What Is B 12?

Vitamin B12, which is otherwise known as cobalamin because of the cobalt that it contains, works in conjunction with folate to aid the body in many important processes. This would include the DNA synthesis, blood cells, and the insulation that surrounds our delicate nerve cells. This essential vitamin plays an important role in regenerating bone marrow and nucleic acid, and as it works along with other vitamins in the B family it assists the fat conversion and the important changes that take place in proteins and carbohydrates to turn them into energy. It has also been found that Vitamin B12 may also be helpful with various mental disorders such as debilitating states, the feeling of fatigue, pernicious anemia, depression, insomnia, bursitis, stress and multiple sclerosis. This vitamin is absorbed through the small intestines with the helpful aid of the “intrinsic factor.” As individuals begin to grow older this factor can lower a great deal, which is what makes it extremely important to take supplements on a regular basis. Certain neurological disorders can sometimes be the cause of elderly individuals ending up with deficiencies in this very necessary vitamin. There are various surgeries that can be performed on the stomach that are also known to be a culprit for causing a decrease this factor. Although there is a wide variety of different food items that contain various amounts of this essential vitamin, generally there is much more of it that is expelled than the amounts that we put into our body.