What Does Vitamin B Complex Accomplish?

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marqette, and I'm a registered and licensed dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic and I'm going to talk to you about what does Vitamin B Complex accomplish. Vitamin B Complex is actually a combination of all of the different B vitamins from B1 all the way to B12. Now, these B vitamins have several different roles that they play in your body. A lot of them actually function in our metabolic pathways and they actually act as catalysts to make sure that our metabolism is functioning properly. Some of them also are involved in our overall cell health. For example, if somebody who is an alcoholic doesn't actually take supplemental B vitamins, they can actually suffer from an illness called Berry Berry. It's an actual deficiency where they may have some swelling of their skin and swelling in their joints. Sometimes a decrease, or a lack of B vitamins may actually play a role in our body's ability to use Vitamin C as well and can't exacerbate problems such as scurvy. So you want to make sure that you are getting plenty of B vitamins because again they do play a role in a variety of different conditions. Another B vitamin that is very important is foliate, and this has a very big role in prenatal development. So, for women who are pregnant or who are thinking about getting pregnant, it is very important that they take a prenatal vitamin that contains foliate. This will help prevent neural tube defects in their infants. So B Vitamin Complex has a lot of different things that it accomplishes in our body. Again it is necessary for our overall metabolism. It is also necessary for our overall cell health and in infants preventing things such as neural tube defects."