Vitamin B Deficiency

The role of the B vitamins in maintaining health is wide and varied. They are essential to the functioning of the digestive and nervous systems, to the proper functioning of the digestive and nervous systems, to the proper functioning of the heart and all other muscles, and to the production of energy. And at least three of them—choline, inositol, and B6—help maintain the blood cholesterol at normal levels.

Since the B vitamins seem equally needed by all the cells in the body, deficiencies can produce damage well before any notice is taken of it. Instead of a deficiency showing up markedly in one area of the body, the entire body mechanism operates below par and the entire body suffers a degenerative process. Very severe B vitamin deficiency result in beriberi and pellagra, but the milder ones produce no such dramatic evidence.