Vitamin B12 is a water soluble vitamin, naturally produced actually by a bacteria in the soil and not in animals, as many people tend to dogmatically believe. Animals, carnivore animals, get this vitamin out of eating herbivore animals who themselves eat plants that contain this vitamin out of the soil, and that’s how the B12 cycle goes on and on, giving all creatures of earth their required amount of vitamin B12.
Vitamin B12 benefits and side effects are vast, wide, and well known. These include DNA replication, red blood cells formation, tissue growth, Homocysteine levels reduction, and this vitamin also creates a fatty substance around your nerve cells that protects them, and that’s why many of the symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency include mis functioning of the nervous system, such as tingles in the hand or feet for example. One of the most well known benefits of B12 vitamin is that it functions as a natural body ‘energizer’ by significantly boosting up your metabolism.
Many people take vitamin B12 injections for weight loss purposes, and this is not such of a wise decision, since the only real benefit you would get from that is that it goes directly to your blood stream. If you don’t have problems ABSORBING this vitamin, you actually can have the exact same benefits out of any other sources, such as sub lingual tablets, intra nasal sprays or jel, and of course regular vitamin B12 foods.
The richest food in vitamin B12 is actually.. clams. They contain around 98% micro gram per 100g, which is 1650% of the RDA. You can also get this vitamin from all livers and kidneys of most mammals, but they also contain an horrendous amount of cholesterol as well, which is not worth the benefits. For the vegans of you, you can eat unwashed fruits and veggies, if NOT chemically unsprayed (like most of the agricultural food today), or you could get nutritional yeast from Red Star, which I highly recommend. You can get the same b12 vitamin benefits from any source, as long is it contains the active forms of this vitamin – cyanocobalamin or hydroxocobalamin.
Related articles
- A Closer Look Into Vitamin B12 Shots (dietcleanse.org)
- The Sublingual Advantage (weightlossdietforum.com)