All About B Complex Vitamins

Have you ever wondered where the terms Vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, etc., come from?  You never read about Vitamins A9, or VitaminC2.  Aren’t vitamins vitamins?  Why is Vitamin B broken down this way, while other vitamins, like A and C, aren’t broken down at all, but simply refer to a single kind of vitamin?  How many B complex vitamins are there, anyway?    What do they do?

Well, at one time, when vitamins were just being discovered and categorized, there was only one Vitamin B, just like the rest of the alphabet vitamins.  But gradually it was discovered that B, far from being a single vitamin, actually contains 8 separate vitamins, all of which have different functions and effects on the body.  After this discovery, it was necessary to break down and classify these individual vitamins into their separate components. So today, there are actually eight different B complex vitamins: Vitamin B1-B7, B9 and B12.  The gaps are there because some substances originally thought to be vitamins necessary for humans have since been reclassified.

What are the B Vitamins?  B1 is thiamin, B2 is riboflavin, B3 is niacin, B4 is pantothenic acid, B5 is pyridoxine,  B7 is biotin, B9 is folic acid, and B12 cobalamin.  Some of these, like niacin and folic acid, are familiar terms to most people, while most of them are mysteries to the average person on the street.  But they are all extremely important to good health, and a deficiency in any one of them can have very serious, very negative, health consequences.  We don’t have the space to discuss these conditions in this short article, but suffice it to say that a lack of B complex vitamins can be hazardous to your health.

You’ll find the B vitamins in many common foods such as potatoes, bananas, certain chili peppers, tuna, turkey and liver.  Of course, how much of the vitamin B complex remains after modern day food processing methods is a matter of some dispute.  Can a potato really have any nutritional value after it’s been deep fried?  It’s for this reason that many people choose to take B comples vitamin supplements on a regular basis for their continued good health.