The B Vitamins are your Brain Vitamins. Vitamin B6 is essential for a healthy mind and body, boosting your immune systems, protecting hearts and regulating your brains happy chemicals.
It helps your bodies store energy from protein and carbohydrates and aids in the formation of haemoglobin, supplying oxygen throughout your body.
Having good levels of Vitamin B6 in your body also aids T-Cell (T-lymphocytes) growth, which check everything is working properly, fight off foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses, help to identify abnormal growths and maintain healthy immune systems and nerve cell communications.
Vitamin B6 is also essential in the formation of serotonin, the happy chemical in the brain, promoting well-being. Deficiencies in Vitamin B6 have been linked to depression.
Benefits of Vitamin B6
- Keeps your skin healthy
- Boosts Serotonin in your brain to feel good
- Helps protect against heart disease
- Keeps your immune systems healthy
- Boosts nerve cell communication
Vegan Vitamin B6 Foods
Vegan Vitamin B6 can be found in a wide range of food sources. However, some of the Vitamin B6 found in plant food sources are unavailable to humans as we cannot biologically absorb it.
Processes such as over boiling or roasting food can destroy Vitamin B6 and over 50% of the Vitamin B6 content can be lost through other processing such as freezing and canning.
It can also be destroyed by alcohol and people who consume a lot of alcohol may have lower levels of Vitamin B6 absorbed into their bodies… another reason why alcohol can cause depression.
Sources of Vegan Vitamin B6
- Bananas
- Potatoes
- Green Peas
- Chickpeas
- Sweet Potatoe
- Avocado
- Nuts (like Pistachios)
- Seeds (like Sunflower Seeds)
- Beans And Legumes
- Dried Herbs And Spices
The B Vitamins
The B Vitamins are your Brain Vitamins. They are a group of eight water soluble vitamins that were once thought to be one but were then subdivided as their chemical properties were more understood.
These eight vitamins are listed below and as you can see there are some gaps, this is because the other “B Vitamins” are now not thought to be essential vitamins to humans although they may be for other organisms.
- B1 (thiamine)
- B2 (riboflavin)
- B3 (niacin and nicotinamide)
- B5 (patothenic acid)
- B6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxal and pyridoxamine)
- B7 (biotin)
- B9 (folic acid)
- B12 (various cobalamins)
All eight B Vitamins listed are essential for our health and well being and to stay young.