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What is the difference between Vitamin B6 and B50?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Vitamin B-50 is a complex of supplements, including B-1, B-2, B-6, B-12, biotin and folic acid and therefore, in this case, vitamin B6 is contained in the B-50 formula. You can get vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine, which is the active form found in supplements), by itself in a separate formula if needed or recommended by your doctor. Otherwise you are better off simply getting B-6 from diet and your daily multivitamin and mineral formula (MVM) because it would also contain the extra B-vitamins you may need but in proper/safer amounts. When taking a separate supplement containing high levels of all the B-vitamins (unless recommended/monitored by a qualified physician) you need to be careful you don’t get too much (above the “Upper Tolerable Limits”) especially if your diet and/or other supplements also contain some of the B-vitamins. If you are using a B-50 complex you need to be careful about the levels of all the B-vitamins, and especially folic acid because of food fortification, which is why we only recommend a daily MVM for getting what your diet might be missing when it comes to B-vitamins.

 About B-6: although B-6 is absolutely necessary for some metabolic processes (amino acid, glucose and lipid metabolism, neurotransmitter synthesis, histamine synthesis, hemoglobin synthesis and function, gene expression) adverse effects have only been documented from vitamin B-6 supplements but never from food sources. Doses of B-6/pyridoxine in excess of the RDI over long periods of time can result in painful and ultimately irreversible neurological problems. The US has set the Upper Tolerable Limit (UL) of B-6 at 100mgs/day while other countries have it set as low as 10-15mgs/day. The adult RDA is between 1.3-2mgs/day. We recommend no more than 15mgs a day from supplements.