnormalities. Lifestyle changes and herbs may be used to combat certain types of depression but dietary and nutrient interventions are usually most effective for endogenous depression.
Many things can contribute to vitamin B deficiencies. Due to the fact that a good percentage of the U.S. population consumes vitamin-deficient foods raised in vitamin deficient soils along with a combination of one or more of the aforementioned problems, vitamin B deficiencies have become common place.
Major causes vitamin B complex deficiency :
Vitamin B complex comprises a number of vitamins that exist as a family. They should not be taken individually. In this modern era, millions of people suffer from a deficiency of vitamin B for several reasons which are:
- Stress: emotional, physical and spiritual
- Processed foods in the diet: these are not real foods and so they tax the body
- Refined sugar. The average person consumes at least 140 pounds of sugar a year which robs the body of its vitamin B stores
- Drugs: both recreational and prescription drugs deplete vitamin B
- Malnutrition. Most people are malnourished because they are not eating the right kinds of foods
- Cooking. Most people do not eat enough real, raw foods, so vitamin B is killed or so depleted that people are not getting enough of it in the diet
Vitamin B1 thiamine for calm nerves. Thiamin diphosphate, often called thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP), is an essential cofactor, particularly in carbohydrate metabolism. The richest food sources of B-1 are brewer’s or nutritional yeast, brown rice, egg yolks, fish, legumes, liver, nuts, peas, poultry, rice bran, dulse, kelp, spirulina, wheat germ and whole grains.
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) and B5. Riboflavin is essential for growth and general health. A deficiency can cause symptoms of depression. Riboflavin is widely distributed throughout all plant and animal cells. Good sources are dairy products, offal and leafy vegetables. Riboflavin is not destroyed appreciably by cooking, but is destroyed by sunlight. There is no definite deficiency, although many communities have low dietary intakes. Studies in volunteers taking a low riboflavin diet have produced a red, inflamed tongue, angular stomatitis or cheilosis and seborrhoeic dermatitis, particularly involving the face (around the nose) and the scrotum or vulva.
Vitamin B6 has an important role in brain function: it’s essential for the manufacture of neurotransmitters, such as the conversion of tryptophan into serotonin, and tyrosine into dopamine. Vitamin B6 deficiency has been strongly linked to depression. Vitamin B6 deficiency usually arises from malabsorption of the vitamin due to disease, drugs, and an unusually fast metabolism. Vitamin B6 performs several important functions in the brain.
Your vitamin B-12 status may significantly affect your mood. The National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, or ODS, states that vitamin B-12 is a water-soluble vitamin found in certain foods and added to others. A 2000 study by Brenda Penninx and colleagues, published in “The American Journal of Psychiatry,” states that among community-dwelling older women, metabolically significant vitamin B-12 deficiency is associated with a twofold risk of severe depression. Essential for the health of nerve cells, the usual dose of vitamin B12 is 10-1,000 mcg per day.
Cronic vitamin b deficiency
Vitamin B deficiency can sneak up on you, because it doesn’t have to create serious health problems right away. For example, “memory impairment due to vitamin B12 deficiency can precede blood symptoms of deficiency by years. This means that it is possible that certain mental disorders can be directly attributable to vitamin B complex deficiency, and it is easier to first start replenishing stores of vitamin B complex than to begin treating difficult mental illnesses with drugs, therapy or psychological counseling.
When vitamin B deficiency becomes chronic (long-lasting), other problems can occur, including troubles with your adrenal system. The adrenal glands serve many purposes, but in relation to this topic, they are the back up system for making energy.
