The Secret of Vitamin B12 Supplements

How do you take your vitamins? Do you just grab whatever multivitamin is on sale and call it good? Do you shop at a health-food store and look for the best B-complex vitamins you can find?

If so, you just might be short-changing yourself on one of the most important Bs in the group – B12. It’s not your standard vitamin, and it’s not absorbed by the body like most are. You may end up with a B12 deficiency and not even realize it!

There’s a secret to taking a B12 supplement that will help you — not one that just gets flushed, unused, by the body.

How The Body Absorbs Vitamin B12

Here’s the pathway the body uses (highly simplified, of course) to get B12 from food, into the bloodstream and through your body.

Since B12 is only found in animal proteins, the B12 has to be split out from the proteins, and this happens in your stomach. The enzyme pepsin works to break apart the proteins and release the B12. However, if your body doesn’t produce enough pepsin, guess what? The B12 isn’t fully released, or only a small amount is available.

Next comes another protein into the picture — intrinsic factor (IF). This protein migrates to your intestines ahead of the B12, to prepare for absorbtion.

More proteins! This group is called R-binders, and they actually escort the vitamin B12 from the stomach to the small intestine.

Once in the intestines, the IF protein comes back into play — it grabs the B12 and takes it to the last part of the small intestine, the ileum, where receptors pull the B12 from the digestive system and into the blood.

Finally, yet another protein, transcobalmin II, transports the B12 through the blood to various parts of your body.

Whew!

All Vitamin B12 Supplements Aren’t Created Equal

So, given all that information, what do you think happens with that vitamin pill you took this morning? Is the pill sitting in your stomach, being digested by pepsin…or has it slid out of the stomach and into the intestines where it’s dissolving?

The best supplements for B12 are either injections or theraputic-dose sublingual B12 tablets. Why?

With the injections, the B12 is already in a form usable by the body, so it’s readily incorporated — no digestive tract is needed for the body to metabolize it.

Since most people don’t care to have a monthly injection, the next best vitamin B12 supplement is by a sub lingual (under the tongue) pill. Basically, the tablet dissolves slowly under your tongue, and the saliva that brings it to your stomach has signaled that a little something is on the way. The pepsin is ready and waiting to start the process of changing a B12 supplement into a form your body can easily use.

Here’s more information on vitamin B12 and your body.